Mothers tell their stories, happy and sad

Jo Dee Prichard is not a writer. She doesn't blog. She doesn't tweet. She is not an author or a speaker.

But she is a mother. And she has a story to tell.

So when the auditions for "Listen to Your Mother" arrived in Nashville, Prichard stood in a stark office in front of three strangers and told the story of a pregnancy she didn't completely embrace.

Usually, Prichard said, she has no filter. On that day, however, vulnerability was difficult.

It was also cathartic.

"It gave me a space to have some self-compassion about that," the 48-year-old mother of four said. "How do you hold pain and sorrow in one hand and immense joy and love in the other? How do you honor both of those and feel good about it?"

How do you navigate all that is motherhood as a parent, as a son, as a daughter?

Listen, and women like Prichard will tell you.

"Listen to Your Mother" is a collaborative performance that features readings by local creatives on the joys and challenges of motherhood. The show began in 2010 with a single performance. This year, the national series will run in 32 cities, with a Nashville debut at 7 p.m. April 26 at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Polk Theater.

Each production is directed, produced and performed by the local community, giving a voice to motherhood through well-crafted stories filled with humor, humility and honesty.

"For Nashville, with its storytelling and performance roots, this was obvious for us," said Carrie Ferguson Weir, one of three women behind the Nashville show. "We are storytellers."

Fitting together

The stories fit together, Brigid Day said, "woven almost like a tapestry."

Prichard will first take the stage, followed by Joy Tilley Perryman, a local stage actress who speaks not about being a mother, but instead about never wanting to become one.

Next, threads about cancer, autism and traumatic brain injury will slip in alongside the insights of working moms, divorced moms, confused moms.

These women will talk about competition. Inspiration. Intuition.

The background and details are different for each, said cast member Liza Hippler, a 34-year-old mother of two from Spring Hill, but at their foundation they are the same.

"You can't help but feel an immediate kinship, because everyone tells stories from the heart," Hippler said.

Some stories are so intense, she said, "you just breathe it in."

Emotional experience

Day's first "Listen to Your Mother" experience came on a "girls' weekend" with her mom.

The women attended the Chicago production of "Listen to Your Mother." Each person in the audience already shared a silent bond, Day said, and the show's power was immediately obvious.

Just five minutes in, she turned to her mom and said, "We have to bring this to Nashville."

So, along with Ferguson and friend Anne McGraw, she did.

Nearly 80 Middle Tennessee women auditioned earlier this year, standing, as Prichard did, in a barren room with nothing but their hearts to bare; 13 earned cast spots.

"We all got there because we are able to speak up and speak out and speak our truth from a place of honesty and vulnerability," Prichard said.

And, she said: "We all have that ability in ourselves to get there."

Attending "Listen to Your Mother" in Nashville, Prichard promises, will be as cathartic from a seat as from the stage.

You will laugh a lot, she said. You might cry a little.

"It's going to give you things to talk about, and it's going to make you feel things," she said.

"Being a part of people telling their truth helps you tell your own truth. It gives you permission to be honest with someone you love or with yourself. It lets the door open up just a little bit more into letting you share your life with others."

'Listen to Your Mother'

"Listen to Your Mother" is a collaborative performance that features readings by local creatives on the joys and challenges of motherhood. This year, the national series will run in 32 cities, with a Nashville debut this month. Each production is directed, produced and performed by the local community.

When: 7 p.m. April 26

Where: Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Polk Theater (505 Deaderick St., Nashville)

Tickets: $24, https://patron.tpac.org; 10 percent of proceeds go to Thistle Farms

More info: http://listentoyourmothershow.com/nashville

Nashville's cast of 'Listen to Your Mother'

Joanna Montgomery writes for Huffington Post about living with ovarian cancer while she raises her daughter. She blogs at http://hellojomo.com.

Jo Dee Prichard was raised by her schoolteacher mom and is a mother of four teenagers. She spends her days as the business manager for a real estate development company.

Joy Tilley Perryman, named "Best Actor" by the Toast of Music City awards several years ago, lives with her husband and their large dog.

Tobi Amosun,a board-certified pediatrician specializing in urgent care, is a frequent writer for Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilit's Wishing Well blog at www.childrenswishingwell.org.

Marcela Gomez, a native of Bogota, Colombia, and founder of Hispanic Marketing Group, was named one of 30 Women of Influence by the Nashville Business Journal.

Leisa Hammett, a published author and single, divorced mother, speaks about parenting a child with autism at www.leisahammett.com.

Brigid Dayisamom of two and co-founder of "Listen to Your Mother" Nashville.

Lisa Waszkiewicz is a single mom to one musically inclined teenage daughter.

Liza Hippler, a former mom blogger, founded and now runs a tech startup company that makes online products for bloggers and blog readers, Bloganizer.com and GiveawayCenter.com.

Jo Giordano moved to Nashville 25 years ago. After raising two sons, she became an elementary school counselor and avid play therapist until being forced into early retirement after a traumatic brain injury. Now she writes about her recovery.

J'laine Vestis a teacher, wife and mother. Her work has appeared in "The Wisdom of Daughters" by Reta Finger and Kari Sandhaas, "Terra Incognita, The Formalist" and many others. In her spare time, she writes children's books and young adult fiction.

Tasneem Tewogbola, parent to five daughters, ages 3 to 19, works in communications, events and community engagement at Conexion Americas and also is a teller of African and African-American folktales.

Anne McGraw is a corporate working mom of two and producer of "Listen to Your Mother" Nashville.

Reach Jessica Bliss at 615-259-8253 or on Twitter @jlbliss.