Busy Fall

Welcome true believers to this episode of Adventures in Storytelling. Well the fires are dying down. But the damage will live on for years. Again, we were safe, however we know too many who were directly affected. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

In the meantime we finished this year's Brick or Treat at LEGOLAND As always we had a great time telling to families and hanging out with old friends. Brick or Treat is a great event where kids get to come and trick or treat in a fun and safe place. We do our hit and run storytelling style we call “Gotta Minute? Here a Story”. We are also “ATMO”, which is theme park speak for atmosphere. That means that we are a part of the show just by walking around in our costumes. Kids love to have their pictures taken with us. We look forward to going back again next year.

The next day we told Urban Legends ant the Oceanside Library. They had a very nice stage set up for us that looked like a street in Big City USA. We set the show up as we were two people sitting at a bus stop swapping “true” tales. We told some classic and some lesser known legends. We all know some. Some are so well known all you need is the end line. Who knows...”The call is coming from INSIDE the house!!!? That gig got us a nice write up in the local newspaper

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We then went on to do Not Too Scary Stories from San Diego to Palm Springs. We love this program. Fun for old and young alike, we offer a jolt here and there. Some spooky tales, but nothing to scare the little ones too much. We tell a bunch of the same tales we tell at San Diego Children's Hospital. So these are tried and tested tales.

We had a great honor a few weeks ago. We were guest lecturers for a class on storytelling at the University of San Diego. This is a class comprised mostly of school teachers and librarians who are working on their CEU's. We talked about our process and how to tell stories tandem style. We included some snazzy class participation bits that were well received. It was gratifying to get some very positive feedback from the participants. We know that some of what we taught will make it back to the classrooms to the edification of an unknown number of youths.

We rounded out the last two weeks with a set of

Ocean Stories, a Jewish book festival and a Hanukkah show.

The Patchwork Players were on hand at the San Diego Jewish Book Festival to tell stories to the young ones. We always love doing that show...and, as always, we left with an armload of books. To brush up on his Yiddish, James got a book titled 'From Shmere to Eternity'. A very fun read.

We went to the Children's Museumat La Habra to help promote their Ocean Adventures exhibit. We told some of our favorite ocean themed stories with an eye to conservation of our natural resources.

The next day we told (early) Hanukkah stories. We were called in by our local synagogue Congregation, B'nai Shalom, to share a few of our favorite Hanukkah stories. Some of our favorite come from the “mythical” town of Chelm, where all the citizens are fools. Also, many of the stories feature a favorite: potato ladkes! Yummy! We were followed by a troupe of talented young folks performing traditional Jewish folk dances. What a great show!

Lastly, we took a great step in Patchwork Players history! We have been working on a children's book called 'Baby Coyote' for a while now. For those of you who have not heard us tell this tale, it is the story of a baby coyote who does not know how to howl. This week we hired an artist, Jezreel Lopez, to work on the book. We are very excited to take this next step and are looking forward to having a finished product this next spring. Watch this space for further updates.

Telling stories takes us to interesting places all the time....some we visit in the stories, while other times we get to actually travel in person. All of the places are part of our magical story gathering journey.