‘The Tell: Bar Stories’ matches cocktails to tales

If you like to be regaled with drinking stories -- and who doesn't? -- come down to Artifice Lounge Friday.

A host of colorful characters will share their best drinking stories, paired with its own cocktail, naturally, at "The Tell: Bar Stories."

The event is part of the Vegas Valley Book Festival (the Review-Journal is among the sponsors of the book festival) and is hosted by local poet and attorney Dayvid Figler and his co-host Heather Hyte. Seven writers and spoken-word poets are scheduled to perform, including actress-writer Lauren Weedman; actor Michael Bunin; James Reza, writer and co-owner of Globe Salon; CityLife columnist Lissa Townsend Rodgers; bartender Trish Martin; and the Review-Journal's Norm Clarke. Figler will select the seventh storyteller from three finalists who were chosen in an online vote.

Figler started "The Tell" at El Cortez in 2010. Of all the literary and arts-related activities he has been involved in, "The Tell" has been the most well-received. Performances are usually standing-room only, he says.

The idea for "The Tell" came from similar storytelling events that Figler participated in across the country. He would come home and tell his friends stories about his stories.

"I said, 'Why don't we do that in Las Vegas?' " he recalls. "Form something that would be uniquely a Las Vegas event. That was sort of the impetus."

After attending one of the local events, a member of the book festival committee asked Figler to host one for this year's festival.

The setting is simple. Storytellers stand in front of the crowd and tell a story related to the topic selected by Figler. The idea is modeled after a scene that seems to always unfold at a cocktail party, in which a guest starts telling a story to another guest and, after a few minutes, ends up with every eye in the room on him, Figler says.

There are some rules: no notes. The story cannot be memorized and it must be told in less than 10 minutes. Anything longer and the teller gets the martini shake.

Weedman, who has appeared on HBO's "Hung" and "True Blood," hosts "The Moth" storytelling event in Portland. She rarely competes, although she performs one-woman shows that are basically inspired by the trauma and drama of her life.

She loves the storytelling setting, though.

"I just so prefer the storytelling venue because I like the structure," she says. "I like a good, personal, cathartic story. People telling true stories, I'm a sucker for that."

Weedman will draw on her marriages to a bartender and a teetotaler for her story. If you want more details, you have to go hear them firsthand.

Contact reporter Sonya Padgett at spadgett@review journal.com or 702-380-4564. Follow @StripSonya on Twitter.