Adventures in Storytelling

The adventures of The Patchwork Players, Patti Christensen and James Nelson-Lucas, as they travel the dimensions of time and space, telling their tales

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Welcome aboard faithful readers and story listeners. We have checked the Patchwork Players Ships Log and found it has been three weeks since our last entry. Oh where the story telling winds have taken us…

Come aboard for a story journey with us.

Patti has sailed on with her SUAVE Arts in the Schools programs in Carlsbad every Thursday. On occasion, James comes aboard to lend a hand.

A Saturday or two ago The Patchwork Players brought Pirate Tales to a very special, private party. Aye, and there be the guest of honor, shanghaied by storytelling pirates, Patti and James.

The next day Patti told Bi-Lingual Mexican tales in Old Town, with Panchita Acevedo. What a dynamic duo! Patti tells in English, and Panchita tells in Spanish. They do not translate for each other. They tell the same tale along parallel lingual and cultural lines. This you have to see.

On the 20th of May, The Patchwork Players were part of the Orange County, Imagination Celebration. This is a county wide, month long program, dedicated to getting families interested in the arts. James and Patti were invited to participate in an event hosted by ‘The Orange Curtain Theater’ in San Juan Capistrano, California. We weighed anchor for the day. Our first set was a program and mini-workshop on ‘True (and not so true) Tales of California’. How do you bring local history to life with stories? Ask The Patchwork Players! Among the tales we told was the story of Charles M. Hatfield III, Rainmaker (a real guy). Later in the afternoon, we performed in story concert with two of our good pals; Linda King Pruitt and Adrienne McMillan. Linda King-Pruitt told a knock out version of ‘Lazy Jack” While The Patchwork Players and Adrienne McMillan both told some enthralling “what if I had a wish” type stories. Do you know what YOU would do if you if you had a wish, or two, or three? Remember what Willy Wonka said...”Be careful what you wish for, it may come true”

From there we sailed on to the San Diego Museum of Art. One of our favorite places to tell! The Museum was having one of their quarterly Family Festivals. Now we have told at a bunch of their Family Festivals. But this one was to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Museum. What does that mean to The Patchwork Players? Well, instead of developing a program for…the Asian Gallery… the Modern Gallery….the European Gallery…or the American Gallery…we had to prepare a show for each gallery! In storytelling, that is what we call heavy lifting. You had to be there to get it.

Extra Ego Strokes! We had several families come and tell us that they had seen us tell before, and that they had come to hear us tell again!

Be still our hearts. That is the kind of feedback that gets us out of bed in the morning.

What a journey!

Along the way we picked a few future gigs:

June 2nd, we will be at a special event called “A Knight of Reading”. We are invited to meld twin passions; Renaissance Tales and Literacy at an overnight event at an Elementary school. What a Joy

Then there comes the Wild West show Sponsored by the South Coast Storytellers Guild. http://storyguild.com/

The Patchwork Players and a passel of fine tellers will be corralled for your enjoyment. Come on down and see James lasso (M/C.) a herd of tellers into a rodeo into an evening of storytelling adventure!

As for June! Oi! June we have a lot going on. We will be on tour from san Diego to Salt Lake City. Then, from Libraries to LEGOLAND.

Not only that, we will be at the Sneak Preview Event for LEGOLAND California’s “Pirate Shores”. Avast, we’ll have a Pirate tale or two to tell. And bring an umbrella!!! http://www.legoland.com/California.htm

June 23rd we will be hanging’, and maybe telling a story or two at the free concert for the San Diego Highland Games http://www.sdhighlandgames.org
Our Friend Harlynne Geisler, http://www.swiftsite.com/storyteller , is a regular teller there, and we can’t resist the opportunity to stop by and tell a Celtic Story or two. Come on down, there are stories, food, fun and athletics for all.

Is there more stuff coming in June, July August and beyond? YES! Stay tuned to this station and visit www.patchworkplayers.com for more info!