Workshops

Around the Global Campfire: Storytelling on Zoom with Marin Millenaar

Sunday, April 11
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
$25.00
via Zoom

Join Marin Millenaar for a workshop on using Zoom as a storytelling medium. More than just a piece of software, you can use the relatively new medium in such a way that you can make contact with your audience at a socially desired distance. The camera is a direct link to you and your audience, as if you’re making eye contact with every person listening, but there are many other ways to use your camera to draw people deeper into your story. Learn how to best use the program and make it more than just a video call, make it an experience!

Marin Millenaar tells folk tales, fairy tales and fables from all over the world, but also fantastic, autobiographical, literary and improvised stories, for young and old. In many stories Marin makes music, which is then an integral part of it. For years he has been telling his stories in front of a live audience, but since May 2020 has skilled himself to be able to tell stories via Zoom as well.

The price is $25.00 and the workshop will run 2 hours via Zoom.

To register please e-mail storytellingstjohns@gmail.com .
Payments can be sent via e-transfer to storytellingstjohns@gmail.com using the password: Story, or by cheque to the St. John’s Storytelling Festival, PO Box 23084 Churchill Square, St. John’s, NL, A1B4J9.

From Ordinary to Extraordinary: Personal Stories with Vicki Juditz

Sunday, April 18
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
$25.00
via Zoom

Join Vicki Juditz for an exciting workshop on personal storytelling. Learn how to shape true life events into compelling narratives, how to mine seemingly ordinary memories for extraordinary gems. The camaraderie or conflict of a family dinner, the joys or woes of a wedding or funeral, the struggle to come to terms with one’s own identity–any of these might be the spark for an unforgettable tale. In the workshop, we will focus on attention-getting openings, moments of transformation, and meaningful conclusions. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn how to keep an audience on the edge of their seats.

“Vicki Juditz is a born storyteller….What sets her writing, and her performance, apart is her sense of humor, and an eye for the incongruous and ridiculous.” LA TIMES

VICKI JUDITZ has performed her original stories at theaters and festivals across the US and beyond, including the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN, the Aspen LAFF festival, and the Jewish Arts Festival of Hong Kong. A frequent Moth StorySLAM and GrandSLAM winner in Los Angeles, she welcomed the selection of her story “Swing Dancing” to air on The Moth Radio Hour. TV audiences may remember her in comic roles on COACH, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, MY NAME IS EARL, and YES, DEAR, as well as in countless television commercials.

Once Upon a Happily Ever After: Alternative Story Structures with Bruce Marcus

Sunday, April 25
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
$25.00
via Zoom

Join Bruce Marcus for a workshop on alternative story structures. Rather than telling stories in the usual beginning, middle, climax and ending order, one can start by plunging listeners (or readers) right off into the climax, and then back up to the beginning and tell the tale. Or we could interweave two or more parallel plots.

In the workshop Bruce will identify a number of alternative structures and give participants a chance to pick one and test drive it on a well-known fairy tale or other story of their choice. It can be a good exercise to get the creative juices flowing, shake things up a bit and look at stories in a new way.

Bruce Marcus is a storyteller from Boston, Massachusetts who has been regaling audiences throughout New England for three decades with his fresh-as-mint, original true-life and made-up stories, poems and songs. Equally comfortable in rhyme and out, he is a story slam winner and seasoned emcee. Bruce has been featured in many spoken word, coffeehouse, cable TV and other performing arts series, as well as at a number of festivals and on PBS World Channel’s Stories from the Stage. Called “My son!” by late storytelling legend Brother Blue – loudly, publicly, emphatically and often – Bruce serves as committee member, feature coordinator and frequent host for the long-running weekly Boston area storytelling series started in 1992 by Brother Blue and his wife Ruth Edmonds Hill, now known as The Story Space.

Earned Wisdom with Liz Weir

Sunday, May 30
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
$25.00
via Zoom

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This event has been Rescheduled to May 30th!
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As Children’s Librarian for the City of Belfast, she learned about the healing power of storytelling. Liz Weir is a storyteller and writer from Northern Ireland. She was the first winner of the International Story Bridge Award from the National Storytelling Network, USA, which cited her “exemplary work promoting the art of storytelling”.

Join Liz Weir for a workshop with the aim to show how storytelling can effectively promote inter-generational activity, preserve memories, improve self esteem and value the memories and contribution of older members of our community. It links the past, present and future. The presentation will be inter-active and practical.

She has told her stories to people of all ages on five continents. She has performed in pubs and prisons and hospital rooms. She worked on stages in the mighty Vanderbilt Hall of New York’s Grand Central Station and in the Royal Albert Hall.

Around the Global Campfire: Storytelling on Zoom with Marin Millenaar

Sunday, April 1111:00 am – 1:00 pm$25.00via Zoom