Entertainment in a post-Super Bowl world: Storytelling in the Great Smoky Mountains
Tom Adkinson
February 04, 2009
PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. — World-traveling professional storyteller Ed Stivender will join with a half-dozen Tennessee talkers for the Pigeon Forge Storytelling Weekend on Friday and Saturday (Feb. 6-7). Pigeon Forge sits at the edge of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and views the weekend as alternative entertainment after the mania of the Super Bowl.
The area storytellers are Elizabeth Rose, Cuz Headrick, Mike and Kathy Gwinn, Sarah Bird and Sarah Filippone.
The first performance is Friday from 7-9 p.m. at the Pigeon Forge Holiday Inn and Convention Center. Admission is free.
Stivender, Elizabeth Rose, Sarah Bird and Sarah Filippone will offer a free family story hour on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Pigeon Forge Library, and the whole group of storytellers will reassemble at the Pottery House Café on Saturday from 7-9:30 p.m. for a second evening performance. Saturday night admission is a $5 donation to the Smoky Mountain Storytellers Association.
Stivender, nicknamed "the Robin Williams of storytelling," has performed at the National Storytelling Festival, the Graz Festival in Austria, the Cape Clear Island International Storytelling Festival in Ireland and the Philadelphia Folk Festival.
The Pigeon Forge Storytelling Weekend is a project of the Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism, which will produce the 18th Annual Smoky Mountains Storytelling Festival from June 4-6. The June festival is a sanctioned event on the official calendar of the 75th anniversary of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Full visitor information about Pigeon Forge is available by visiting www.MyPigeonForge.com or by calling toll-free to 1-800-251-9100.
(Adkinson first wrote about storytelling festivals in the 1970s. He now helps Pigeon Forge with its tourism efforts.)
The area storytellers are Elizabeth Rose, Cuz Headrick, Mike and Kathy Gwinn, Sarah Bird and Sarah Filippone.
The first performance is Friday from 7-9 p.m. at the Pigeon Forge Holiday Inn and Convention Center. Admission is free.
Stivender, Elizabeth Rose, Sarah Bird and Sarah Filippone will offer a free family story hour on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Pigeon Forge Library, and the whole group of storytellers will reassemble at the Pottery House Café on Saturday from 7-9:30 p.m. for a second evening performance. Saturday night admission is a $5 donation to the Smoky Mountain Storytellers Association.
Stivender, nicknamed "the Robin Williams of storytelling," has performed at the National Storytelling Festival, the Graz Festival in Austria, the Cape Clear Island International Storytelling Festival in Ireland and the Philadelphia Folk Festival.
The Pigeon Forge Storytelling Weekend is a project of the Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism, which will produce the 18th Annual Smoky Mountains Storytelling Festival from June 4-6. The June festival is a sanctioned event on the official calendar of the 75th anniversary of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Full visitor information about Pigeon Forge is available by visiting www.MyPigeonForge.com or by calling toll-free to 1-800-251-9100.
(Adkinson first wrote about storytelling festivals in the 1970s. He now helps Pigeon Forge with its tourism efforts.)
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