JUSTIN D'AMBROSIO: Trophies are spilling out of our arms.

I hate this picture.

(audience chuckles) I hate this picture because none of those trophies are mine.

BETSY FRIEDMAN: And my neighbor Joan had her crutches stolen, and who would steal crutches from a sweet, elderly neighbor named Joan?

CHRIS MAGEE: I pushed him, I pushed him really hard, and he pushed me, we start rolling around on the ground.

At one point, I had him pinned down on the ground.

I thought, "Damn, he's cute."

(audience laughter) WES HAZARD: Tonight's theme is "Stranger than Fiction."

Some moments in life are so unlikely, so exquisitely strange, that they seem like pure fantasy.

And yet somehow you find yourself actually living through the weirdness.

A chance encounter that is too good, or bad, to be true or just a weird moment that turns everything upside down.

Tonight's storytellers will share true stories about moments shaped by coincidence, surprise, and the kinds of twists that only reality can deliver.

♪ ♪ FRIEDMAN: My name is Betsy Friedman and I live in the Bronx, New York.

I work at New York University as an assistant to one of the deans there, I'm an administrative aide.

Before working at New York University, you spent 30 years working in film and television production.

What was that chapter of your life like?

I worked as an assistant director on multiple TV shows and movies.

I absolutely loved it.

It's just the hours were so long.

And once I had my daughter, I decided to just change paths as she was getting older because, I wanted to have another opportunity to really be more present in her life and also in mine.

What has the process of shaping this story that you're gonna share tonight been like for you?

Very therapeutic.

When I first wrote this story, and came up with the idea of it, I was going through a very, very sad heartbreak.

And this has helped me to not only put it on paper and to say it out loud and to make it real for other people to relate to, it's also got some funny moments in it and that helped me heal from this heartbreak.

I went through a really sad breakup like three years ago.

Now, we had broken up a bunch of times before and those times were its, but this time was "it" it, I, I swear.

(audience laughter) And look, I'm in my 50s.

I wasn't exactly ready to start over and pitch myself to the middle aged dating scene.

I mean, for one, I'm a terrible cook.

Two, I really don't like Billy Joel.

(audience laughter) And three, I don't hike, so.

Yeah, I woke up kind of miserable the next day, you know?

And I went to my miserable job, and I came home to my miserable street.

And outside of my miserable building, there was this not-so-miserable looking man.

And he's standing outside holding this black table lamp.

So I asked him, "Are you moving in?"

He's like, "Yeah, I'm moving in."

I said, "Second floor apartment?"

"Yeah, the second floor apartment."

"Well, it has been a while since that woman was murdered in there."

(audience laughter) And he laughed, and that's how I met my new neighbor, Avi.

And now, my ex and I were doing that whole no contact thing, which was really difficult because we spoke all the time, right?

And now it hurt my jaw just to get words out to co-workers, friends, really, anyone.

Except when it came to Avi, my new neighbor.

I would rush home after work just to catch him outside the building.

Because he'd say things like, "Betsy, we should go for a slice one night."

"Betsy, we should go for a run one night in the park, too."

Because the thing is, Avi, he was really hot.

(audience chuckling) And he had this beautiful smile, which disappeared one night after work; he was outside pacing.

He was angry-- his packages had just gotten stolen.

"Yeah, we need to have a doorman here."

Yeah, well, we lived in a pre-war.

He moved into a place that had no bells and whistles, just a buzzer.

And packages were often left in the lobby in a pile.

So, yeah.

But I told him I had a package stolen, too.

I had these body contouring dresses I had ordered at 2:00 A.M., on, like, Etsy, and I wanted to use them for dating.

And they were non-refundable and expensive.

And my neighbor, Joan, my sweet, elderly neighbor Joan, had her crutches stolen, and who would steal crutches from a sweet, elderly neighbor named Joan?

It was crazy.

And he said, "You know, we need to catch this thief."

And I said, "Yeah, I like that."

Except our super, he was gone.

He was out at a funeral out of town.

So he couldn't look in any footage.

So Avi suggested the next best thing.

"You know, Betsy, we should profile our neighbors."

And I like that, too, because I no longer had my ex as my romantic partner, but now I had Avi as my partner on the force.

And for three weeks, we were on the case and we came up with suspects.

So fifth floor guy, way too cheerful.

