CrowdSource for Life will be staged in Dallas, Texas before a live theatre audience.  Our production team will record the storytellers’ TED-style performances with six cameras in a classic theatre setting brought to life by innovative set design and staging.   Months of preparation will culminate with the excitement of a live performance. Each storyteller is a living kidney donor and most gave their kidneys to complete strangers. Each of their stories was selected for its unique themes, narratives, and perspectives.  Our story development and performance processes will turn our cast of amateur storytellers into profound, expressive writers, their stories into stage performance pieces and their performances into memorable moments of connection.  The result will be a set of varied and compelling stories, each with a different meaning, purpose and direction.  But all their stories are about making an amazingly selfless gift to save another’s life. At its most basic, storytelling creates connections.  As fundamental human communications, stories have brought people together in a tradition that predates history.  Stories are present in every culture. When a listener connects to a story and recognizes their experiences or perspective in the story, irreplaceable human connection forms: the understanding that “I am not alone.”  This is why Maitri River Productions selected storytelling as the format for CrowdSource for Life.  We want the audience to be inspired by the selfless giving and empathy of our cast.