Testimonials:

“Lisa Waltuch has the unique ability to make you feel incredibly supported and comfortable while simultaneously asking you to do hard things. 

As a storyteller, I felt encouraged and safe in her guidance and as an audience member, I can say that I have never felt more warmth and connection to my community. 

Lisa is a force, unyielding in her commitment and tenacity to create. She understands and promotes community and connection, and the results are simply lovely.”

–KM

“For what it’s worth, this storytelling thing has become somewhat therapeutic for me. It makes me feel less alone in life’s insanity. We live in paradise here, but life is still what it is, and work is still tugging on us, and cars break, and we are still not yet complete. To look out over this beauty and somehow yet still feel a longing, a desire to belong and to be a part of something great, is a feeling I do believe we can all relate to. Your storytelling work touches on that and I think it somehow makes all of us feel a little less alone and a little more understood. Even if we don’t tell our story, I think all of us to some degree feel like a bit of our own story is still being told through others. That is comfort.”

–AJ

“About 3 years ago, I was living in Costa Rica and trying to find my community. Lisa’s initial El Morfo email arrived out of the blue, inviting me to participate in her project and, in doing so, to become part of a family of storytellers and story-listeners, supporting each other through narrative as we built the community we were looking for.  

I have spent years teaching creative writing, from the level of elementary school to the level of university and beyond. I understand the instruction of stories, and Lisa’s coaching of El Morfo storytellers was full of the kind of care and precision that you would want in shaping one’s memories into monologues. I have also staged others’ work and had my own work staged in venues in New York City — the detail and craft that Lisa brought to the staging of these Morfo stories in Costa Rica was both personal and professional, as well-executed as one could wish for.

But it wasn’t the coaching or the direction that was the most important element of the El Morfo event that I joined. What was most important was the spirit of open-hearted sharing, the risks that performers, both professional and non, took with their stories, the generosity and warmth with which the audience was encouraged to listen.

I am very glad that I answered Lisa’s initial invitation to join this effort. Not only is the performance itself an important memory for me, but the community that came from it, was strengthened by it, is one of the most important communities in my life.”

–GK

“From the very beginning, I was a very enthusiastic audience member at Lisa’s “El Morfo” storytelling evenings in Costa Rica. They were always well planned, intimate events that brought us closer together as a community as people shared their stories, sometimes funny, sometimes very personal and always entertaining.

I inevitably came away from those evenings with a warm feeling, and knew that telling a story of my own was a big challenge, but one that I would like to take on. Eventually, with lots of encouragement and coaching from Lisa, I found my story, crafted it, practiced it and then shared it at the final Costa Rica event. It felt so powerful to face my fears and find my voice, being part of “El Morfo” was a great experience from start to finish.

 Lisa is a thoughtful and natural coach and a talented event organiser, her storytelling evenings are a wonderful way to build community and bring people together; and if you are feeling really brave go ahead and tell your story, you won’t regret it.”

–KT

“Participating in El Morfo was a remarkable experience.  Standing in front of a group of close friends in a tight knit community and expressing myself in a structured, crafted way, while sharing a story from my childhood was difficult and challenging but ultimately so very rewarding.  The process of learning the techniques and structure for good storytelling from Lisa made the preparation and ultimately the delivery of the story so much easier to understand, and unlocked some of the secrets of good story tellers.  This process gave me a much greater sense of control of the cadence, the delivery, and the surprise that makes good stories.

 Finally delivering the story after the hard work of preparing and learning about it was satisfying and even cathartic, and through it I learned things about myself, my perception of my childhood, and my understanding of the very story I was telling changed in ways that I continued to reflect on long after El Morfo was finished.”

–MH

“At first I was hesitant to tell a story in front of other people, but when I watched and listened to others tell theirs, I wanted to join that process of sharing and self-discovery. Lisa’s coaching was gentle and precise. It helped me to bridge the gap between what I wanted to say and what others would hear. Telling a story shed light on my life experience. It also brought a few funny conversations with people in the audience when the night was over. Storytelling is an art that should not be forgotten.”

–AJ