(stage-whispering): He was a sociopath.

Then we had fourth floor, surly woman, there forever.

(stage-whispering): She had vendettas.

First floor lady with all the weird, colorful scarves, she had to have been in a cult.

So yeah, I had this brand new focus.

And for the first time since my breakup, I slept really, really well.

And then the skies turn orange, right?

There were these Canadian wildfires that blew the smoke into New York City.

And concerned, I called my ex to see if he was okay.

And I went straight to voicemail.

And that made me really sad because I had been doing really well.

So I came home sad, and there's Avi with his green duffel bag.

And I tell him my whole sob story.

And I'll never forget what he said.

He said, "You're such a nice person, Betsy, "but maybe it's just your nature to let the man in."

And that really lifted my spirits.

And that night, my super called.

He had been home for a couple of days, saw the footage, sent it to me, and I click to see what's going on.

And in the first clip, it's taken after work.

And I'm going in the elevator, and Avi goes up the stairs because he's the second floor.

And then he comes down and he picks up a package.

And then he looks and picks up another package, and then the third one, and he leaves the building.

And then the second clip, same thing.

After work, I get in the elevator, he goes up the stairs, he comes downstairs, and he's picking up what appears to be like, my body contouring dresses and someone's groceries.

And he leaves the building.

And then the third clip, he's exiting with Joan's crutches.

And then there's the next clip.

I get in the elevator.

It's the day of the sob story that day, and I just told him everything.

Elevator door shut.

And he does this.

"Excuse me?"

And then he picks up the packages, puts them in his green duffel bag, and leaves.

"Maybe, Betsy, it's just your nature to let the man in."

You think?

Because it turns out Avi never lived there.

(audience laughter) He never moved in.

He was just some random man that would wait for me after work and I would... (audience laughter, applause) ...I would take my key out and he'd follow me in and rob us blind.

(audience laughter) I know what you're thinking.

How could she be so stupid?

She had to have known something.

Had to have known anything, anything, just a little bit.

No, I knew nothing, nothing.

And I couldn't be mad because I met him at a time that I was feeling such heartbreak and I wasn't exactly looking for a mystery to solve, right?

I was looking for partnership.

And Avi, he gave me it.

And did I really need it?

Because, pun intended, wasn't I already the full package?

(audience laughter) And all that just blew my mind.

That I didn't notice that my ex was calling me back to see how I was doing in the orange smoke of New York City.

I almost didn't notice that call.

But I did.

And I answered it.

And I let the man in.

(audience laughter) Thank you so much.

(cheers and applause) D'AMBROSIO: My name is Justin d'Ambrosio.

I grew up in South Florida, live in New York City now with my wife and my adorable two-and-a-half year old daughter, Maggie.

And I work in streaming media.

I used to work for MLB.TV, but now I work for Disney streaming.

At some point, performing became part of your life.

Can you talk a little bit about that and, you know, what it's meant to you?

I've been performing like most of my life, either, you know, singing or being in a band in high school, to when I moved to the city I started doing improv and sketch comedy and, and now I mainly do stand-up and storytelling.

So I've always just sort of naturally been an onstage person.

I don't know, I think maybe growing up in my family where the way to get noticed was to, you know, have a funny story or to have a funny joke to tell is that that's what it was like at our dinner table, was just filled with stories and jokes.

Tonight, when our audience hears your story, what would you most hope that they take away from that experience?

D'AMBROSIO: I hope they get like a sneak peek into a world they probably never even thought of before.

And there's hopes, there's dreams, there's hierarchy, there's disappointments.

Hope they enjoy it, I hope they get immersed in that world.

There's this picture my mom loves.

So my sister and I, end of the year academic awards ceremony, trophies are spilling out of our arms.

I hate this picture.

(audience chuckles) I hate this picture because none of those trophies are mine.

(audience laughter) And the only reason I'm in this picture is, as my mom says, "Well, Jocelyn can't hold all of the trophies."

(audience laughter) She's better at sports, too.

She's not good at sports, she's just better than me, which is a low bar.

You see, when I was young, I had surgery on my eye to help with depth perception.

Apparently, depth perception is really something you need in sports because I was the only kid that would strike out at T ball.

(audience laughter) And after the surgery, I had to wear an eye patch.

And I wish it had just been like a standard black eye patch.

