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MARTIN SCORSESE TO RECEIVE 2012 MOTH STORYTELLING AWARD AT STAR-STUDDED MOTH BALL GALA ON MAY 8

Posted Thursday, March 29th, 2012 - Comments Off on MARTIN SCORSESE TO RECEIVE 2012 MOTH STORYTELLING AWARD AT STAR-STUDDED MOTH BALL GALA ON MAY 8
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NBC’s Bonnie Hammer to be honored; Al Sharpton to present Moth scholarship to NYC high school student; Simon Doonan to host

New York, March 29, 2012 – The Moth will present Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese with the 2012 Moth Award, Honoring the Art of the Raconteur, at its annual Moth Ball on Tuesday, May 8th at Capitale in New York City.
The honor will be the centerpiece of a star-studded evening celebrating fifteen years of The Moth, the non-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling.
From 1973’s Mean Streets, his Chekhovian character study of a pair of small-time hoods, to last year’s Hugo, an unabashed love letter to cinematic storytelling, legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese has entertained millions of moviegoers for more than four decades with his passion for a compelling tale. His movies reflect a boundless curiosity about people from all walks of life, whether it be a struggling waitress in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) or the Dalai Lama in Kundun (1997).
“Using cinema as his medium, Martin Scorsese has not only earned himself a place in the pantheon of the world’s master storytellers, but has contributed to our understanding of what it means to be human,” said The Moth’s Executive Director Joan Firestone.
“What is at the heart of every Martin Scorsese film? People talking to each other. His films are populated by characters who are defined by the specificity of the worlds they live in, and we understand their lives through the words they use,” said Catherine Burns, The Moth’s Artistic Director. “He is, above all, a master storyteller, who is known to be a great raconteur by those lucky enough to share a dinner table with him.”
Hosted by veteran Moth storyteller Simon Doonan, The Moth Ball will also feature the presentation of The Moth 2012 Corporate Award to Bonnie Hammer, Chairman of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment and Cable Studios for her outstanding professional achievements and for creating the nationally recognized public service campaign: Characters Unite, aimed at ending prejudice and discrimination. An effective collaboration was forged between USA Network and The Moth to deliver the Characters Unite National Storytelling Tour in 2011 and 2012.  Octavia Spencer, Dustin Lance Black, Meghan McCain, Forest Whitaker and Mos Def were featured among The Moth storytellers.
Other highlights of the event include the Reverend Al Sharpton presenting the MothSHOP Community Scholarship Award, a $5,000 gift of the Stefany and Simon Bergson Foundation, to Heriberto Dela Cruz Altieri, a New York City high school student who learned the art of storytelling in the MothSHOP program.
This year’s Moth Ball comes on the heels of The Moth’s recent announcement that it is the recipient of a $750,000 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, which will allow it to expand the Peabody Award-winning The Moth Radio Hour into a weekly series and preserve its vast video and audio archive of live storytelling events from the past 15 years.
Founded in 1997, The Moth (www.themoth.org) is slated to present its 1,000th show at the World Science Festival on May 31. Since the first Moth evening in founder George Dawes Green’s living room in New York City, The Moth has hosted more than three thousand stories, told live and without notes, by people from all walks of life to standing-room-only crowds worldwide.

WHAT:
“The Moth Ball” – The annual benefit for The Moth, the acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting the art and craft of storytelling
WHEN:
6:30pm Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
WHERE:
Capitale, 130 Bowery, New York City
TICKETS:
$350 for Gala Dinner & Party Tickets
$195 for Gala Party and Show-Only Tickets
Purchase tickets here.
About THE MOTH
The Moth is not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. The Moth has presented more than three thousand stories, told live and without notes, by people from all walks of life to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. The Moth features simple, old-fashioned storytelling on thoroughly modern themes by wildly divergent raconteurs who develop and shape their stories with The Moth’s directors.
The Moth conducts six ongoing programs – The Moth Mainstage, which tours nationally; The Moth StorySLAM program, which conducts open-mic story competitions around the country; The MothSHOP Community  Education Program, which brings storytelling workshops free of charge to underserved adults and high school students; The Moth Podcast, which is downloaded over a million times a month; The MothSHOP Corporate Program, which offers corporate storytelling solutions; and The Moth Radio Hour, which is, produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media and presented by PRX, The Public Radio Exchange. The Moth Radio Hour airs on 250 public radio stations across the country.
The Moth’s executive staff are: Joan D. Firestone, Executive Director; Catherine Burns, Artistic Director; Sarah Austin Jenness, Producing Director; and the pro-active Board of Directors is represented by Anne Maffei, Chair.
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

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