When I think of storytelling, I tend to think about how stories touch me. Whether it’s the powerful emotions that can be stirred by someone’s true story or how the imagination is fired up by a rousing fairy tale or adventure yarn, what first comes to mind is how stories make me feel.
Seemingly drier subjects such as chemistry or ecology don’t readily leap to mind. But then I recall people like Jacques Cousteau, Jane Goodall, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, individuals who spin incredible true tales born out of their explorations of the larger worlds around us. Talk about engaging!
That’s what Better Said than Done has got in store for you this Thursday, October 14th when we present Gravity: Stories of Science and Nature. Our fearless leader Jessica Robinson is your host for the evening. She’ll be your guide to the worlds presented to us by Charlotte Blake Alston, Claire Hennessy, Tim Livengood, Gwendolyn Napier, Sam Payne, and Kirk Waller. Tickets are on sale now – grab them quick!
Let’s find out a little bit about the tellers that will be bringing us stories of their encounters with the universe…
Charlotte Blake Alston is a nationally acclaimed storyteller, narrator, instrumentalist, librettist, and singer who performs in venues throughout North America and abroad. She is the host of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s preschool concert series, Sound All Around, and has appeared as host and narrator on the orchestra’s school and family concerts since 1991. She has appeared in such venues as the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center, the National Storytelling Festival, and the National Festival of Black Storytelling. Her international appearances include performances in Ghana, South Africa, China, Switzerland, and the Cape Clear Island Storytelling Festival in Ireland.
British-born Claire Hennessy is an award-winning storyteller, producer, podcaster (The Bonkers Brit) and author. She performs funny, true and often embarrassing stories around the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been published in award-winning anthologies and is hoping to find an agent for her humorous memoir before she is too old to go on a book tour. She started an online storytelling show at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and co-produces Six Feet Apart Productions with longtime, successful comedian Regina Stoops. Together with her husband (the Tech Guru) Mark, they have produced over 40 online live storytelling shows.
Tim Livengood is going to save valuable storytelling time by abusing the short bio to do some scene-setting. He is a planetary astronomer and in 1993, while still young and cocky, he went on his third working trip to Hawaii and spent two weeks of fourteen-hour nights, at the top of a mountain, working shoulder to shoulder with just one person. That is why he ran from humanity to risk his life hiking in solitude on a volcano, even though he was not then, and is not now, a very good hiker. And that is where his story commences.
Gwendolyn Napier – Native of Atlanta and known to many as “Miss LuvDrop” the Storyteller. She has been sharing stories for over 15 years locally and out of state. Retired educator, teaching and performing artist for the Georgia Council of the Arts Teaching Registry, founder of LuvDrop Storytelling Productions, and serving as an Atlanta Early Education Ambassadors for GEEARS. Member of Kuumba Storytellers of Georgia, Southern Order of Storytellers, National Association of Black Storytellers and more.
Sam Payne hosts The Apple Seed – an award-winning national radio show – and serves as the Weber State University Storytelling Fellow. Sam has brought his stories and songs to halls in Canada, Bulgaria, Tokyo, and from coast to coast in the United States, and has written books and stage pieces, including Sanctuary: The Story of Zion for the centennial of the National Parks Service, Echoes of Hammers and Spikes (with Suzanne Christensen) for the sesquicentennial of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, and One of a Million Stars, commemorating the 14-year mission of the Mars rover Opportunity.
With a lifelong love of story, literature, and the visual arts, Kirk Waller has been immersed in these art forms for over 20 years. He summons all of his God-given talents and fuses them together, using spoken word, rhythm, music and movement to create an unforgettable storytelling experience. Kirk has told at festivals, The national storytelling festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee, schools, libraries and events across the country and beyond.
Now that you’ve met the tellers, make sure to come hear what they have to share about the amazing world all around us! Our show kicks off at 8:00 P.M. EDT. As ever, it’s a “pay what you’d like” show – with a suggested contribution of $15 and a minimum of $6. Get your ticket now!