I could have pretended to be a pirate or something.

But the eye patch I got was medical, was adhesive, was skin color, it was disturbing.

(audience laughter) So I'm looking for something, anything that I can call my own.

And it fell into my lap one day in the fourth grade, when an organization comes to my school called the Florida Singing Sons.

S-O-N not S-U-N, you see.

Because the Florida Singing Sons is an all-boys choir.

And they tell us it's an all-boys choir because little boys' voices are more angelic than little girls'.

And once your voice changes, you're out.

And they knew it'd be hard to get us to want to join after that weird statement.

(audience laughter) So they gave us the hard sell.

They're like, "You can travel internationally.

You could sing the national anthem at a baseball game."

I didn't need to hear any of that because what I was thinking was, (chuckles) "All-boys?

I'd like to see Jocelyn beat me in this."

(audience laughter) I immediately want to be a Singing Son.

I get a call back and it's down at the training center.

And walking into the training center, it's intimidating because you're immediately bombarded with all of their trophies and banners and not so much intimidating, but you need to know there's also so many comic strips of "Cathy" on the wall.

Ack.

I go to the back room for the final audition.

The director says, "Don't be nervous.

Just sing a song, we all know-- the national anthem."

Oh, yeah, we all know that-- except for me, because I just moved here from Canada.

(audience laughter) So he writes the words on the board and I go last.

But I feel like I've blown it just by being Canadian.

Next week at school, this kid comes to class.

He goes, "I got the letter!

"I am in the Singing Sons, but I'm not gonna do it.

Cause it's stupid."

I can't prove it, but I know he's lying.

Okay, first of all, he doesn't have the voice to be a Singing Son, okay?

And then second of all, he doesn't have the voice to be a Singing Son!

(audience laughter) But I start to worry.

Are the letters out there?

How come I haven't gotten one?

I check the mail obsessively until I finally get that letter.

I tear it open and I scan for the words I want to see.

"Congratulations, you're a Singing Son."

I think, all right, things are about to get a lot easier for me now that I'm in an all-boys choir.

(audience laughter) I let it go to my head immediately, because like I said, when you're in that training center, you're bombarded by all their success and trophies.

But there's also inspirational posters on the wall.

And I got a favorite.

It says, "Singing is a sport.

"It requires practice, using your muscles, dedication.

You're an athlete."

(audience laughter) Ha, ha, all right.

Two years ago, I was in an eyepatch, and now I'm an athlete.

But even though I'm in this exceptional choir, I start to worry that I'm not one of the better singers.

And we've got a lot of intimidating singers.

And I go up against one of them for the solo, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

I don't get it.

I get nervous singing in front of everyone and I blow it.

And my dad tries to cheer me up afterwards, and he says, "You know, Just, one day you might be glad there's no video of you singing 'Somewhere over the Rainbow.'"

(audience laughter) I don't get it.

(audience laughter) It's the last day of junior choir.

The director brings me back to the room for a one-on-one audition.

I'm so glad it's one-on-one because I don't get nervous.

And I nail the audition.

And afterwards, the director looks confused at me and he goes, "I didn't know you could sing like that.

"If you sang like that in front of everyone, you wouldn't have to repeat the junior choir."

I'm devastated.

I gotta go home and tell my family I failed.

But the fact that he says I was good enough gives me all the confidence I need.

I realize I've made this thing intimidating when it's just supposed to be fun.

And it is fun.

I didn't have much exposure to music before this, but with this newfound confidence, things start going better for me.

And before I know it, I'm in the senior choir.

And now I want to get invited on that tour, because, first of all, they're going to Prague.

What 12-year-old boy doesn't dream of Prague?

(audience laughter) And second of all, my sister is going to Paris with the school's "Polynesian dancers."

No audition required.

But I hear my mom on the phone and she's bragging to my grandma about the both of us.

She's saying, "Both of my kids are going to Europe this year."

And even though I haven't got the invite, I know I'm gonna make it.

So when the choir director asks me to sing in front of everyone, I know this is my audition to Prague.

Whatever he plays, I'm gonna nail it.

So he plays a scale.

♪ La, la, la, la, la ♪ Nailed it.

(audience laughter) But there's something off in the room.

He plays the lower one.

♪ La, la, la, la, la ♪ Now I can definitely feel like there's something off in the room.

