January 2010.
It’s a Monday night at Under St. Marks Theater in New York City’s East Village.
I’m standing in the cramped backstage area, waiting for the first edition of a new monthly storytelling show to begin.
I can hear the sounds of people entering the theater and finding their seats.
No one knows it yet, but this little storytelling show is about to become one of the most important projects of my life.
At the time, I had been performing at The Moth for more than six years.
I was telling stories regularly.
Winning StorySLAMs.
Getting booked on shows around the city.
Things were going well.
But I felt something was missing.
I craved more stage time.
More reps.
More opportunities to experiment.
I needed a place to work.
I just didn’t know it yet.
The Storytelling Boom
The late 2000s were a really exciting time for storytelling in New York City.
The Moth was growing.
Storytelling was spreading into small theaters, comedy clubs, bars, and alternative performance spaces throughout the city.
One of the first major satellite shows to emerge from The Moth community was Speakeasy Stories, hosted and produced by the late Sherry Weaver.
Then came The Liar Show, hosted by Andy Christie.
Soon, there were storytelling shows popping up all over New York.
More importantly, I was surrounded by people creating opportunities for themselves and for others.
Every week felt like a chance to discover another room, another producer, another performer.
I loved being part of it.
Catching the Producing Bug
Around this time, my friend Jake Goldman and I launched a storytelling show called True College Tales at Ochi’s Lounge in the basement of Comix Comedy Club.
Something happened while producing those shows.
I realized I didn’t just love performing.
I loved creating opportunities.
I loved bringing people together.
I loved building rooms.
After one of our shows, Jake and I found ourselves at The Donut Pub for a post-show coffee and a couple of donuts.
We talked about how much work it was to put a show together.
Booking performers.
Promoting the event.
Wondering if anyone would show up.
It could be exhausting.
But it was also incredibly fulfilling.
More fulfilling, in some ways, than simply showing up and performing on someone else’s show.
Looking back, I think that conversation was one of the first times I realized that producing might become just as important to me as performing.
Under St. Marks
One of my favorite storytelling shows was TOLD, hosted by Seth Lind from This American Life.
It took place at Under St. Marks Theater.
I performed on it several times and I really started to fall in love with the venue. It kept growing on me.
Small.
Intimate.
Creative.
A place where people genuinely listened.
I had already spent years performing at Under St. Marks, doing open mics and terrific alternative comedy shows like Andre du Bouchet’s Giant Tuesday Night.
The theater felt like home.
One night after performing on TOLD, I took a long walk around the East Village.
It was one of those walks where your mind won’t stop turning.
When I got to the Kmart at Astor Place, a thought popped into my head:
Maybe it’s time for me to do my own show.
The idea excited me.
It also terrified me.
My biggest fear was simple:
What if nobody came?
When you get on stage and tell a true personal story, there’s already a vulnerability to that.
Producing your own show feels like a whole different level of vulnerability.
You’re not just asking people to listen to your stories.
You’re asking them to leave their apartments, travel across the city, buy a ticket, and spend an evening with you.
If nobody showed up, it would be hard not to take that personally.
Still, I couldn’t shake the idea.
Eventually, I spoke with Erez Ziv, who ran the theater, about starting a monthly storytelling show there.
He said:
“Yes. We’d love to have you.”
That meant a lot to me.
And in January of 2010, Adam Wade from New Hampshire was born.
The First Show
Back to that January night in 2010.
A few hours after that first show ended, I sat triumphantly at Veselka in the East Village with a handful of friends.
It was the first monthly storytelling show I had ever solely produced, hosted, and performed in.
And somehow, it worked.
We ended up with a near sellout crowd in the fifty-seat theater.
For the previous three months, I had been putting the show together.
Booking a guest.
Promoting it.
Figuring out what stories to tell.
By the time it was all over, I was mentally and physically exhausted.
I was also starving.
Pre-show nerves had gotten the best of me, and I hadn’t eaten all day.
So there I was at Veselka, demolishing a plate of pierogies and stuffed cabbage with mushroom gravy.
My special guest that night was Jim O’Grady.
I had met Jim a few years earlier at a Moth StorySLAM at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.
We quickly became kindred spirits.
Having him on the very first show meant a lot to me.
Earlier that evening, the Under St Marks Theater’s heat wasn’t working.
The audience sat through most of the show bundled in winter coats, scarves, and hats.
Then, midway through the performance, the building’s ancient pipes began clanking.
The heat had finally come on.
Before the show started, I was a nervous wreck.
When Jim walked into the cramped backstage green room, he took one look at me, patted me on the shoulder, and said:
“Come on, Wade. You know it’s gonna be great.”
That simple gesture settled me down.
It set the tone for the entire night.
And now, hours later, we sat at Veselka laughing and reliving the evening.
The first of what would eventually become almost two decades’ worth of shows.
At one point, Jim looked over at me.
Smiled.
And said:
“I told you so.”
Keeping It Simple
The format wasn’t complicated.
One or two guest storytellers.
Three or four stories from me.
Music and videos in between.
That was it.
No two shows were ever exactly the same.
I was constantly shuffling older stories with newer ones, developing a larger and larger catalog of material.
