Intensive Session A, Friday , April 3, 1-5:30pm
MOSAIC WORK: CRAFTING COMPLICATED STORIES
Presenter: Jo Radner
This active session is especially aimed at storytellers and writers working with (or thinking about working with) complex story material from oral histories, family anecdotes, folktales, historical accounts, personal experience, and/or community traditions. Participants will explore effective ways to shape multiple (even contradictory) stories into powerful artistic presentations, and will gain new understanding and new strategies for their own individual projects. The workshop intersperses focused group sessions, paired activities, story sharing, and private thinking and planning time.
Even those who have not yet collected the stories for their projects will find the workshop useful; we will generate material so that everyone can experiment with creative techniques of construction and presentation. Wherever you are in your project -- working with a beginning idea, a pile of nifty pieces, or a nearly-finished story -- you will find helpful tools for your process.
About Jo:
Jo Radner (Lovell, Maine) has been studying, teaching, telling, and collecting stories most of her life, and has performed for some 40 years, from Maine to Hawaii to Finland. Although she tends to make stories about the people and history of northern New England, she also performs traditional folktales and her own modern tales and riffs on well-known classics. Her first CD, Yankee Ingenuity: Stories of Headstrong and Resourceful People, won a 2013 Storytelling World Award. Her second CD, Burnt into Memory: How Brownfield Faced the Fire, based on oral histories she gathered from people who experienced the destructive 1947 fire in western Maine, won a Storytelling World Award in 2019.
Jo holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and is Professor Emerita at American University. In April 2013 she received the Brother Blue and Ruth Hill Award. She is past president of the National Storytelling Network and the American Folklore Society.
Learn More About Jo at: JoRadner.com
Intensive Session B, Friday , April 3, 1-5pm
Finding Your Story's "North Star"
Presenter: Jeff Simmermon
Jeff will introduce his story formula to help you get to the heart of your story during this four-hour intensive workshop.
You will learn how to make every word count, how to physically portray your story on stage, techniques for writing jokes and finding opportunities for humor, tips on how to sound more natural, how to break your story into components and how to use Jeff's formula to find and develop the core conflict - or "North Star" - of your story.
You'll analyze your story to reveal: What do I need? What do I want? What does it mean? What did I get and is it what I wanted? What did I learn?
Storytellers of all levels of experience are welcome in this active workshop.
This workshop focuses on first-person / personal stories with the storyteller at the center of the narrative. To participate, bring an idea for a story from your life and told from you point of view. It's OK if it hasn't been performed before, but it's a good sign if you keep telling it to friends and family informally.
About Jeff:
Jeff Simmermon has won multiple Moth StorySLAMS, including a GrandSLAM in March of 2014. His stories have appeared on This American Life, The Moth's podcast, and in written form on The Paris Review Daily. Additionally, he produced a show at the Upright Citizens’ Brigade theater for five and a half years. His album "And I Am Not Lying" debuted at #1 on the iTunes standup charts, and he's recording his second album with 800 Pound Gorilla Records in November.
Jeff teaches semi-private storytelling-as-standup workshops in Brooklyn, NY as well as private lessons. He also provides storytelling coaching to businesses and institutions.
Learn More About Jeff at: JeffSimmermon.com