Kevin Kling is a well-known playwright and storyteller living in Minneapolis. Best known for his popular commentaries on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and his storytelling stage shows like Tales from the Charred Underbelly of the Yule Log, Kling delivers hilarious, often tender stories. Kling’s autobiographical tales are as enchanting as they are true to life: hopping freight trains, getting hit by lightning, performing his banned play in Czechoslovakia, growing up in Minnesota, and eating things before knowing what they are. He has been awarded numerous arts grants and fellowships. The National Endowment for the Arts, The McKnight Foundation, The Minnesota State Arts Board, The Bush Foundation, The Jerome Foundation and others have recognized Kling’s artistry. Kevin Kling continues to write plays and stories in a rigorous fashion. He travels around the globe to numerous storytelling festivals and residencies, and has been invited to perform in the acclaimed National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee for several years. Kevin has released a number of compact disc collections of his stories, and he has published several books including The Dog Says How (2007), Holiday Inn (2009), and the children's books Big Little Brother (2011) and Big Little Mother (2013).

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On Stage with Kevin KlingFrom"21A"
CHAIRMAN FRANCIS: Our church is the street, our faith is the people, and our laws are constantly changing. If a law offends us, we pluck it out. If a minister offends us, we pluck him out and elect a new minister who is young and strong and can recognize evil’s ever-changing face. We don’t believe in miracles, we believe in action. But action takes money. Mr. Chairman, the church of Democratic Progression needs your financial support. Now, Mr. Chairman, how much would you pay to nip evil in the bud? Now I’m not talking about wiping out evil entirely, just your own little personal dark speck. Would you pay forty dollars, Mr. Chairman? Thirty dollars? Twenty dollars, the price of four filthy movies? NO. Mr. Chairman, for just fifteen dollars a month you can keep a chairman, like myself, on the streets fighting evil on your behalf.
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On Stage with Kevin KlingFrom"21A"
RON HUBER: Lady. What’s this doing here?
CASHIER: What? That’s cream.
RON HUBER: Yeah, well where’s the Coffee Mate?
CASHIER: We ran out so we had to use real cream.
RON HUBER: Christ. First the cinnamon triangles and now this. This place is going to hell. What? What, am I supposed to put that liquid shit in perfectly good coffee?
CASHIER: Look, cream is better that powder. It’s more healthy for you.
ROB HUBER: You think I come to SA for my health. Now you march to the back and get me some Coffee Mate, young lady. I got a bus waiting.
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On Stage with Kevin KlingFrom"21A"
STEVE: So, this morning we were at the doctor’s office and Steve wanted to show how smart he was ‘cause he knows they’re thinking about locking us up. So, he starts going through the K-Marts beginning with “A”. Well, I read this morning in the paper they’re opening a new K-Mart in Burnsville. I’m sitting there nice and quiet and polite the whole time he and the doctor are talking and then Steve starts reciting and gets to the “B’s” and ooops – he missed Burnsville. So, I calmly say, “Burnsville.” ‘Cause I didn’t want Steve to look bad in front of the doctor. I was only trying to help and Steve said, “What?” And I said, “Burnsville, Steve.” And he said, “What about it?” And I said, “There’s a K-Mart in Burnsville.” Steve goes “Huh uh” and I go “Uh huh” and Steve goes “Huh uh” and I go “Uh huh, I just read it in the paper today.” And then Steve really lost his cool…
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"Kling has an enviable gift for storytelling, a sense of humor rooted equally in pain and whimsy . . . and an uncanny ability to transform intensely personal memories, especially those of family life, into something instantly recognizable and, at the same time, strangely exalted." —Chicago Sun-Times
"Come & Get It [is] an aching, haunting and humorous meditation on love, death, disability and art . . . Kling has never lost his ability to blindside his audiences with the snappy, telling one-liner, and those are present in abundance here . . . But the wistfulness that has always infused Kling's work has taken on a poetic and more profound ring, as when he compares motorcycling to the darting birds ‘living life just ahead of their bodies’ or when he casually tosses off the idea that our lives are stories, not syllogisms.” —Pioneer Press (St. Paul, MN)
“[A] gripping autobiographical monologue . . . Mr. Kling’s lean, terse storytelling style has a faintly folksy ring . . . Home and Away ultimately rejoices in the strange interconnectedness of bizarre phenomena.” —Stephen Holden, The New York Times
Selected Works




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