Village Players Performing Arts Center: 'Tis the Season!

 

 

 

Village Players Performing Arts Center

Presents

'Tis The Season

A Holiday Storytelling Festival

 

The popular and crowd-pleasing Storytelling series in the Village Players Blackbox Theatre continues with a four night festival of holiday storytelling, featuring different performances every night!

 

In the midst of the seasonal whirl, give yourself the gift of story.  National and local tellers create a celebration of seasonal tales:  Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa.  From true tales to folktales, humorous to heartwarming, it is the time of year to gather for stories that bring meaning to our holidays.  Four shows; four different "packages" of tellers!  Audiences will definitely want to come back to open more than one!

 

Saturday, December 13  7:30 pm

Margaret Burk

Linda Gorham

Joshua Safford

Susan Stone

 

Sunday, December 14 at 2:30 pm

Sue Black

Jim May

Janet Thompson

Oba William-King

 

Saturday, December 20 7:30 pm

Greg Weiss - A Christmas Carol

 

Sunday, December 21 at 2:30 pm

Judith Heineman

Marie Ringenberg

Ben Rosenfeld

Jane Stenson

 

'Tis the Season: A Holiday Storytelling Festival performs December 13, 14, 20 & 21..  Show times are Saturdays at 7:30 PM and Sunday at 2:30 PM. Tickets are $20 per show or 3 shows for $45 (a savings of $15!). 

 

Presented in the Blackbox Theater of the newly renovated Village Players Performing Arts Center located at 1010 Madison St., Oak Park. Plenty of parking is available on the street. The theater is handicap accessible; please call ahead to arrange for special seating.   More information is available at www.village-players.org or 866-764-1010.

In 1997, Margaret Burk was named in "100 Women Making a Difference" by Today's Chicago Woman Magazine for her fundraising and development work with the Chicago Sinfonietta.  Since 2000, she has turned her attention to the art of storytelling.  Margaret's telling crackles with warmth and wit.  She treats story and audience as old friends, delighting in the success of her matchmaking!

Linda Gorham

Nationally known, award-winning speaker and storyteller, Linda inspires her audiences by using movement, humor, and sometimes zaniness as she tells imaginative folktales and personal tales updated with "attitude." Linda is a contributor to Telling Stories to Children, published by the National Storytelling Network and Quality Angles, a book that explores excellence in the workplace. Linda was co-chair of the 2003 National Storytelling Conference. In 2004, Linda was the co-leader of a professional storytelling delegation that traveled to South Africa as part of an international exchange. Her CD, Common Sense and Uncommon Fun, has won four National Awards including Parents' Choice.

Joshua Safford

Joshua Safford is a different type of storyteller, rooted in both visual and oral traditions.  He began his career while studying screenwriting at the University of Southern California.  He worked as a museum storyteller for Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, where he began experimenting with visual tools for storytelling.  After graduating from Ringling Brother's Barnum & Bailey Clown College, Joshua renewed his interest in magic, an art he'd practiced years before.  Now, he combines illusion with folklore to create a powerful visual-oral fusion.  He tells traditional tales as well as his original works.

Susan Stone

"With her mastery of pacing and dialects, and expressive characterizations, Susan Stone vibrantly conveys the magic…" (ALA Booklist). Susan shares her stories with the technical expertise of her theatre training and the intuitive wisdom of a true storyteller. From dramatic, introspective Jewish tales for adults, to lively participatory multicultural stories for children, she has a unique understanding of her listeners' needs. She also teaches storytelling to teachers at National-Louis University, is a published author, and has been honored with many awards for her CDs (Parents' Choice Gold Award, Storytelling World Award, NAPPA Gold Award). A passionate performer for over 20 years, Susan's tales entertain, enlighten and illuminate the human condition. School Library Journal declares, "she is an incredibly talented storyteller."

Sue Black

A Storyteller and Teaching Artist, Sue Black has charmed audiences with her warmth and creativity since 1997, telling original and traditional stories from around the world. Recipient of the Prairie Area Reading Council Literacy Award, Sue combines her passion for storytelling with her delight in teaching students and their teachers to tell and write stories.  Listeners of all ages are captivated by Sue's enthusiastic storytelling.

