Creating a Montreal community through real-life storytelling

When you learn a little bit more about Matt Goldberg's childhood in Beaconsfield, it's kind of no surprise that the founder of Montreal's popular real-life storytelling show, Confabulation, had an idea to basically set out to find a community.

He semi-hesitantly shared — a rare occurrence for the otherwise very forthcoming CEGEP English teacher and comedy writer — that in his family, they didn't share stories.

"We were not always the most open family. We remain not always the most open family," he said.

"I remember feeling there was a private space and public space. We didn't talk about what I was feeling and what I was going through," he said.

"[Getting into storytelling] was a reaction to that; there were things that were going on in my life that I wanted to talk about that I never had the opportunity to share."

Goldberg became a huge fan of the American true life storytelling show and podcast, The Moth. That led him to discover similar kinds of storytelling radio shows on CBC and NPR.

He started to imagine producing a storytelling show in Montreal, and possibly one in collaboration with the show he admired, and he got in contact.

"I just started to feel that what I had in mind was something a little bit different in style and in tone," he explained. "Getting rid of the stories/slam format and really just having it a common place for stories to come together."

7 years later

It's been seven years since that idea was just brewing. From a theatre with a suite number on St-Laurent called The Free Standing Room, to now filling up Main Line Theatre on a monthly basis, where the tickets go like hotcakes, Goldberg's hunch was right.

The show features mostly amateur performers who've been selected from the tons of submissions.

Others reach out after seeing others up on stage. Some storytellers and professional artists are invited but are new to the format.

The show's concept is to interpret a theme such as "Secret Weapons, Secret Weaknesses", "Playing the Villain" or "The Two- Minute Story".

For their seventh anniversary show, which takes place at Main Line Theatre Saturday night a 8 p.m., the theme is "Big Dreams: Stories of high hopes and soaring expectations."

The team spends time crafting the story with the storyteller, either via email, or phone or face to face, depending on everyone's available, unpaid time.

You can't bring a copy of the story on stage, so it's really all about being vulnerable. 

Goldberg believes that a good story requires the storyteller to stay true to themself.

"Someone who is opening themselves up to the audience, someone who is sharing and connecting…willing to be emotionally honest, and funny and lively in the space with the community as a whole."

Show expands across Canada

True storytelling events are happening everywhere around the world — there are many podcasts and now some festivals. Montreal's Confabulation has expanded to Toronto and Victoria. And they are planning to bring their podcast back in the near future.

Consistently producing quality shows, has led them to collaborations with CBC, Fringe Festival and Just for Laughs.  

It seems that Montrealers wanted something like this for maybe the same reasons Matt Goldberg got into storytelling: people share their personal stories about their families, their kids, their love lives or their health.

Others have shared stories about being kidnapped or trapped; others about finding roots and heritage, or being displaced. 

For Matt Goldberg the people in the seats, listening to six storytellers for about 10 minutes each, during a two-hour long show, are not members of an audience at all.

"It's a community that values experience, that values stories, that says the moments of your life, the experiences of your life are meaningful — because they're shared," he said.

"We're all in the same city, we're all in the world together and we recognize in each other similarities and differences. And having that experience, having other people recognize and connect with you, that's a really powerful thing."