perform stories in tandem style for audiences from PreK through adult
have an average of 20 hours worth of material on hand at any one time
frequently mix and match stories in order to create programs appropriate for just about any age group, curricular theme or event

Performances of world folktales and music with seasonal change & holiday-related themes. Custom combinations available to meet particular needs.

Programs using international folk & fairy tales as starting points to incentify students’ interest in reading, encouraging the seeking of similar tale-types, and giving ideas of story-related creative projects.

Folktales have been used throughout history as teaching tools for character and moral education. Programs focus on various aspects of character education, using stories as building blocks and examples for class discussion.

Got an idea? Perhaps you have a theme that you would like met in a performance of world folklore? Call us up and let’s discuss it! Many of The Storycrafters’ best ideas for shows have come up working directly with a sponsor to create a custom-designed performance! The Sky’s The Limit!!!!

Follow-up Workshops allow students to meet and experience The Storycrafters in ways not possible in an assembly program:

1. Classroom-size workshops give the students a chance to try various aspects of the storytelling artform on themselves.

2. Students develop their language and speaking skills, imaginations, and knowledge about the performing arts.

3. Finally, students can ask questions about The Storycrafters’ stories, instruments, and education.

With K-2 classes, The Storycrafters choose one story from the assembly program and enter into exercises and games with the students to review the story. Students develop their concentration, imagination, and dramatic representation. We explore the characters, settings, and moods of the story, encouraging students to enter into the tale in a playful manner. The exercises are easily followed up by the teacher with murals, drawings, and discussions. Note: desks will need to be moved aside to allow free movement in the classroom.

In follow-up workshops with grades 3-6, The Storycrafters give an introduction to the art of storytelling, exploring the inner and outer preparation of the storyteller. Starting with a short folk-tale, we run the students through a series of exercises to help students; 1. learn the story; 2. explore their imaginative and descriptive abilities, and; 3. develop their dramatic speaking skills. By the end of the workshop, all students have told the tale to a partner. The exercises are easily followed up by the teacher with creative writing, drawing, and public speaking.

Follow-up workshops always include time for students to ask questions of The Storycrafters. Students have interesting questions and ideas about the stories we tell, the instruments we use, and the work we do. We believe it is important to allow the students to explore their world and ask questions about the things that interest them. Answers are given in such a way as to encourage students to look further into whatever subject they are interested in, whether with their teacher, librarian, or parent.

Workshops for Teens and Adults

The Power of Two:

A Workshop in Tandem Storytelling

  An in-depth workshop for folks interested in the world of tandem storytelling.  The first part of the workshop is devoted to exercises & techniques for developing the tandem form.  We’ll send everyone off with a partner & a tale to practice.  The final half hour will be a coaching and cajoling session.  We will share what we’ve come up with in practice and look at ideas and directions to go with tandem storytelling. 

Music, Rhythm, and Chants: Make Your Story Dance

A Workshop in Adding Music to Stories

Anyone can add music, rhythm and chants to their stories, yet doing so is a delicate business.  In this workshop, Barry and Jeri will share insights, tips and their own musical instruments with participants.  Everyone will have a chance to play them and try making music in story.  This workshop is targeted to anyone with an interest in learning how to do this.  Because of some of the exercises that we will do, a large room would be a good thing! 

A Workshop in Imagination,

Creative Play, and Story Development

Get ready for an imagination workout!  This workshop is comprised of a series of exercises, easily adapted for work with children, for creative writing, for family reunions, etc.  Several of the exercises are particularly good for situations when you want to "break the ice."  Each exercise has its nonsensical, goofy side and its practical, developmental side.  Out of our playful exercises will emerge original stories to take home and tell.  The ridiculous and the sublime are truly connected!  Laugh and have fun while stretching your image-making skills!

A Workshop of Next Steps in Storytelling and Story Writing

  How can we work with the tales of olde and enjoy them in new ways that expand our understanding of story?  This workshop looks at these and other questions through discussion, demonstration, and participatory exercises in creative tale-twisting, to come to a deeper understanding of our place within the world of folklore and oral tradition.  For tellers interested in expanding techniques for re-telling of traditional tales, and teachers looking for new ways to teach about story.

A Workshop for Beginning Storytellers

We all have stories to tell, whether they are traditional tales, personal experiences, or created imaginings.  Yet we all don’t tell our tales. “I don’t know how.”  “I’m too nervous.”  “I can’t tell stories like so-and-so.”    In this participatory workshop, we will create a safe atmosphere for participants to leap off the storytelling diving board.  We will share oral expression skills, selected methods for developing a tale for telling, and some helpful hints.  Participants will have the opportunity to practice their own unique telling of a tale in front of others.   You won’t leave this workshop telling a story ‘just like so-and-so’; instead, you will be on the road to telling a story ‘just like you.’

