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ArticlesBelow are articles written by members of the storytelling community. For recently published articles about storytelling festivals, see Storytelling -- It's News!.
Table-hopping
This article describes how to make storytelling work when you are table-hopping at a sit down dinner.
Emceeing and Giving Introductions
Here is a brief article that hits all the high points on the art of emceeing and giving introductions. If you follow these guidelines, you will enhance your audience's storytelling experience.
How to Gracefully Keep a Program Running On Time
Our members communicate with each other via a listserv. This article captures a discussion on the listserv. One member wrote about a problem, where a program ran a half an hour late, and various members offered possible solutions.
Branding Storytelling Retreat 2008
Our SIG held a retreat in February, 2008, to discuss how to brand storytelling -- its visual and verbal identity. These are the notes that one of the participants took. One key take away: a tag line for storytelling events could be:
Workbook for Theater and Storytelling Collaborations
This pdf file (94 KBytes) is a handout from the NSN Producers & Organizers SIG Pre-Conference Workshop at the July 2007 NSN Conference in St. Louis, published with the authors' permission. As a preparation for Theater and Storytelling collaborations, this workbook contains a set of questions and considerations that are worth asking before undertaking such a collaboration.
NSN 2007 Conference Keynote
This is a copy of Mr. Turner's keynote address at the July 2007 NSN Conference in St. Louis, published with his permission.
Collaborations with Theatres March 2007
This article describes various ways storytelling groups have collaborated with theatre companies across the US. The goal of the article is to provide storytelling producers with successful models to follow when approching their local theatre companies. There will be a preconference workshop at the July 2007 NSN Conference in St. Louis on storytelling theatre collaborations.
Small Talk
In Indianapolis in 2006, Storytelling Arts of Indiana hosted a new series called "Small Talk" to introduce new audiences to the art of storytelling and to Storytelling Arts of Indiana.
Girls Night Out
Since 1985, “Girls Night Out” has been a multi art form tradition each March in Providence, Rhode Island. It was started, and continues to be organized, by the women in the Spellbinders Storytelling Collective to celebrate Women's History Month with stories and songs by, for and about women.
Turning a Town onto Storytelling: the Story of the First Annual St. Marys Storytelling Festival
This article describes how the first annual “Once Upon a Thames” festival came to be in St. Marys, a pretty Southwestern Ontario town surrounded by farmland. Hundreds of people in St. Marys are now enthusiastic about storytelling and looking forward to the next festival. They had thought that storytelling was just for preschoolers in the library. Now they know!
Building Adult Venues: Creating a Storytelling Dinner Series for Adults
This article describes of the process and success in expanding venues for storytelling to adults; building profitable storytelling opportunities regionally; expanding listener base; and sharing lessons learned during seven seasons of a dinner storytelling series: “Story Sundays at the Glen Sanders Mansion.” It includes how-to ideas about promotion, marketing, logistics and expansion, as well as example postcards, flyers, press releases, etc.
Attracting Gen X & Y Audiences
At the NSN Pre-conference for the Producers & Organizers SIG, on July 13, 2005, Molly O'Connor presented information about on Generation X and Y audiences (adults younger than baby boomers).Then there were group discussions on how to attract these audiences to storytelling events. The notes from these group discussions are listed.
What Producers Need From Storytellers
The storytelling community is one of the warmest, most talented, compassionate, and usually very professional groups of people. What separates the "professional" storyteller from other storytellers who are invited to participate in festivals, workshops, performances, and conferences? From the producer's perspective, here are some suggestions for the best qualities and most helpful behavior for storytelling professionals.
Tips For The Would-Be Producer
Having experienced the pleasure, despair and surprise from the experience of renting a half-dozen theatres and sponsoring dozens of storytelling evenings, here are some of my suggestions for those planning to produce storytelling events.
Thanking New Listeners
In order to encourage new listeners to come back to our next storytelling event, I send them a letter, thanking them for coming and telling them about our next event. Below is a copy of such a letter.
I Want To Have a Storytelling Event Within a Park System – Now What?
An Example of a Proposal to a Park System
Things to Note in Discussing a First Time Storytelling Event within a Park System
by Leanne Johnson, Member, Producers & Organizers SIG They began arriving in January. First, a small flurry, then a trickle at month's end, and a veritable blizzard around the February 15th deadline. Tapes! Tapes! Tapes! Tapes filled with stories, and songs, and memories, and magic - and mistakes. As the chairperson of a concert committee, I learned a lot about the process of submitting a tape for a concert. Here are some suggestions I would like to pass on to hopefully minimize some common mistakes and maximize your potential. WOW Weekend (Working on Our Work Storytelling Weekend)
A WOW Weekend provides an opportunity for storytellers of all experience levels to gather as peers and work on their storytelling art. While most participants choose to work on the development of specific stories, participants have also worked on workshop revisions, promotional pieces, course curriculum, showcase presentations, and other related topics.
House Concerts in Kansas
I have been producing house concerts for adults for approximately 3 years. I was frustrated with trying to produce concerts of my own work for adults, so I decided to offer house concerts to friends and family. The host invites the guests, provides refreshments and passes the hat. I don't have to do any publicity, just have to arrive on time and tell my favorite stories for adults. Passing the hat is optional. This has helped build audiences for public events.
Success Stories in Building Adult Audiences
At the National Storytelling Network's 2003 Conference in Chicago, I moderated a panel discussion on this topic. Other panel members were Gerald Fierst, Ellen Munds and Robert Revere. Based on the panelists' presentations and information shared by attendees, there seems to be three things in common with all successful storytelling events for adults
Poems, Pints, and More!
I run a tri-monthly program for my local Arts Council, in Barrington Illinois. We feature poets, storytellers, musicians, comedians, and other types of performance artists in an evening performance held in an art gallery in a bistro setting (the Pints in the title stand for the drinks -- beer and wine and soda-- that we serve).
Short Subjects
At my theater, I've been featuring storytellers as "short subjects" before the movie on occasion for about a year now. It's a mostly popular program and my regular customers seem to enjoy it. So why do I offer storytelling as an "extra" attraction? In my theater, I get to expose an existing audience to storytelling, an audience that might not be exposed otherwise. Revised on 9-12-2009 Home Programs Nancy Duncan Scholarship NSN Conference Workshops Annual Retreat Mentoring Program Mentors Consultants Publications Producers Guide Articles Bibliography SIG Information How To Join Sign up to be a Mentor Sign up to be a Consultant Contact Us SIG Co-Chair Web Master |