NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, Oct. 17.
PORT ANGELES — Tales tall and short, music, Southern and Canadian accents . . .
They’re about to fill the Little Theater at Peninsula College as the Forest Storytelling Festival, the largest event of its kind in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, arrives for the weekend.
The 20th annual festival opens tonight at 6 p.m., with event tickets ranging from $2 to $20, while a full-festival pass is $80.
Five featured storytellers will give concerts tonight through Sunday, and Saturday brings a story swap, a story circle — and workshops with tantalizing names.
Storytellers of all experience levels can choose from MaryGay Ducey’s class, “Peeling the Apple,” and Jill Johnson’s “Hey Buddy . . . Got a Story? Intergenerational Telling,” the two offerings at 9 a.m. Saturday.
Then at 10:30 a.m., they can take either Jay O’Callahan’s “Ah, the Mysteries Inside Us” or Tim Tingle’s “I Pledge Allegiance to the Coat of Many Colors.”
These workshop leaders are the festival’s featured performers from across the United States. O’Callahan is from Maine; Tingle is a Texan; Ducey grew up in New Orleans and now lives in Berkeley, Calif.
Also appearing this weekend is Bryan Bowers, a storyteller and musician from Virginia.
“He has his speaking voice, and he also has the voice of his autoharp. He uses them both well,” said Cherie Trebon, director of the Forest Storytelling Festival for a decade now.
Director stepping down
She’s stepping down after this weekend as she plans to do more of her own storytelling.
Though her successor hasn’t been announced yet, Trebon said she has it on good authority that there will come a 21st Forest Storytelling Festival next year.
Trebon and the festival committee chose the featured tellers, all of whom will appear in tonight’s opening concert: Tingle, O’Callahan, Bowers, Johnson and Ducey will offer their tales at 7:30 p.m. in the Little Theater.
The five will reconvene at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and finally at 10 a.m. Sunday for the annual Concert of Inspirational Stories.
That event is the festival’s free gift to the community, Trebon noted.
Each featured teller will give his or her own performance, too, either Saturday or Sunday, with a Pacific Northwest storyteller opening the show. Forest Storytelling Festival concerts are for adults as well as children age 10 and older.
Especially for youngsters
One event is made especially for kids ages 4 to 10 and their folks: “Stories for Families,” an hourlong program in the Little Theater, will feature Bowers and Dennis Duncan, one of Port Angeles’ best-known old-fashioned entertainers.
For more information about festival events today through Sunday, visit www.ClallamStoryPeople.org or phone registrar Jan Lamont at 425-273-5929.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
