I have been telling stories, in my performances, for forty years and I discovered the trick to telling a story to an audience that isn't there to hear "stories". I tell it about myself and I use real people as characters, real relatives and real friends. You know that a story must have , I hope I spell this right, verisimilitude in order to get the listener to suspend belief. Some years ago, in my capacity as workshops chairman for the PFS, I hired three storytellers and I was impressed when one of them seduced us into a long shaggy dog joke because we, honestly, thought it had happened to him. When he hit us with the punchline, the laughter was drowned out by the applause. Another participant, Mike Agranoff, told a ghost story as a personal experience and, when he hit the eerie ending, the audience was thrilled. When I do a Jewish show, I tell stories about my family, one or two of which might be true. I tell stories about the songs I sing (The history of "Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms" is very romantic and very relevent to an adult audience)
I do tell some stories about myself that are true but I try to avoid too much honesty in a performance. I have an image to maintain.

                      Mike Miller