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Professional storyteller shares skills with library patrons

Workshop is part of storytelling series

Main Street Library hosts Storytelling Workshops in March 2009.

Professional storyteller Dylan Pritchett and workshop participant Elsie Duval listen as another participant shares a story on March 19 at Main Street Library in Newport News.

Elsie Duval said she attended the kickoff of the Library System’s storytelling series “by accident,” but she wasn’t about to miss the chance to learn how to tell her own stories. The 92-year-old lifelong Newport News resident hitched a ride with her friend on March 19 to get to Main Street Library for the first Storytelling Workshop.

“Everything that happens to me is a story. I’m telling it, and now I’ll be writing it,” said Duval, who is taking writing classes through the LifeLong Learning Society at Christopher Newport University, where she learned about the Newport News Public Library System’s free series on storytelling.

Duval and other workshop attendees are learning the secrets to telling a good story from one of the best in the area. Williamsburg resident Dylan Pritchett is a full-time professional storyteller who visits schools, libraries, museums and other institutions. He is on the Board of the National Association of Black Storytellers, and presents programs for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Consortium and many others.

“You have to draw people into your world and make them understand,” said Pritchett, who told the workshop participants to use their voices, as well as their bodies, to portray characters.

And he demonstrated. Minor adjustments in hand positioning allowed him to switch from a man to a woman while sitting. Adding changes in back position transformed his  shuffling older woman into a curious man, and finally a young girl, all to the delight of the audience.

While listening to the participants share their own stories, Pritchett offered suggestions on structure, memory aids, and even story titles. “You can’t shut me up; I know too much,” he offered Duval as an introduction to her story, taken from her own words.

And he had them read aloud by replacing the words with “blah, blah, blah” to learn the importance of using inflection in their voices. Workshop participants were given the assignment to write their stories, even if only using an outline or bulleted lists, before the next session.

The next Storytelling Workshops with Dylan Pritchett are 6-8 p.m., Thursday, March 26, and 3-5 p.m., Saturday, March 28, at Main Street Library. Other storytelling programs are also being offered throughout April and May.

Participants then have the opportunity to perform their story, have it privately recorded for the Library’s collection and create a visual display at the culminating event on June 6.

Storytelling Workshops are sponsored by the Newport News Public Library System’s Herbert H. Neisser Fund, and all programs are part of the Newport News Public Library System’s free 2009 series, “What’s Your Story? Share It At Your Library!” All programs are free, family-friendly and open to the public.

Please call 757-247-8875 or visit http://www.nngov.com/library for more information, the schedule of programs and to register.

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