In Jonesborough!

After the completion of the Cave Run Festival. We drove down to Jonesborough, Tennessee, for the week of the National Storytelling Festival.

The Town of Jonesborough is all clean and decorated for the Festival.

During the week before the Festival, it is my job to be the Teller in Residence at the International Storytelling Center.  This means that I present storytelling performances each day in the Center Theatre for local residents, Jonesborough visitors, and a growing number of people each day who are arriving early for the Festival this weekend.

It also means that Trish and I get to watch the tents go up, the chairs go in, the stages erected, and the sound systems installed.  I love to do this and to walk around in the tents and on the stages as they come to life.  It is very helpful when the Festival begins to have become comfortable with all the performance spaces before actually telling stories there.  I can go back into the audience area, sit in the seats of listeners, and see what the stage looks like to them when I am later up there. I think this helps me relate to the people and the space better throughout the Festival.

The Library Tent...chairs but no stage yet.

This evening I will move from the Theatre to the Library Tent for a full evening of storytelling.  It is amazing that a full tent of people will have already arrived two days ahead of time.  This weekend is truly a homecoming event for tellers and listeners now in its forty-seventh year.