An Intermediate/Advanced Workshop in Storytelling Skills

A Multi-Generational Beginning Storytelling Workshop

A Workshop for Teachers, Librarians, and In-service Trainings

                A pastiche of techniques designed to facilitate storytelling in educational settings.  This workshop varies based on sponsor request and workshop length, but can include: audience participation; finger plays; quick story-learning techniques; adapting stories to curriculum; story stretches and more.  The goal is feasibility of integrating storytelling into demanding schedules.   

Turn your school into another world from times of olde, when storytellers joined guilds, practiced their craft, then wandered from village to village sharing their tales with all who lived there. Barry & Jeri work intensively with small groups of students, developing their skills as storytellers, and preparing them for classroom performances in younger classes in the school. Skills include: story-learning; understanding story structure (i.e.: beginning, middle and end); vocal and physical storytelling techniques; descriptive language; audience participation and management; and listening and critiquing skills.
On the last day of the residency, student tellers go, in groups of four, to younger classrooms in the school and tell their tales to small groups of students in the classes. Storytellers perform for one quarter of a classroom at a time, allowing student tellers who would be uncomfortable performing in a large assembly the chance to experience being a storyteller. Younger students get to hear four different storytellers, and tellers get to tell their tales four times, allowing them the chance to retry and improve upon their work each time..
Other options for this residency can include visits to local nursing homes, hospitals, & other possible community venues.

What if you could have a professional storyteller come to your classroom and tell tales and songs which match your own individual curriculum? Barry & Jeri travel your school, visiting each classroom for 45 minutes (max. 4/day), sharing from their bag of stories and songs selections appropriate to each room’s particular learning for the year. They carry along with them, on a cart supplied to them by the school, their collection of ethnic musical instruments to use in their performance visits, and to let the students try. Students have the opportunity to communicate and interact with us in ways impossible in large assembly settings. It’s truly storytelling as it was meant to be!!

This residency works best when The Storycrafters are supplied, at least 2 months in advance, with a list of teachers for each grade and the specific elements of their curriculum. That way we can mix and match stories from our repertoire with new material specifically developed for the residency. Our goal is to tell at least one curricular-based story in each classroom. Teacher requests can be geared to language arts, social studies (including culture and geography), science, and much more!! Barry & Jeri will tell age-appropriate stories in every classroom, to excite students about the power of language, and to stimulate their interest in reading and in learning about other cultures.

The world of stories and storytelling is a mystical one for young children. It is the place where real-life magic still exists. It taps the imagination, the place where we can create something out of nothing, and where we can make anything happen. Just what happens when we tell a story to an audience, both to us as performers, and to those who listen?

In this residency, we start with five blank spaces on the blackboard. During the days of the residency, we fill in the blanks with the letters, “I GIVE”, and discover an acronym containing the elements of a well-told story. What are they? Well, you can’t expect me to tell you everything…

Using word and story games, explanation and examples, and good old-fashioned telling of tales, we gently explore the world of the folktale, discovering along the way, just how powerful and poignant it can be to simply hear a story told well. Classes learn stories to tell at home, and learn and practice storytelling skills all through the residency. By the end of the story ‘journey’, students are ready to take the skills they’ve learned and start using them with the stories they’ve heard. Thus, they can begin to share the ‘gift of a story’ with those they love.

Take your class on a child’s-eye-view experience of world cultures!! Barry & Jeri spend 45 minutes a day in up to four classrooms, for several days, each day focusing on a different world culture. We will share stories, songs, music, dance and handicrafts (where appropriate), song, and children’s games from that culture, all along the way relating cultural and social information in “homeopathic doses” to the students as they play, listen, and sing along with us. Over the days we spend with the students, we will compare and contrast the cultures, exploring the diversity and universals amongst the world’s peoples.

Our current repertoire of cultures for The World Hop Residency includes African, Asian, Brazilian, British Isles, Native American, & non-native American cultures. Other cultures can be developed at a school’s request, with a minimum 2(two) months advance notice.

Join The Storycrafters as we work together with a classroom to re-create the old days of radio drama! Supplied with scripts written by the Storycrafters, based on tales from international folklore, students practice and perform, in front of microphones, the piece of work. Spoken roles, vocal, physical, & object-created sound effects, and music can be included in the performance. Each class is provided with a CD of the performance at the end of the residency. Skills include: Reading, vocabulary, concentration, public speaking, interpretation, listening skills, teamwork and group development.