The sheer volume of stories forced me to keep honing the craft.
Writing.
Performing.
Editing.
Reworking.
Finding new angles.
And because the show was always evolving, people kept coming back.
Honestly, sixteen years later, the format is still pretty much the same.
Back then, our show started at 7:00 p.m.
The BTK Band, created by Peter Aguero and Rory Scholl, would often perform at 9:00.
Peter was frequently there for both shows and performed on my stage many times over the years.
Those Monday nights slowly became their own little community.
The Show Becomes a Gym
Months passed.
The audiences grew.
The show became a Time Out New York Pick of the Week.
Then a New York Times Pick of the Week.
Then, it was a CBS New York Pick of the Week.
Wonderful guests joined me.
Mike Sacks.
Kerri Doherty.
Dan Kennedy.
David Martin.
And many others.
But the biggest benefit wasn’t the recognition.
It was the reps.
At a Moth StorySLAM, you get one story.
Five minutes.
Maybe six.
Then you’re done.
At my own show, I could tell three or four stories.
I could experiment.
Try new material.
Fail.
Adjust.
Try again.
It became my storytelling gym.
And those reps changed everything.
Ironically, when the show started receiving all that attention, I became more nervous than ever.
The press was wonderful, but it also came with expectations—or at least the expectations I put on myself.
I started wondering:
What if the audience expects my best material every month?
What if I can’t live up to the reviews?
For the first time, I seriously questioned the formula of the show.
Maybe I should stop taking chances.
Maybe I should just tell my greatest hits.
Maybe I should stop trying new stories altogether.
Fortunately, Peter (Aguero) talked me off that ledge.
He said:
“Never mind all that. Just be you.”
It was exactly what I needed to hear.
Because the entire point of the show wasn’t perfection.
It was growth.
What Came From Those Reps
Over time, I started noticing something interesting. The stories weren't just individual pieces anymore. They were beginning to connect with one another. Themes emerged. Relationships formed between stories. Eventually, I wasn't just building a collection of material; I was building larger projects.
Many of the stories I developed at Under St. Marks eventually became material for my first album:
Adam Wade: The Human Comedy (link)
Then came:
Adam Wade: Live at the Magnet Theater (link)
Both projects grew directly from stories I had worked on at the show.
Those albums eventually led to a collaboration with Audible.
That collaboration became:
You Ought to Know Adam Wade (link)
Looking back, I can trace so much of that journey back to those Monday nights in the East Village.
Not because the room was famous.
Not because it was glamorous.
Because it gave me a place to work.
Then Everything Stopped
In 2018, we moved the show a few blocks away to The Kraine Theater.
The crowds were growing each month.
Everything felt like it was heading in a great direction.
Then the pandemic arrived.
Like so many live events, the show disappeared overnight.
It gutted me.
I missed the monthly preparation.
I missed seeing my storytelling friends.
Most of all, I missed connecting with a live audience.
For a while, I wasn’t sure if the show would ever come back.
And when New York slowly reopened, I wasn’t sure if people would want to gather in a small theater and listen to personal stories again.
Nobody knew what live performance would look like on the other side of it.
I certainly didn’t.
The Rebirth
In 2023, I reached out to Erez about bringing the show back.
And just like he had thirteen years earlier, he said, “Yes. Welcome back.”
This time, we gave it a new name:
Adam Wade Live in New York
We returned to Under St. Marks.
The third Wednesday of every month.
7:00 p.m.
And as the last three years have gone by, somehow the show means even more to me now than it did back then.
Maybe it’s because I’m older.
Maybe it’s because we almost lost it.
Maybe it’s because after the pandemic, gathering together in a small theater to listen to stories no longer feels routine. It feels special.
Either way, every time I walk into that theater, I’m grateful.
The Next Generation
The biggest difference today is who I book.
Many of the performers are former students from my storytelling classes at The Magnet Theater.
People I’ve watched grow.
People I’ve watched find their voices.
People I’ve watched take risks.
People who walked into class unsure if they even had a story to tell.
Now they get the opportunity to share those stories on a professional stage.
To stand under the lights.
To hear an audience laugh.
To feel a room go quiet when a story connects.
That might be the most rewarding part of all.
Watching someone discover their voice is special.
Watching them share it with an audience is even better.
What Producing This Show Taught Me
Students often ask me how to start a storytelling show.
After sixteen years, here’s what I’ve learned.
Start before you feel ready.
Keep the format simple.
Book people you genuinely enjoy.
Consistency beats hype.
Community beats marketing.
Create opportunities for others.
Most importantly:
Don’t wait for someone to hand you a stage.
Build one.
You never know where it might lead.
For me, it led to hundreds of performances, two albums, an Audible Original, lifelong friendships, and a creative home that still exists sixteen years later.
Not bad for a little storytelling show that began in a fifty-seat theater in the East Village.
And not bad for a kid from New Hampshire who was simply looking for a place to tell stories.
What I found instead was a community.
Adam Wade is a New York City-based storyteller, performer, and teacher. He is a 20-time Moth StorySLAM winner and the creator of the Audible Original You Ought to Know Adam Wade.
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