Faces of Carapace: Stacey Beth Shulman's native talent

[This is the latest in a series of profiles from Carapace, a free event of true personal stories told without notes by ordinary people to a pre-chosen theme at Manuel’s Tavern, 602 N. Highland Ave., on the fourth Tuesday of every month at 7:30 p.m.]

“It’s fresh, and it appeals to a sense of curiosity and wonder,” says Stacey Beth Shulman, about Carapace. “That’s what makes it different from any other genre of storytelling," says the yoga teacher and professed "Jane of all trades."

Shulman became a Carapace regular several years ago.

“I’m pretty sure I heard about it through Facebook,” she says. “[Local writer] Hollis Gillespie posted something about it on Facebook. After I taught a class, and I went running over to Manuel’s, and you all were completely gone.”

For the second event, she rearranged her schedule. “I listened to see what it would be like, and at the third [event], I got picked.”

Since then, Shulman – born and raised in Atlanta, with one younger brother – has told many stories. Attendees recognize their favorites as “the Krispy Kreme one,” or “the one about how my mother got her fur coat,” or “the postage-stamp one,” set in Massachusetts, which involved yoga training and embarrassment.

The last one “kind of encapsulated what Carapace is: We all do stupid things, and then we get up and tell each other about them,” Shulman says. “But it wasn’t really stupid. It was just … odd.”

That’s an adjective that fits a lot of Carapace stories, she says.

“People are funny, we’re just naturally funny,” she says. “Not in that I-told-a-joke kind of way. Everyday life is kind of weird. Also, everybody has a dark side. We do stuff that’s maybe not so nice, all the time. People will laugh along with you, or maybe cry along with you when you tell it.”

Gen Xers coming of age

Certain types who might not otherwise get up in front of a crowd are naturally attracted to Carapace, Shulman says.

“For someone who is a little more introverted, shy, this kind of platform is wonderful,” she says. Hence the event's motto, Everyone has a story. Come out of your shell.

Shulman likes the “supportive, appreciative audience. You know you’re going to be listened to. There are not a lot of places in the world today where you can get five minutes when everybody else is quiet.”

The show “doesn’t turn into a popularity contest – that’s a real definitive factor in creating community, and getting people up there who wouldn’t get up there otherwise," she adds. “And who better to appreciate a good story than a literary crowd?”

There may even be a therapeutic aspect. “Healing happens when you hear an absolute stranger tell your story,” Shulman says. “Maybe it’s not word for word, but they have the same feeling that you have.”

She believes Carapace gained extra impetus because “Gen Xers are coming of age. We’re a really creative group of people, but we’re caught between generations that are a lot louder than we are. We express ourselves a little more quietly. I don’t want to say more thoughtfully, too, but we do put a lot of thought into what we do.”

The Gen X segment, which includes people born between the early 1960s and early 1980s, “we had, even in the beginning,” Shulman says. “We captured that group of people early on. Now, the younger Gen Xers and even the Gen Yers [people born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s] are starting to pick up on it.”

People of all demographics “live so separate from each other,” she says. “The way Carapace is presented, we all sit at tables where we might not know the people we’re sitting next to. We get to laugh with each other, and feel with each other. It brings us closer together.”

Shulman doesn’t see true personal storytelling as a rebellion against “social media” and its impersonality. “I think it actually adds to Facebook and Twitter, especially when our recordings are published and we can put them out there,” she says. “Facebook and Twitter are such good platforms for that sort of thing. I think that’s what Facebook is most useful for.”

Hearing a story, Shulman says, is better than “standing around in a club, hollering at people while music plays,” and brings the added benefit for storytellers of sharpening their public-speaking skills. “It’s far more interesting than Toastmasters,” she laughs.