First Person Live ™  is the brainchild of Diane Kastiel, a writer and performer who's been telling stories on stage for more than 7 years in Chicago and one day said, "Why is all the fun in the city?" and decided to bring storytelling to the suburbs.

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First Person Live was piloted in Naperville in January 2017 and sold out every show of its 6-month run. We finished the year with shows in Lisle and Glen Ellyn before moving to our founder's home town of Arlington Heights in January 2018. In addition to the best of Chicago talent, tellers from Arlington Heights, Crestwood, Downers Grove, Evanston, Hampshire, Homewood, Libertyville, Libertyville, Lisle, Naperville, Schaumburg, Skokie, Warrenville, Wheaton, Willowbrook,Winfield, and Australia (now an honorary suburb!) have appeared at First Person Live, often performing on stage for the first time in their lives.

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First Person Live is thrilled to partner with the Arlington Heights Memorial Library to bring storytelling to the northwest suburbs.

AHML is a 5-star, nationally recognized innovator with a 200-seat dedicated performance space. We debuted our 2018 season at the library with our February show, "In the Name of Love," and held a storytelling workshop there that culminated in a free show for the community. We thank the library for their generous sponsorship of these events, and for their visionary support of personal narrative storytelling.

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Read on for press coverage on our history:

 

Our origins in Naperville Jan-Jun 2017

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Our move to a larger venue for the balance of 2017

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Our new venue in Arlington Heights

 

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