I’m sitting in a dimly lit recording booth, about the size of an elevator, at a small table opposite my friend Brenna. The only things between us are a couple cups of water, our microphones, a lamp, a box of tissues, and my notebook. The setup is designed to encourage meaningful eye contact. “So,” I ask, “when did you meet Greg?”
The conversations range from mournful to celebratory, painful to funny. Children interview parents, parents interview grandparents, wives interview husbands, veterans discuss combat experience, a couple remembers a beloved pet, classmates talk about high school, friends ask friends about eloping. What all the stories have in common is that they get personal—more personal than everyday conversations with your loved ones tend to get.
Shah told me that the experience was a “cool, intimate way to get to know someone you already know,” and that she had been wanting to participate in StoryCorps for several years. Mariana Motherway, on the other hand, had to be talked into it. She’s 13, a seventh grader at Park View school in Morton Grove, and came in to be interviewed by her father, Michael Motherway, who lives in Elk Grove.
StoryCorps opened its first recording booth in New York City in 2003, and has added locations in San Francisco, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Nashville, and Alaska (the last three are no longer operating). Chicago is the fourth city to get a permanent recording booth, which opened on the ground floor of the Chicago Cultural Center in early May. Stories will be recorded in the new location on Thursdays and Saturdays, and one a week will be edited for broadcast on WBEZ during All Things Considered starting on May 24.
