Wandering Aesthetics and Jilly’s Music Room Present:

Barstool School – Learn the Art of Storytelling

Part workshop, part open mic, this FREE event celebrates the belief that everyone has a story worth telling.

Storytelling is more than just entertainment—it’s a powerful tool for healing and self-discovery. By sharing their true experiences, participants will place themselves at the heart of their own life journeys, using narrative to foster understanding and connection across diverse perspectives. This event aims to build bridges, not walls, within our community.

Co-hosted by Jilly’s Music Room and Wandering Aesthetics, this intimate evening of storytelling will embrace the spirit of community and creativity.

• 6:00–7:00 PM: Wandering Aesthetics will lead a storytelling workshop, guided by Education Director Kyle Jozsa and Artistic Director Benjamin Rexroad. Participants will learn how to discover and craft their own unique stories.

• After 7:00 PM: The open mic begins! Share your story or simply enjoy listening to others. Special guest storytellers will also take the stage.

Join us for an inspiring evening where personal tales ignite connections and build community!

Featured Storytellers:

Brandon Meeker

Emily Durway

Blue Green

Gwyneddh Jones

While the event is free, registration is strongly encouraged and enters you into a drawing for some cool swag and gift cards!

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It is the mission of Wandering Aesthetics to transform our community by strengthening human connection, empathy, and intellectual discourse through storytelling, live performance, classes, and other high-quality cultural encounters.

Dreamt into being on the mountains of Appalachia, where the company’s founders, Benjamin Rexroad and Kyle Jozsa, completed a thru-hike of the 2,185.9-mile Appalachian Trail, Wandering Aesthetics rose, like an overused cliche, from the ashes of Heads Up Productions. Beginning the organization as an Akron-based storytelling theatre company bent on exploring our American roots and identity through the lens of narrative, we endeavored to build community through person-to-person contact, connecting disparate “tribes” through our performances, and investigating the human link in our diverse cultural heritage.

Known for our investigation into the art of storytelling and the ever-changing dynamics between performer and audience, we craft our performances from scratch. Even during our extended rehearsal processes, Wandering Aesthetics engages the community through a series of reoccurring events and classes. These include: Youth Classes, Adult Classes, Full Circle Storytelling (an event for community storytellers), The Electric Pressure Cooker Cabaret, and Bigger Than a Breadbox, (a variety show), one of the 2015 Knight Arts Challenge Winners. Most recently, Wandering Aesthetics, along with Gum-Dip Theatre and Dunamis Theatre opened the Akron Center for Art, Music & Performance, a space dedicated towards the development of performing artists.