Press coverage!
A great big THANK YOU to writer Jessica Rao and the Albany Times Union for this profile on Read650 and Carnegie Hall’s spring festival! (link to original here)
— Storytellers at a Read650 show have a proscribed time limit on stage, dictated by the 650-word count of their stories. In lieu of a live show right now, the series joins the digital Carnegie Hall festival, “Voices of Hope,” as an audio-only production that can be heard as a podcast or live starting on Friday.
Over the past seven years, Ed McCann has taken the open mic concept to the next level.
“I was hungry for a curated show,” said the Ulster County-based TV producer and writer, “rather than a grab bag moderated by a timekeeper with a bell.”
In 2014, McCann and his partner, Richard Kollath, launched what would become Read650, a spoken-word performance series blending literary readings with theatre — and a nonprofit with a mission to promote writers.
“We’re a sort of true-story version of Selected Shorts,” says McCann, referencing the long-running spoken word series at Symphony Space in New York City that features famous actors reading American short fiction.
Since its launch, Read650 — through partnerships with organizations like Carnegie Hall, The National Arts Club, City Winery, Bard, Vassar, Marist, and the SUNY College System — has featured Pushcart and Pulitzer Prize winners alongside graduate students and grandparents to read their own, original short works, no longer than five minutes, or 650 words. Hence the name.
Now, in a massive COVID pivot, Read650, along with 40 other cultural and academic institutions, is participating in “Voices of Hope,” an all-digital spring festival presented by Carnegie Hall that will air from April 16 to April 30. All of the programming is free, and every evening at 6:50 p.m. EDT, you can go to Read650.org to hear personal, five-minute, stories of resilience, recovery and renewal; pieces exploring how creativity has helped the writers confront challenges, from sickness and death to the global pandemic and social and racial unrest. The entire Read650 series will also be available on all podcast platforms, in case you’re worried about missing dinner.
The Read650 concept is born
Playwright and screenwriter John Pielmeier, who penned Agnes of God, has a deep appreciation for the series as both a frequent contributor and performer and as an audience member.
“As a writer,” he says, “it demands such discipline to tell a good story in just 650 words, and there’s something very powerful about hearing the writer read those words herself — a kind of magic you don’t get reading from a page or computer screen.”
Pielmeier also says storytelling inspires us and contributes to the cultural quilt of society. “Telling short, personal stories is the best of who we are.” And some of the Read650 stories, he says, have stayed with him for years — like Anthony Murphy’s hilarious tale of returning to Ireland with his father’s ashes but losing the urn along the way, or Sandy Hook School librarian Cindy Clement Carlson’s moving reflections on the 2012 shooting.
From the get-go, McCann’s intention was to create the kind of high-quality readings he wanted to attend. All the live shows were produced with professional lighting, sound, and multiple cameras, and pre-pandemic they were already “hybrid,” live-streaming the performances to their social media channels on Facebook and YouTube.
McCann also held dress rehearsals, complete with a hair and makeup stylist, and hung full-color posters on the theater walls to transform every venue they played — from the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center to the Ossie Davis Theatre in New Rochelle.
“We did everything we could to make it a first-class experience for both the writer and the audience,” says McCann, “including placing fresh flowers in the ladies room.”
Kollath, who McCann credits as Executive Producer, does more than just oversee finances. He’s also a driving force behind the guest experience, including post-show receptions where writers and the audience mingle over wine and cheese. “One of my favorite things about the live events,” adds Kollath, “is handing out programs and greeting guests as they arrive.”
So how does McCann go about selecting the stories that will be featured in each show? He uses the online platform Submittable to publish a call for stories on themes like driving, the holidays, or summer jobs, to name a few.
“The topics,” McCann says, “are deliberately broad to invite a wide range of expression.”
In addition to writers whose names are beneath the cultural radar, those topics — and the quality of McCann’s productions — have attracted several notable writers including Malachy McCourt, who read from his New York Times bestseller A Monk Swimming, and Jamie Bernstein, author, broadcaster, and filmmaker, who travels extensively, speaking about music and about her father, Leonard Bernstein. The upcoming “Voices of Hope” festival includes the voice of Marshall Karp, co-author, along with James Patterson, of the bestselling NYPD Red series and Along Came a Spider.
— Read650 founder Ed McCann created the kind of high-quality readings he wanted to attend, with a high, theatrical production quality. At its heart though, the series celebrates the spoken word.
After each submission deadline, McCann and his editorial team of playwrights, memoirists, novelists and journalists, go to work, typically reading well over a hundred submissions for a dozen coveted spots on the stage.
McCann, who reads last, says it’s painful to reject good work, “but you can’t ask an audience to sit through more than two acts.” To better serve Read650’s mission to promote writers, he now publishes expanded themed anthologies, which include stories that don’t make it to the stage. They’re available for purchase at the live shows and through Amazon.
Regarding the upcoming digital series with Carnegie Hall, McCann acknowledged that in some ways, the pre-production has been easier. There is no video at all, and instead of a dress rehearsal with people getting on and off the stage, McCann has coached writers on how to make quality audio recordings. And with smart phones, it’s not hard to do.
“If you sit in a parked car with the engine off,” McCann says, “it’s nearly indistinguishable from a professional sound booth.” If they don’t have a car, McCann coaches his writers to silence distracting background noise by putting a quilt or blanket over their heads, or to record their story inside a clothes or linen closet.
Arriving at the magic number
While it might not come as a surprise that the submissions are curated, you might wonder why 650 is the magic word count. Initially, McCann called his series “Writers Read” and asked that stories be capped at five minutes.
“But your five minutes was not my five minutes,” McCann says with a laugh. “Then I one day I read a piece aloud to Richard that seemed the perfect length and word count. He smiled and said, ‘You should call it 650.’”
McCann grew up in Queens and Brooklyn, but after years producing local TV segments on cultural and historic sites between Westchester and Albany — and more than three decades in Ulster County — he loves the region and calls himself “a real Hudson Valley booster.” He’s modest at the suggestion he’s responsible for a new genre.
“There are many other storytelling platforms, but ours places a strong emphasis on the craft of writing; the pieces our team selects are equally at home on the stage and the page.” On the other hand, McCann is proud of his growing audience and that writers from across the country — and the globe — are finding their way to Read650. His pivot to digital for the Carnegie show allows him to feature writers from Los Angeles and Chicago to Dublin, Ireland, who couldn’t participate otherwise.
The audio-only format of the Carnegie show also provides a better audience experience. Last May, unable to present on stage and attempting to mimic his live event format, McCann produced a 90 minute Mother’s Day show with writer-supplied video. It was a great deal of work, he says, for something that’s not very interesting to watch.
“Unless you’re in a theater,” he adds, “or with friends at a table at City Winery, it’s really much better to just listen.”
Post-Covid, McCann plans to fold live events back into the mix, but says Read650 is ultimately an audio platform at heart. “It’s a celebration of the spoken word.”
Carnegie Hall's "Voices of Hope" festival runs April 15-30 and is entirely free. Starting April 16, you can visit the Read650.org site each evening at 6:50 to hear five-minute, personal stories that explore the subject of confronting profound challenges through creativity. It will also be available on all podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts.
