Every event at the inaugural Berkeley Storytelling Festival sold out. Over three days, Sept. 18–20, 2026, audiences packed Impossible Stage in downtown Berkeley for personal stories, live music and time together. Diaspora Arts Connection and Third Culture Tales announced the festival’s completion in a release dated Oct. 6, 2026.
The demand tells its own story. People came to sit together.
They wanted to listen to strangers.
Who Took the Stage
The festival brought together local voices, internationally recognized artists, first-time storytellers and musicians. It featured four programs: opening-night production Stories of Berkeley, a personal storytelling workshop, participatory Berkeley Open Stage and a special closing-night edition of Third Culture Tales.
The Sept. 18 opening focused on the people, histories and perspectives that shape the city. The lineup included award-winning storyteller, humorist and human-rights activist Max Houghton; Human Rights Activist and Writer Anirvan Chaterjee; Berkeley-raised writer, documentary filmmaker and stunt performer Kelly Richardson; musician, singer and oud player Sara Saberi; Diaspora Arts Connection Founder and human rights activist Nazy Kaviani; and business leader and arts supporter Payman Najafpour. Festival organizer Shayan Ravandoust hosted.
Stories Without Gatekeepers
On Saturday, Ravandoust, founder of Third Culture Tales, led a sold-out workshop with co-facilitator Kavian Ravandoust, a licensed therapist, writer and storyteller. Participants used character, scene, detail, tension, reflection and performance to turn lived experience into narrative. Its premise was plain: meaningful stories don’t need extraordinary circumstances. They can grow from how people remember, interpret and share formative moments.
Many participants had never written or performed before. By the end, they’d developed and shared stories in a supportive setting.
That evening, the sold-out Berkeley Open Stage carried the same idea forward. Experienced performers and first-time participants shared five-minute true stories, some funny and unexpected, others vulnerable and moving. There was no judging. Organizers designed the noncompetitive event to make storytelling accessible beyond professional artists. Iranian American singer-songwriter, composer, educator and Persian setâr virtuoso Fared Shafinury appeared as special musical guest.
Migration, Identity and the Search for Home
The festival closed Sunday, Sept. 20, with a sold-out special edition of Third Culture Tales, a live platform devoted to migration, identity, cultural inheritance, belonging and life between worlds. Storytellers included interdisciplinary Iranian American artist Shirin Towfiq, UC Berkeley alumna Nasrin Murad, four-time Moth StorySLAM winner Eva Schlesinger, master musician and ney player Mohammad Khodadadi, and Stanford lecturer Harriett "Dr. J" Jernigan, a Moth GrandSLAM finalist and First Person Story founder. Vivek Venugopal, a Bay Area storyteller whose life across Zambia, India and the United States informs his approach, hosted. The evening’s stories addressed migration, displacement, family, tradition, reinvention, humor and the search for home.
"The response to this first festival exceeded what we imagined," said Shayan Ravandoust, who led artistic direction, programming, hosting and operations. "The room was full, but what mattered most was the quality of attention inside those rooms. People listened generously, storytellers took real creative and emotional risks, and audiences stayed to speak with one another afterward. That sense of intimacy and connection is exactly why this festival was created."
Kaviani, founder of Diaspora Arts Connection, described the turnout as evidence of a specific hunger. "The sold-out response demonstrates that people are hungry for spaces where they can encounter one another beyond headlines, labels, and assumptions," she said. "Storytelling allows us to recognize the complexity of another person's life while also discovering the experiences we share. We’re proud that this first festival created that kind of space in Berkeley."
What Comes Next
Organizers said future editions will build on curated performances, practical workshops, open participation, music and cross-cultural storytelling while keeping the festival intimate, accessible and rooted in the community. They’ll announce plans for the next festival later.
Diaspora Arts Connection is a Bay Area nonprofit that supports artists, preserves cultural heritage and creates opportunities for dialogue across cultures. The organization has presented more than 500 events, supported more than 2,200 artists and welcomed more than 30,000 audience members.
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Why This Matters:
Sold-out rooms for a noncompetitive, no-judging open stage point to a real appetite for civic spaces that aren’t built around commerce or conflict. The festival centered migration, displacement and belonging, and gave first-time storytellers the same stage as seasoned performers. That access matters because public culture often favors people with credentials and connections. Nonprofit arts groups like Diaspora Arts Connection, with more than 500 events presented and more than 2,200 artists supported, do this work in gaps that markets rarely reach. As Kaviani put it, people want to meet "beyond headlines, labels, and assumptions." Whether the festival can keep that promise depends on whether it stays accessible, as organizers say they intend. Details on the next edition are still to come.