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Listen to your mother: \u00a0Good advice, unless your mother is the toxic sort, in which case you should ignore what she says.<\/p>\nListen to your mother: \u00a0Good advice, unless your mother is the toxic sort, in which case you should ignore what she says.<\/p>\n
But no matter what kind of mother you have\u2014or are, or even know–Mother\u2019s Day is coming! And so is Listen to Your Mother<\/a>, a national live performance event coming to a place near you (if you happen to live near one of this year\u2019s 39 venues<\/a>) in the run up to Mother\u2019s Day<\/p>\n LTYM is the brainchild of writer and founder Ann Imig<\/a>. Its tagline is \u201cGiving motherhood a microphone,\u201d and it does just that to local writers sharing their stories of motherhood from the heartbreaking to the hilarious. Some of the writers have been published before; some labor in obscurity; some have never put pen to paper before they\u00a0submit to LTYM.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no better topic than motherhood to spawn perpetually fascinating stories and a perpetually fascinated audience. When LTYM first debuted in 2010 before a live audience in Madison, Wisconsin,\u00a0 almost 300 people laughed and cried as a dozen women shared stories about every aspect of motherhood.<\/p>\n Since then LTYM has mushroomed\u2014not just to this year\u2019s 39 live performances (all produced by volunteer producers with the help of local sponsors), \u00a0but to thousands of videos<\/a>, and now even a book<\/a> collecting some of the best stories from LTYM shows. A portion of the proceeds from each show is donated to a local charity supporting families.<\/p>\n I first found out about LTYM in 2012, when someone in my writing group put out the word that LTYM San Francisco was holding auditions. Late to the party as usual<\/a>, I submitted a short humorous piece at the 11th<\/sup> hour, auditioned via Skype, and was selected! (You can watch me<\/a> sharing one of the guilty secrets of motherhood live at LTYM SF 2012.)<\/p>\n It was incredibly fun meeting my fellow cast members\u2014we were 11 women and one man in all\u2014at our two rehearsals and of course for the event itself, in San Francisco\u2019s historic Fort Mason\u2019s Cowell Theater. Our producers, Kim<\/a> and Kirsten<\/a>, who met at BlogHer<\/a>, epitomized kindness and grace while never seeming to break a sweat as they pulled a million details together. (Of course\u2014they\u2019re mothers.) Our stories ranged from the poignancy<\/a> of having no mother to listen to after she dies to the comedy<\/a> of persuading young children that yes, their gay grandmothers can<\/em> get married even though they never wear dresses. (It turns out that as long as there\u2019s cake, it\u2019s a wedding.)<\/p>\n Now, several dynamite women<\/a> of the Write On Mamas<\/a>, to which I belong, are producing this year\u2019s LTYM SF<\/a>, May 9 at the Brava Theater Center<\/a> in San Francisco\u2019s Mission District.\u00a0It promises to be a wonderful show. You might even want to bring your mother.<\/p>\n I just bought my ticket, and you can buy yours by clicking here<\/a> if you\u2019re in the SF Bay Area, here<\/a> if you live elsewhere, and here<\/a> if you want to buy the book–far more meaningful than flowers or chocolate for a Mother\u2019s Day gift.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Do you listen to your mother? What’s the best and worst advice she ever gave you?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Listen to your mother: \u00a0Good advice, unless your mother is the toxic sort, in which case you should ignore what she says. But no matter what kind of mother you have\u2014or are, or even know–Mother\u2019s Day is coming! And so … Continue reading