The kid sitting next to me, he's looking at me like, "What are you doing?

Stop!"

I'm like, what do you mean, what am I doing?

I'm punching my ticket to Prague, baby!

(audience laughter) By the time he plays the last scale, all I'm hearing in my head is, ♪ Prague, Prague, Prague, Prague, Prague ♪ And that last note just hangs in the air for what feels like forever.

And the director breaks the silence and says, "This is Justin's last performance with us.

His voice has changed."

(audience groans) I'm devastated.

It means no Prague.

I'm dreading the car ride home.

It's a carpool, it's not my parents' turn to drive.

And I'm just dreading the questions from the other kids.

But as I'm filing out of the training center, I see my dad in the parking lot.

I go over to him.

Before I can say anything, he says, "I know, we know.

"They called us.

Your mother's at home crying."

(audience laughter) Before I could say anything to that, he says, "Do you want to go get pizza?"

And I think, "Yeah, why the hell not?

I'm not an athlete anymore."

(audience laughter) Thanks.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ MAGEE: My name is Chris Magee, I'm originally from Jacksonville, Florida, but I currently live in New York City and I'm a high school history teacher.

I teach in New York City, I teach in East Harlem.

What do you love most about teaching?

I really love being in the classroom with the kids.

I mean, that's the best.

Just getting to know the kids, their personalities, teaching them new things, knowing that I'm the one that's going to introduce them to some major historical concepts and characters.

Like, I'm going to be the one that introduces them to Alexander the Great, or I'm going to be the one to teach them about Cleopatra.

I mean, I think that's one of the funnest things that I get to do, is to teach kids that and see their interactions and their ideas about what they think about history.

In addition to academic teaching, I understand that you also not only perform improv, but teach it as well.

I'm wondering what has being on stage taught you about yourself?

What I've been trying to really learn now is a sense of fearlessness.

Like, just jump out there, take a risk, trust yourself, trust the other people around you and know that it will pay off.

Something good will happen.

I grew up on the west side of Jacksonville, Florida in the 1980s.

Now, geographically, Jacksonville is in the northern part of Florida, but culturally it's the South.

It's the Lynyrd Skynyrd part of Florida.

And we'd say the west side, the best side, which pretty much says it all.

Because it was a rough world to grow up in.

It was stray dogs, random gunshots, trailer parks, all wrapped up in a carefree, half-barrel Florida lifestyle.

My dad was also from the west side.

And what I wanted when I was a kid is to have the same kind of close relationship with my dad that my brother had.

But we didn't live with my dad.

We lived with my meemaw, my peepaw-- my dad's parents.

And my dad lived at his girlfriend's house in the more suburban part of the west side.

And his girlfriend lived on a cul-de-sac.

I called it a dead end, but she called it a cul-de-sac because calling it that made it sound French and fancy.

(audience laughter) And she had a daughter named Sunshine, and Sunshine was 18 days older than me.

And she reminded me of that all the time.

Sunshine called my dad "Dad" and called me her "step, sort of, kind of, in a way, half-sister."

Even though our parents weren't married.

And my dad told my brother and I that we had to play with Sunshine and we weren't allowed to argue with her, which meant we always had to do what Sunshine wanted.

But Sunshine didn't like to go outside in the sunlight.

(audience laughter) She liked to play inside with her dolls.

I like to go outside, I like to ride bikes, I like to throw baseballs, I like to play two square in the driveway.

So this was really hard for me.

I didn't feel delicate, I felt free-spirited, wild-- west side-- but my dad didn't see that, because he spent all of his time teaching my brother how to do things like "Be tough, walk it off, don't cry," but I was right there next to them, breathing in all this manly man stuff like a hot box of secondhand smoke, because, because I wanted to be the one to play football.

I wanted to learn how to show just two emotions, anger and nothing.

(audience laughter) So I was right there next to them, buzzkilling all my dad's best lessons on emotional repression.

Just breathing it in and then shoving it way down.

So my dad had a rule.

He said, "Never start a fight, but never back down from one."

And what he meant by that was, don't be a bully, but don't be afraid to stand up to one either.

Now, that rule was for my brother, but I took it to heart.

So we'd see my dad like every other weekend on the suburbs.

And we could convince Sunshine to play outside, sometimes, if she could bring her dolls with her.

And that's how we met the neighborhood bullies.

