Let me tell you a story.
Of course, you`ve probably already heard the story about the emperor`s new clothes and the one about Jack and his whickety-whack sack. You can probably picture these stories in your mind.
So you very likely know how a story envelops its listener, scattering little bits of magic in the air, weaving colorful images in our minds. And yet the storyteller has no props, no scenery, no music. It`s just a simple sharing between the storyteller and the listener.
And this simple event-the telling of stories-is on the rise.
Storytelling groups are proliferating like wild toadstools after a rainstorm.
In these parts there are the Chicago, Copper Beach Tree, Du Page, Fox Valley, McHenry and North Shore storytelling guilds. These clubs meet once a month to share stories. There are tellers at most every library in the Lake County area. The College of Lake County hosts a storytelling festival each year. And many cities have storytelling festivals-Libertyville and Union to name two-and one of the largest festivals in the country, the Illinois Storytelling Festival, is held in Spring Grove (see accompanying story).
Waukegan storyteller Eddie Richter, a member of the McHenry County Storytelling Guild, said the reason people are so enamored of stories is because it`s a direct communication and it`s part of the back-to-basics trend sweeping the nation.
”Today we`re electronically oriented. Listening to stories lets us create original images in our mind as the story unfolds. It`s an awakening of creativity in many people. That`s why I think it`s so popular,” Richter said.
Charlotte Freund of McHenry attends the McHenry County Storytelling Guild meetings each month to be enraptured by the spell cast by the tellers.
”Stories are very uplifting, especially family stories,” she said. ”And they are filling a need in society. Divorce, TV, the breaking up of the family-all these factors cause people to want to get back to their roots, and storytelling does that.”
Part of the reason for the popularity of storytelling may be because of changing family structure in society. Many years ago, grandparents were more often than not part of the extended family, and they helped keep family stories alive for children.
Not too many years ago, there was talk that storytelling was a threatened art form. But today, people are telling stories like never before. So why the renewed interest?
”It`s such a medium for exchange, and people are so desperate for personal contact that storytelling is becoming extremely popular right now,” said Janice Del Negro, who heads the student youth services department of the Chicago Public Library.
And many people say one of the biggest reasons for the resurgence of storytelling is because of a high school journalism teacher from Jonesborough, Tenn.
Journalism teacher Jimmy Neil Smith got the idea of holding a storytelling festival in his town to attract tourists while working with a group trying to restore Jonesborough. The 200-year-old town in the heart of the Southern Appalachian Mountains is the oldest town in Tennessee. But back in the early `70s it was just another dying Southern town.
Smith envisioned people coming from all over the country to hear the storytellers, pumping tourist dollars into the local economy and revitalizing the town. And the National Storytelling Festival was born. Every October since 1973, thousands of travelers make their way to this tiny Tennessee town to hear and tell stories.
The first festival attracted a few hundred people. By 1983, about 1,000 people attended the festival. This year, Smith is expecting more than 7,000.
After founding the national festival, Smith went on to create the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling and the National Storytelling Institute to teach storytelling. He also launched a newsletter, called The Yarnspinner, and Storytelling Magazine. Today the newsletter has a circulation of 5,500, and Storytelling magazine goes out to 7,500 subscribers each quarter. Smith also published a book titled ”Homespun- Tales from America`s Favorite Storytellers” in 1988.
America`s favorite storytellers are making a living at telling stories these days. The trend is toward the professional.
Evanston storyteller Beth Horner, who specializes in stories and ballads culled from her native Missouri Ozarks, earns enough money from storytelling to employ a part-time assistant. She said the first step on the road to becoming a teller is exposure. Read stories and books on storytelling, she says. Listen to recordings of stories told by the pros. Watch videos. Then begin attending storytelling festivals. The next step is to take a class or workshop in storytelling. Hundreds of universities offer classes. Finally, an amateur teller can volunteer to tell stories in schools and nursing homes. From there, it`s on to libraries, bookstores and festivals.
”It`s hard work to make a living telling stories,” Horner said.
”Getting the jobs is more work than the actual storytelling. There are no clear-cut hours and no medical benefits. You`ve got to hustle, so you`d better love telling stories with all your heart.”
Donald Davis of High Point, N.C., is a leading storyteller and teacher of storytelling. Davis, who earns a six-figure annual income from storytelling, said there are certain qualities that contribute to a successful storyteller. ”Originality is the most important characteristic of a great storyteller. You must be able to produce your own material. Also, a storyteller must have a kind of presence, a kind of charisma to truly be able to relate to a large audience and draw them into the tale,” Davis said.
Though folk tales and fairy tales are a big part of the oral tradition, many of the top storytellers tell stories culled from their own lives. Personal stories are the most popular stories today.
Tellers Spalding Gray of New York City and Syd Lieberman of Evanston are both nationally acclaimed storytellers and write their own material.
Lieberman weaves stories from his own experience as a high school teacher, a traveler to Israel and a father of two. Gray shares his experiences from his youth in Rhode Island and as an adult trying to make sense out of the `90s.
Gray`s career has run the gamut from movie actor to published author to storyteller. He has appeared in a handful of movies, including ”The Killing Fields,” ”Swimming to Cambodia,” ”Clara`s Heart,” ”Stars & Bars,”
”Beaches” and ”True Stories.”
”I started by telling stories to friends and lovers,” Gray said in a telephone interview. ”I make order out of chaos. I perceive life as chaos. So, I throw everything in a box-all the little scraps of paper about things that happen to me-and at the end of the year I put them all together and make stories out of them.”
Storytelling is expanding in our society, tellers agree.
”Storytelling is more than entertainment,” said Smith of Tennessee.
”It has an important role in the American culture. I see storytelling used in the ministry, therapy and in education. Anywhere you need good
communication. In a court of law, isn`t it true that the lawyer who tells the best story wins the case?”
