About Evan
Born during the driving rainstorm that inspired Stevie Ray Vaughan to record the classic “Texas Flood,” Evan Stern is one of a proud few who can claim Austin as his legitimate hometown. Having caught the performing bug early on, he first gained attention at age 11 with a second-place finish in Austin’s famed O. Henry Pun Off, and has since appeared on the stages of New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the British American Drama Academy, whether acting Shakespeare, or charming audiences with the turn of a Cole Porter phrase, Evan is first and foremost a storyteller, with a sincere love and appreciation for history, travel and the art of raconteurship. He is now honored to return to Texas for the first season of Vanishing Postcards, an ambitious project that represents a synthesis of these passions through the form of audio essay.
Find out more about Evan here: evanstern.com
Notes From Evan
Few have inspired me more than CBS’s Charles Kuralt who invited viewers to follow him “On the Road” as he traversed the American Heartland for nearly three decades. Reflecting on his explorations, he once said, “You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.”
Indeed, a good greasy spoon or bar can tell you a lot about a place. More than food and cold beer, they provide spaces for community, familiarity, and honest connection that are not only important, but I’d argue, needed given our current age of digital saturation.
In a fast paced, rapidly homogenizing world, however, places like these are getting harder to find, and when they close, we lose a piece of our often irreplaceable history.
I felt moved to create Vanishing Postcards in order to shine a light on a few of the spaces and traditions I know that have endured, learn about the scrappy folks behind their survival, and explore the cultures they represent. The stories documented in this series are, at least on the surface, not of great current or historic consequence. Nevertheless, they are about people, and possessing of honest grace.
In addition to knowledge, anecdotes, and maybe a few laughs, it is my hope that these segments will provide audiences an opportunity to pause and ultimately reflect on the common good that unites us.