Brkic, CourtneyRuff, Kimberly Ann2014-10-082019-04-242014-10-08https://hdl.handle.net/1920/9053No matter the scale of emotion, we share our experiences with each other to try to make sense of our lives. In sharing these stories, we discover that we are not alone in our experiences. This is evident the moment we turn the event that impacted us into a story that holds meaning, share it with others, and receive an affirmative response from the listener. But what are our individual motivations for sharing experiences, specifically the transformation of an event into an oral story? What motivates performance storytellers to get on a stage and share personal experiences that have transcended to something so lasting that they begin to peel it back like an onion, reflecting on the elements that surround the experience to reveal them at the core and then share them with a room filled with complete strangers?enStorytellingTelling storiesPage-to-stageWritingCreativityPerformance storytellingThesis