Show: 29
Title: Is That Why?
Category: Comedy / Solo Show / Spoken Word / Storytelling
By: Ari Hoptman
Created by: Ari Hoptman
Location: American School of Storytelling
Summary: A solo show about the origins of words, from your favorite professor Ari Hoptman.
Highlights: If you love words and languages, you'll love this show (and you can still see it today at 1!). Based on a series of large flashcards drawn randomly by an audience member, Ari shares short (3 minutes or so) stories about the origins of words and the relation of various languages, using no notes, but occasional visual aids. The handout (professors love handouts) shows a map that connects Germanic, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit languages via their common ancestor, "the Indo-European Machine." I love words, and I love nerds (i.e., people who are passionate about a specific subject), and Ari is charmingly obsessed with this sort of thing, and his enthusiasm for the subject and simple way of explaining things (with some pop culture references thrown in) make this a very entertaining and educational show. The history of language is the history of humanity, and this show is good nerdy fun.
