By MARY K. PRATT
Waltham Times Contributing Writer
Local storytellers are set to take the stage this week as part of the We are Waltham series of events.
These storytellers will share brief, but true, narratives about themselves.
Each performance will be about six minutes long.
The show, dubbed Wee-WaW, is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 9, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Common Good Co., a coffee shop and coworking studio at 419 Moody St. It will include live music and a chance for audience members to submit and share their own true stories in an open-mic-type format.
Tickets are $5 each.
This upcoming show is a smaller version (hence the “Wee” part of the name) of We are Waltham’s larger, signature storytelling event, which has been held twice a year since 2022.
The most recent Big WaW event was Sept. 27 at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation, where six city residents shared personal stories about life-changing experiences and their perspectives on them. The September show drew in some 100 attendees, making it a sold-out performance.
A grant from the Waltham Cultural Council, a local agency supported by the Mass Cultural Council, helps fund production costs.
We are Waltham itself has its own story to tell.
It was started by Waltham writer and storyteller Chandreyee Lahiri as a passion project in 2021.
Lahiri said she created it to help counter what she saw as growing divisiveness in the country.
“It was an idea I had to knit the community back together,” Lahiri said in an Oct. 3 interview.
Lahiri, an India native who has lived in Waltham with her husband and son for 15 years, said the We are Waltham stories hold “a mirror up to the community to show that we’re already diverse and get along together.”
Lahiri draws on her own personal storytelling work, which includes an appearance on the TV series “Stories from the Stage,” to coach Big and Wee-WaW performers and to build We are Waltham as an institution.
We are Waltham first showcased stories at Waltham’s Riverfest event in 2021.
It found a performance home for the Big WaW at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation, which in 2022 started hosting the spring and fall shows. Museum director Bob Perry is producer of We are Waltham performances.
Lahiri, who works as assistant geographic information systems (GIS) director at the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), started producing the spring and fall Wee-WaW shows in 2023 and continued with them this year as a way to reach more Waltham residents.
That has been the goal all along, Lahiri said.“What matters to me is that people are coming to the show and they’re touched by the stories,” she said. “I have people tell me that their horizons have been widened. That really fills my heart.”