It's a group of kids.

There was three of them.

The oldest and the biggest one looked like Peppermint Patty from the "Peanuts," except she had more muscles, and she cursed like a merchant marine.

The next oldest and biggest one had blond hair, blue eyes, a thick midsection.

He looked like Biff from "Back to the Future."

And the youngest and the smallest one was about my age and my size, he had a skater boy haircut.

It was shaved in the back.

And bangs that swept down over his eyes so he couldn't see anything.

And Peppermint Patty saw Sunshine playing with her dolls, and she came up to us and said that we weren't allowed to play on their cul-de-sac anymore, or they'd beat us up.

Well, my brother and I, we sized up the situation and we realized we were outmatched.

So my brother said, "All right, let's go in."

So we walked in and Sunshine says to my dad, "Dad, some kids told us that we're not allowed to play outside anymore or they'd beat us up."

See, she thought this was a good thing.

(audience laughter) But she had just admitted to my dad that we had backed down from a fight.

So my dad looks at my brother and says, "Son, is that true?"

And my brother goes, "I don't know."

But then Sunshine goes, "Yes, you do.

You were standing right there."

(audience laughter) So my dad didn't ask any questions, like, how big these kids were, how many there were, how tough they were, he didn't ask anything, or the fact that his only information came from an overly excited nine-year-old girl.

The older one.

He just said to my brother, "The three of you "get back out there and you fight those kids, "and you're not allowed to come back into this house until you do."

And that's when I heard Sunshine go, "What?"

(audience laughter) See, she had never heard my dad's rules.

He had sheltered her from that.

So my brother said, "All right, let's go."

So we went out to the cul-de-sac, and we found the kids, and we told them that we had had to fight them or we'd never be allowed back home again.

And just for a moment, I swear, Peppermint Patty felt bad for us.

But then she shook it off and started cursing at us.

And then the kid arguing started, and it's going back and forth, and I don't know what we said, but I'm sure it didn't make any sense.

And I realized I was the only one on our side that was yelling.

Sunshine was still in shock, and my brother was just standing there silently.

And I realized, oh!

My brother can't fight any of these kids.

He can't fight the oldest and the biggest one because that's a girl, and if he hits a girl, well, that's worse than getting bullied.

And he can't fight Biff because if he jumps on Biff, then Peppermint Patty will jump in.

It'll be two against one.

And he can't fight the little skater boy because he's so much younger and smaller than my brother, that'd make my brother the bully.

And Sunshine was hyperventilating or something, so she was no good.

So it had to be me.

It had to be me against little Tony Hawk.

So I pushed him, I pushed him really hard, and he pushed me.

We start rolling around on the ground, imitating what we thought a fight looked like.

At one point, I had him pinned down on the ground.

I thought, "Damn, he's cute."

(audience laughter) And I think that's when puberty kicked in.

But then Biff saw that I was winning, so he jumped in to help him.

My brother jumped in to help me.

Sunshine got in the fetal position.

(audience laughter) My brother pulled Biff off of me.

I jumped off of little Tony Hawk.

I was breathing really hard and shaking, but I was excited.

My brother was tense but calm.

And Sunshine had passed out.

(audience laughter) No-- because I had done it.

I had fought these kids, and we could go back home.

And Sunshine could play with her dolls outside whenever she wanted, which would be never, but she could.

(audience laughter) So my brother said, "All right, let's go."

So the three of us sauntered on back to the house in slow motion, opened up the door, and Sunshine said, "Dad, we fought them!"

And I thought, "One: they're not married.

"Two: who's this we?

"I fought them, I'm the hero!

I won the fight!"

But my dad just said, "Great."

And that was it.

He didn't ask if we won.

He didn't ask if we were okay.

That's all he said-- we could have gone outside, walked around for a while, come back in, lied and said we fought them and he wouldn't have known the difference.

But then I got it.

My dad didn't say, "Go out there and beat them up."

He said, "Go out there and fight them."

Face your fears.

Stand up for yourself.

Especially against a bully-- he didn't care if we won or not.

Now, this might not be the best way to teach respect for all.

And I might not have had the relationship with my dad that I always wanted, I mean, so few of us do.

But he was doing the best he could, and that was his best.

And it felt like love.

At least, it felt like love if you're a kid from the west side.

The best side-- thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