Storyman Live!

Baltimore's Tellabration! is scheduled for Saturday evening,
20 November 2010. This is an annual storytelling event held throughout the USA and in a number of other countries.
Here in B-more, this will be our fifteenth year putting on
a good show.

TELLERS, nota bene. Deadline for tellers to complete steps for getting an audition is 15 August 2010. E-mail the Planning Team at Tellabration@BFMS.org for further information.
Don't dilly-dally, okay now?

AUDIENCES, nota bene. Mark your calendars now. This site will furnish the latest details about venue, tellers, music, etc. Stay in touch now, y' hear?

Above.

The lead announcement about TELLABRATION.

Below.

1. Storytellers & Fund-raising.
How Can Stories Help Pay An Organization's Bills?

2. New Material and Need for Audience/Space.
Where Do Storytellers Rehearse?

3. StoryLive Dates
What's Stremba Doing These Days?
<> Tellabration! 2010 <>
<> STANDING ON THEIR STANZAS<>

4. Solo Storytelling.
What's The Storyman Offering Audiences?
<> IS THERE LIFE AFTER HIGH-SCHOOL ENGLISH?<>

5. Portable Parlor Plays.
What's On The Shelf For Those Who Love Reading Aloud?

Your organization has conducted cakes sales, maybe;
brownie bake-offs, chili cook-offs, raffles, even wine-tastings. For your next go-round at persuading a percentage of the population to be patrons of your cause, try stories.

Stremba's been telling stories since the Richard Nixon era.
His friends in the "business," somewhat younger, have been even more devoted to the calling. And your prospective donors could be their audience. To find out more how their stories could help your people raise necessary monies, don't hesitate contacting Stremba via e-mail.

Has the thought ever crossed your mind—
"let's get some live entertainment in this place" ???

Here's an idea that'll get storytellers doing their work
in your parlor, rec room, club basement or front porch.
And doing it for free.

March 2010, two Maryland tellers arranged with MICA
to use a space in their wonderful oldest academic building
on Mt Royal at Lanvale where they invited the public to be
test audiences for story-work in development. Three Saturday mornings and four stories and several dozen audience members later, both tellers had astute feedback to consider and felt more confident about the direction of each piece.

One invitee allowed as how Saturday mornings were not
the best time for him and wondered about himself picking
a "better time," hosting such a "rehearsal" in his home
and inviting friends and neighbors to be yet another test audience. You bet, say we. And the offer stands for anyone else in the region. There are always storytellers working on new pieces for which no try-out is possible without a real (even non-paying) audience. We’d love you to offer to host. E-mail for more info.

Stremba's two projects for the rest of the summer:

(1) TELLABRATION!—working with the Planning Team to get the show on stage (see lead announcement above);

(2) STANDING ON THEIR STANZAS—organizing 80 minutes
of adult declamatory performances *, scheduled for Saturday evening 16 October 2010 in Farnham Hall at Memorial Episcopal, Bolton at Lafayette Avenue.

* If you still remember, or could easily resurrect, once memorized poems, and you're not afraid to declaim them
in front of a small audience, please e-mail Stremba before Labor Day.

"Is There Life After High-School English?" comes out of genuine wonder. Those chestnuts of world literature that powers-on-high had once-upon-a-time decreed be included
in our high-school anthologies—how did teachers manage to afflict us with THEM? I mean, were they really excruciating suffering—"Thanatopsis" and "A Fly Buzzed..." and Bartleby and Chillingsworth and Roderick Usher??? And were the lines from Whitman just full of gas???

Stremba aims at raising some of them up again in the context of a series of nifty narratives to see how we might've missed
the intrinsic fun of 'em all.

“Delightful … delightful … delightful …” gushed one.

"Undercover or, The Last Jew in Bukhara" starts with a real trip into Soviet Central Asia just before the collapse of the USSR, reverses gears into 1939, backs up into 1863, includes in the not-completely-linear narrative real outlanders who preceded Stremba thither and lived to tell the tale.

“High-energy,” marveled one.

for Folks Who Love to Read Aloud

The Soft-Boiled Detective In Tough Old Baltimore series features Theodorick ("Tod") B. Hall who was in fact a real honest-to-goodness plainclothesman who worked the streets and waterfront of post-Civil-War Baltimore into the opening years of the 20th century. In these parlor plays, Hall comes
to life in your living room through the voice and presence of one of your guests.

Yes, unplug the TV and summon Stremba with his original scripts. Invite friends, neighbors—there'll be parts
(some big, many small) for all who love to read aloud.

For more background on this city detective, check out
the following pages—
http://stremba.us/todHall.html (2004)
http://www.stremba.us/softboiledDetectiveInBaltimore.html(2005)

For more more on Hall and more regarding parlor plays,
go to this page—
http://www.stremba.us/rescuing_a_baltimore_legend.html(2009)