Veterans Share Their Emotions Onstage In 'Telling: Denver'

DENVER (CBS4) - An original stage production is currently playing in Denver that's designed to help foster understanding for veterans and aid in their transition to living as civilians after their service is done.

The show is called Telling: Denver, and it's a collaboration of Campus Compact of the Mountain West, the Veteran Artist Program and The Telling Project. Six former service men and women are joined by the Romero Theater Troupe as they step onstage and tell their stories in a loose theatrical format.

The performances are taking place through Saturday at Metropolitan State University of Denver's St. Cajetan's Church on the Auraria Campus.

It's designed to tell the stories people in the military who fight overseas and make the sometimes difficult transition to home life.

The stories told onstage often reach to the heart of the audience.

"This is a way for those veterans to connect with civilians in their community. To really reengage in community life by sharing their stories. By making it stories that are part of our collective narrative," Campus Compact spokeswoman Stephanie Schooley said. "Their stories of service and sacrifice are our stories, because we benefit from the service that they did."

Telling the stories often has a profound effect on the storytellers themselves.

"They have shared bits and pieces of their service experience perhaps with friends and family members, but the their full narrative -- the stories that are inside of them that sometimes keep them up at night, that sometimes cause them grief or make them have a difficult time with that transition back into community -- getting those stories out can be a way of releasing," Schooley said.

There are stories of fear and challenge and humor and pain, but they all end with the simple act of coming home.

LINK: ccmountainwest.org