Meet Faye Lane, Artist-in Residence and Chief Inspiration Officer, and Storyteller at the Heart of The Good City
Faye Lane is not just a storyteller—she is a civic weaver, someone whose life’s work gently stitches individual lives together through narrative, empathy, and shared humanity. A Texas-born, New York–based writer, performer, and motivational speaker, Faye’s work has taken her from beauty salons in small-town America to the stages of national stages and public radio. Her voice is rooted in real experience, and her mission is universal: to help people see one another, deeply and compassionately, through the power of story.
Roots in Story: From Texas to New York
Faye’s lifelong love of storytelling traces back to her childhood in Texas. Growing up as Rhonda Faye Gunnels inside her mother’s beauty shop—Casa Vale Beauty Salon—she learned early that communities form not through distance but through shared life moments. In that salon, with its big mirrors and swivel chairs, she entertained customers under hood dryers, singing and telling stories that earned laughter and attention. Those early moments planted a seed: stories connect us.
Today, Faye still describes herself as living in New York City while inside remaining that little girl on the porch, dreaming of being seen and understood. It’s this combination of vulnerability and exuberance that gives her storytelling its unique emotional range—at once humorous, heartfelt, and deeply human.
Beauty Shop Stories and National Acclaim
After honing her craft and studying at institutions such as the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Faye created Beauty Shop Stories—a performance that blends song, narrative, and character to explore her childhood and the universal yearning for belonging. The piece has won numerous honors, including the Overall Excellence Award at the New York International Fringe Festival, the Bistro Award for Best Musical Comedy, and the MAC Award for Outstanding Special Production.
New York Magazine praised her ability to captivate audiences, saying that crowds were “howling, crying, falling in love with her,” while comedy legend Joan Rivers reportedly exclaimed, “That girl belongs on Broadway!” Such acclaim reflects not only her talent, but her capacity to bring intimate stories to life in ways that resonate far beyond any single performance.
Her work has enjoyed extended residencies—most notably at the legendary SoHo Playhouse in New York—and continues to tour across the country and internationally, from Dallas to Edinburgh.
Storytelling That Moves People
Faye is a two-time winner of The Moth StorySLAM—a competitive storytelling event celebrated for cultivating vibrant, truthful narratives—with performances in cities including New York and Los Angeles. The Wall Street Journal has called the Moth StorySLAM “New York’s hottest, hippest literary ticket,” and Faye’s repeated success there signals her rare ability to connect with audiences through unguarded, deeply human tales.
Her stories have also reached listeners nationwide through radio. They’ve been featured on NPR’s Cityscapes and The Moth Radio Hour, and she is a contributor to the New York Times best-selling anthology The Moth: Fifty True Stories.
From Performance to Purpose
At the heart of Faye’s work lies an almost spiritual conviction: that storytelling is not merely entertainment, but a bridge across the divides that separate us. She believes that when we share our experiences—our longings, failures, loves, and losses—we find in one another’s stories a reflection of our own. This philosophical foundation resonates powerfully with the work of Thanks-Giving Square, where her role as Artist in Residence and Chief Inspiration Officer (a playful but meaningful title) expands her impact from performance venues into civic life and public culture.
Her early reflections on gratitude, connection, and empathy—born of personal experience and refined through years of performance and public speaking—now help shape the Foundation’s thinking about belonging and civic flourishing.
Art, Attachment, and Civic Belonging
In the context of Thanks-Giving Square, Faye’s narrative philosophy intersects with a broader civic mission: to counter fragmentation not through abstraction, but through genuine human connection. She advocates for programming that foregrounds the stories of everyday people—the unseen helpers, the service workers, the neighbors whose lives are quiet acts of care and courage. This approach reimagines civic belonging not as a slogan or a policy, but as a felt experience that arises when people recognize themselves in one another’s lives.
Her thought leadership in this space reflects a deep conviction that belonging is formed through attachment, story, and shared humanity—not through ideology or credentialed authority.
A Storyteller for a Good City
For The Good City blog, Faye Lane’s work offers a compelling model of how art and narrative can animate civic imagination. Her career demonstrates that storytelling can be both deeply personal and profoundly social; that humor and vulnerability can coexist; and that the most ordinary lives often hold the most extraordinary truths.
In a time when civic life can feel fragmented, Faye’s voice reminds us that the first step toward flourishing is simply this: to see each other, fully and without judgment. That is, perhaps, the greatest story she has ever told.