Best Friends

Noa Baum

Noa Baum is an award-winning storyteller, educator and public speaker performing internationally with diverse audiences ranging from the World Bank and prestigious universities and congregations, to festivals, government agencies, schools, and detention centers.

Born and raised in Jerusalem Noa offers a unique combination of performance art and practical workshops that focus on the power of stories to heal across the divides of identity and build bridges for peace.

Her stories, drawn from diverse cultures, her own Jewish heritage and personal experience, highlight our similarities, celebrate our differences, and encourage curiosity, awareness, and acceptance.

 

Norah Dooley

Norah Dooley is a storyteller, educator, critically acclaimed children’s author and creator of StoriesLive®, a high school storytelling curriculum and story slam program. She is the co-founder of massmouth.org and the Greater Boston Story Slam series.

 

 

 

Music by Podington Bear!

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BOOM!

 

Donna Washington

Donna L. Washington is a professional storyteller, actress, and author. She started performing at age six. She has adapted folktales into two full-length stage productions at Chicago’s Upstage Downstage Theater and performed at numerous storytelling festivals. She is the author of “The Story of Kwanzaa, and she received a Parents’ Choice Award for her recording “Live and Learn: The Exploding Frog and Other Stories.

 

Robin Bady

Award-winning storyteller Robin Bady performs and teaches throughout the United States, Germany, Ireland and China in theaters, cafes, schools, museums, festivals and online. She loves all stories, particularly true ghost stories told by the person who experienced the “presence”.  She frequently partners with instrument builder Skip LaPlante and violinist Concetta Abbate – their latest project is “The Rootabaga Stories” by Carl Sandburg. She is the host of the celebrated monthly storytelling series, BADYHouse Storytelling Concerts, which takes place in her home. Connect with her on Facebook!
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Just Rewards (with Guest Host Simon Brooks)

Elisa Pearmain

Elisa began her storytelling career by working for ten years as a Storyteller in Residence in the Boston Public Schools. There she came to appreciate and tell stories from the many diverse cultures that the children represented. Other early storytelling experiences included collecting stories from Vietnam Veterans and sharing them with high school, college and adults in a program called, The Defoliated Heart. She also led groups of women to share and learn from their stories together. These experiences helped to inspire her belief in the power of stories to heal.

Recently her most popular storytelling programs  in the schools are on character education and bullying prevention through story. She received a grant in 2002 to study character education through story from the National Storytelling Network.

She is a currently a board member of The Healing Story Alliance www.healingstory.org and is an active member of The League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling (LANES), and past Board member.  You can learn more about LANES and the storytelling conference at www.lanes.org

 

Clare Murphy 

Clare is a storyteller. She travels the world and tells stories. From mainstages of theatres to medieval roundtowers Clare has told tales for all ages in more than 20 countries. Her work includes the political folkloric work such as her Syrian piece “The King of Lies” to playful pieces like UniVerse which explores where quantum physics, philosophy and mythology meet. She performs in English. She occasionally performs in Spanish when asked. Clare’s wide repertoire of stories includes traditional folklore to ancient mythology, to reportage to historical tales. Clare also performs at festivals, art centres, universities, public and private events, conferences and schools.  She is a storyteller, performer, writer, dramaturg, curiosist, teacher, consultant, wanderer, wonderer and maker.

 

Guest HostSimon Brooks

Simon Brooks is an award-winning British storyteller living in America – actually, New London, New Hampshire, New England, New World!  He also uses his voice to record audio books. He is also a poet, writer, photographer, and educator.

Order his new book Under The Oaken Bough and listen to his new podcast Conversations with Storytellers to hear what it is like to perform storytelling for a living from some living legends!

 

 

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Light from the Candles

Joel Ben Izzy

It was back in 1983 that he graduated from Stanford with a self-designed degree in English, Creative Writing and Storytelling, and set off to travel the world, gathering and telling stories. Since then he has told stories and taught storytelling in some 36 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

With every stop on his itinerary, his repertoire of stories has grown. Some are tales from people he meets on the road, and others he finds are traditional tales from the places he’s traveled. Then there are the stories that seem to find him – and stick. These are true stories, more or less, and what he’s come to love over the years is the blend of all these stories together.

 

Cindy Rivka Marshall

Whether she is performing, teaching, facilitating or consulting, Cindy Rivka Marshall is guided by her value of respect for all.

Cindy tells multicultural and Jewish stories with universal lessons that resonate with her sense of wonder. She teaches storytelling, communication, interviewing and listening skills, and story-based approaches to teaching. Cindy creates safe environments for participants to speak and be heard. As a consultant, Cindy facilitates groups to articulate their values and message and build a sense of community.

Cindy has performed stories and presented workshops since 1989 throughout New England, nationally and in England, at festivals, conferences, schools, libraries, synagogues, churches and community groups. She studied acting, movement improvisation and storytelling with Julie Portman, Daena Giardella, Marsha Hiller, Elisa Pearmain, Peninnah Schram and others.

Music by Podington Bear!

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Haunted Messengers

 

Laura Packer

Laura Packer has been telling stories her whole life – her mother reports she was born talking. The daughter of a children’s librarian and a writer, it seems inevitable that she become a storyteller and writer herself, since her childhood was steeped in narrative. By second grade, Laura was telling stories to her classmates, creating her own magazines and writing letters to the editor of her hometown newspaper; her deep love of fairytales and mythology eventually led her to obtain a degree in Folklore and Mythology from Boston University. Imagine her surprise when she discovered, upon graduating, that there isn’t a crying need for folklorists!

Undaunted by the lack of job openings for folklorists, Laura has built a career helping people and organizations find their own story, performing original and traditional tales around the world, and creating written narrative that draws the reader into new possibilities.

Janice Del Negro


Janice M. Del Negro, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois.

Del Negro has been a featured storyteller at the National Storytelling Festival, the Bay Area Storytelling Festival, the Illinois Storytelling Festival, the Fox Valley Folk Festival, and many others. She has conducted workshops on various aspects of storytelling and narrative for librarians, teachers, parents, storytellers, and other educators in a variety of settings, including the National Storytelling Network Annual Conference, the Illinois School Library Media conference, the University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of San Diego. Her most recent recording, Fortune’s Daughters: Ghost Tales and Folktales, was released in October, 2010.

Music for this episode by Kai Engel.

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Episode Three: What Will You Give Me?

Story Story Podcast Family Podcast

Hear it on iTunesStitcher and Google Play.

 

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Ilan Glazer

Rabbi Ilan is honored to be Rabbi of Beth Sholom Synagogue. Rabbi Ilan grew up in Conservative synagogues and schools, USY youth groups, and Camp Ramah. He has worked with many Jewish environmental and social justice organizations and has led Jewish trips in the U.S., Costa Rica, and Israel. Rabbi Ilan has brought his unique blend of Torah, humor, music, and insights from the storytelling, personal growth and public speaking disciplines to synagogues, schools, JCC’s, retreat centers, and army bases throughout the Jewish world. Prior to coming to Beth Sholom, Rabbi Ilan was the spiritual leader of Temple Beth El of North Bergen, NJ.
Connect with him on Facebook!
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Asha Sampath

Asha is an educator turned storyteller.  She believes in the magical power of stories to connect, communicate and transform. She is passionate about helping revive the oral tradition and began a social media page “Tale Spin: a platform for stories” to spread awareness about stories and storytelling. Enjoys telling interactive stories to audiences of all age groups. Conducts storytelling workshops for children and adults and mentors budding storytellers.
Connect with her on Facebook!
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