Join us for our two-day festival to experience the power of live storytelling.
Acclaimed storytellers will present hours of stories and music to entertain and warm your heart.
Four Showcase performances on Friday and Saturday.
FULL EVENT tickets also available.
SENSORY FRIENDLY Showcase on Saturday morning. Sensory-Friendly: This performance will welcome up to 75 guests, allowing extra space and a calmer environment. The theater will remain gently lit rather than fully dark, and sound levels will be slightly softer to create a more comfortable experience. A designated break area will also be available, where the performance will be streamed on a TV, so no one misses a moment. This showcase is designed to be movement-friendly and relaxed. Audience members are welcome to wiggle, shift, and express themselves without the expectation of complete silence. The stories will be short, accompanied by visual aids and interaction with the storytellers.
All performances are family-friendly.
MO REYNOLDS tells stories that spark imagination and start conversations. Since her breakout on the Exchange Place stage at the National Storytelling Festival in 2022, she has returned to the National twice and won over audiences at festivals across the country. Braiding folk tales with personal narrative, Mo brings reflection, laughter, and insight in equal measure. Known online as “Miss Mo Storyteller,” she travels the world through story — a new tale every week, a new country every month.
REV. ROBERT B. JONES, SR. is a renaissance man: a professional musician for over forty years, an ordained Baptist pastor for more than twenty, and a nationally recognized storyteller for over fifteen — and he brings all three to the stage at once. An award-winning player of guitar, harmonica, mandolin, banjo, fiddle, and ukulele, he was named a leading blues educator by the National Blues Foundation and is a Kresge Arts Fellow and Michigan Heritage Award recipient. At the heart of his work: our cultural diversity tells a story worth celebrating.
CHARLOTTE BLAKE-ALSTON For more than thirty years, Charlotte Blake-Alston has carried the stories of African and African American oral tradition from the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian to festivals on four continents — accompanied by djembe, mbira, and the 21- stringed kora. The first storyteller ever to perform with The Philadelphia Orchestra, she is now its Official Storyteller, Narrator and Host, and hosted Carnegie Hall’s Family Concert Series for seventeen seasons. Her honors include a Pew Fellowship and the Zora Neale Hurston Award, the highest given by the National Association of Black Storytellers.
ANDY RUSSELL grew up in North Carolina in a family full of natural storytellers, and it shows — his tales of grandparents, cane-pole fishing, and music with friends land with warmth and a songwriter’s ear for a good line, honed during his years in Nashville. Reigning StorySlam Champion of Six Feet Apart Productions, he has appeared at the Georgia Mountain, Stone Soup, and Cracker storytelling festivals, with featured spots at Suncoast and Florida Storytelling still to come. He lives in Ocala with his dog and a three-legged cat.
website:
https://www.oldnorthstatestorytellingfestival.com/