Jim May

Jim is a storyteller who speaks in the natural, matter-of-fact style of the fathers, horse traders, and small-town raconteurs who populated rural McHenry County, Illinois where his family has lived since the 1840's.  Jim's stories have taken him across the United States and Europe. He has told at schools, corporations, professional groups, and festivals across the land. Chicagoans know him from his appearances on WGN's Roy Leonard Show and from the Studs Terkel radio show on WFMT-FM. He received a 1989 Chicago Emmy award for a WTTW-Channel 11 production of his original story, "A Bell For Shorty."

Janet is a children's librarian with the Chicago Public Library, a mother of two teens and a transplant from the Ohio River Valley.

Oba William-King

Oba's interactive performances celebrate African-American heritage, demonstrate cultural tradition and encourage cultural diversity. 

As an American Griot, the poetic storyteller, Oba offers performances interweaving stories and poetry with rhythm and song to create wonderfully entertaining, educational events.  He is a 2002 Illinois Arts Council's Fellowship Award recipient, 2000 Hands On Stanza's Gwendolyn Brooks Award recipient, and Hidden Jewel of the Neighborhood 2000 recipient. Oba was recently featured on Network Chicago's "Artbeat Chicago" segment titled King of the Classroom

Greg Weiss

Greg Weiss, a storyteller and middle school drama teacher from Homewood, has directed several plays, musicals and folktale theatre performances at his school. Additionally, he produced a concert and a storytelling festival, both featuring nationally renowned storytellers. His own storytelling has brought him to schools and other venues in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Missouri, including the St. Louis Storytelling Festival. Greg's work earned him the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award from the Illinois Humanities Council.

Judith Heineman

Judith Heineman is a storyteller, producer and teacher, who has been selected as an Illinois Humanities Council "Road Scholar" and an Illinois ArtsTour and Residency Artist. She co-chaired the July 2003 National Storytelling Conference in Chicago, and presented a workshop on Tale Variants at the 2004 National Conference in Bellingham, WA. She is the producer of The Los Angeles Women's Theatre Festival and Tellabration, the adult Storytelling festival that she brought to Chicago in 1997. Judith has created programs for numerous museums, festivals and schools and has appeared at the Chicago Humanities Festival.

Marie Ringenberg

Marie's creativity, energy and wonderful sense of playfulness draw her audience into the magical realm of the imagination. Each performance is designed to entertain and educate her listeners with her humorous, participatory style with stories geared to unlock the imagination and celebrate the love of story! Marie loves meeting her audience eye to eye and heart to heart. She tells stories in song as well as folktales, myths, and legends. Through storytelling, her fun, captivating and spellbinding tales allow her performances to educate and entertain audiences of all ages.

Ben Rosenfield

Dr. Ben Rosenfield (aka Dr. Frog), also known throughout the Midwest as "The Frog Guy," shares tales from his childhood growing up in the Appalachian foothills of Ohio, as well as stories of his own creation. A veteran educator with over 30 years in elementary and middle schools, both as a teacher and principal, Ben's stories celebrate life as well as educate. He helped write and clarify the Language Arts Standards for Excellence in Illinois schools. Featured at festivals, on TV, and radio, Ben tells original stories, ghost stories, family and folk tales, multi-cultural stories, country yarns and more. Ben is the creator and artistic director of the highly popular and well-known Halloween extravaganza, "Scare on the Square," in Woodstock, Illinois, and has long hosted the Liar's Contest at the Illinois Storytelling Festival in Spring Grove.

Jane Stenson

Jane tells from the world folktales and personal stories from growing up in the Connecticut woods. Beautifully crafted, these stories resonate with humor sometimes to the point of silliness as well as her general playfulness with language. Jane loves words! And, words harnessed to a well-crafted, well-told tale is just what she's about. Further, she has stories so poignant that listeners hush to the images and heartfelt ideas. Jane is a member of the Illinois Storytelling, Inc. Board of Directors, producing the annual Illinois Storytelling Festival. She is a member of Northlands and of the National Storytelling Network. Jane presents regularly at Illinois and National Conferences on the value of storytelling and the need for school-based research to demonstrate to school administrators how life-affirming and school-changing storytelling in the classroom can be.

More information on all the storytellers can be found on Illinois Storytelling, Inc. website, www.storytelling.org.

Village Players Performing Arts Center offers an eclectic mix of entertainment that empowers and inspires while exploring the human condition.

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