Of trolls

Photo: Closeup of a Troll, by Jotulloch, used under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license

I recently had the honor of being one of three storytellers asked to tell a story about a piece of local folklore: the troll that guarded the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for 24 years after the Loma Prieta earthquake, on display at a local museum.

One of the other storytellers, Kirk Waller, asked me if I had ever created a story around an object before, and I said no. I had certainly told stories in museums before, but always fairy tales and folk tales that aligned with the exhibits on display, no originally created work. But then, upon further reflection, I had to admit:

The very first story I ever told when I began my storytelling journey was, in fact, an original tale about a troll. 

When I was introduced to the art of storytelling in a literature class in college, my professor asked us to learn a story to tell at a local elementary school. Though most of my fellow students learned folktales to tell, I happened to have my own troll, and when I showed it to my teacher she immediately said, "you have to bring your troll and tell the children a story about him."

Why did I have a troll? I had spent much of my free time in dormitory with one of my buddies who had a how-to book on building monsters out of papier mâché. With coat hangers, newspaper, white glue, a discarded tablecloth, some modeling clay, and paint, he and I created a three-foot tall blue troll. We named him Floyd, and he promptly ended up having his own adventures at college. (Lesson learned: if you leave a three-foot tall blue troll out where other college students can interact with it, they will. And he might be gone for days or weeks at a time)

For my class assignment, I crafted a tale about a lonely monster who lived under a bridge (in fact, the Golden Gate Bridge). I don't recall exactly how the story went, although I recall using Ray Bradbury's 1951 short story "The Fog Horn" (aka "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms") as inspiration, but had a happy ending when the lonely troll found community with the monsters in residence at Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects house then located in Marin County, just north of the bridge.

  Over the next few years I created a handful of other trolls, using the same paper and cloth mâché technique. Some I gave away as gifts. Two smaller ones, have stayed with me, and currently keep watch over my basement. (It may not be the most practical way to keep goats away... but it works! We've never had billy goats enter our house).

Sadly, Floyd and I parted about twenty years ago. I was out of the country, participating in North America's oldest and largest Fringe Festival, and upon my return, Floyd was gone.

The large dumpster outside of my rented house might have had something to do with it (I'd been evicted), but though I dove in and recovered many personal items from the dumpster, Floyd was not among them. I like to think he wandered off in search of a new home, and that he found a new bridge to call his own.

Shout Out: “Bawdy Storytelling” Turns Six

 

Blythe Baldwin tells a story
at Bawdy's Sixth Anniversary Show
Photo credit: Queerly Yours

  As I walked into San Francisco’s Verdi Club on a recent Saturday night, every single one of the 300 seats in the venue was full; it was standing room only for a night of storytelling.    There was an excited buzz in the air, helped along by a live DJ and the Club’s full bar. If you had been there, you would certainly have recognized the familiar conventions of a traditional storytelling event: the friendly emcee with a Southern accent welcoming “y’all,” an opening song referencing several fairy tale characters; and then the stories on stage: a story about dealing with parents; a story about a challenging first day on the job; a memoir of a journey to self-discovery, love, and family; and a tale of “how we first met.”

  The fact that Swedish public television had a camera crew to cover this event might have been your first clue that this would not be your ordinary night of true stories.  

  The second clue might be in the details: those stories I mentioned about parents, work, love and meeting also happen to involve, respectively: a gynecological exam, prostitution, transsexuality, and animal role play and fetishism. 

  And that was just the first half of the show.

  Welcome to Bawdy Storytelling, the nation’s original live storytelling series featuring true stories about human sexuality. 

      Dixie De La Tour, the show’s producer, founder, and emcee, started Bawdy Storytelling six years ago. It was originally an informal story swap, a coffee klatsch for her friends in San Francisco’s vibrant sex-positive community.

  But as audience interest from others grew, “I started curating the storytellers,” says De La Tour. “I could get more people to come if they could see in the program that they themselves weren’t on the bill.”  

  As a producer, much of De La Tour’s time is spent recruiting storytellers. Apart from a handful of professional authors, poets, stand-up comics, and storytellers who appear on the Bawdy stage, most of the time she gets ordinary people to tell their stories. There’s no shortage of “real people” in San Francisco who have an interesting sex life. 

Bawdy Storytelling Founder Dixie De La Tour

Photo credit: Queerly Yours

  Once she finds a willing storyteller, then it’s coaching time: De La Tour works with her tellers to hone the story down to its essence, cutting away asides and dead ends, and encouraging her tellers to focus not on a polished monologue that you might hear at The Moth, but on telling as if you were at a party sharing your best story with friends. She has them make a visual map of their story, a story board, to help with structure. Finally, the six tellers featured at a particular event come together for a rehearsal. During the actual show, De La Tour remains onstage with her tellers, to give them support (the tellers might very well be uninhibited when it comes to sexuality, but even the uninhibited can be afraid of public speaking) and to provide a friendly face to tell to (the stage lighting makes it difficult to see the seated audience).

  By and large, the tellers play to a receptive audience. 

  But depending on your comfort level with the subject of sex, the show may not be for you. As an audience member, you will hear intimate details of the performers’ sex lives, told live, in public, with words you may not be accustomed to hearing spoken aloud in public. (The level of profanity varies from teller to teller, but given the subject matter, the language is always colorful and often graphic). The images and situations that come up in the stories can be edgy, even shocking. 

  But the goal of Bawdy has never been titillation. It’s about celebrating sexuality, in all its diversity, through storytelling. (Admittedly, that pitch does not sell as many tickets as the tagline, “The Moth for Pervs,” quoted from an LA Weekly review).

     It’s often the case that audience members might hear about experiences that they may never have conceived were possible. De La Tour likes the idea of expanding people’s perceptions. “My hope is that an audience member may hear about an experience, maybe something they’ve never imagined, and they get interested, and they can go up and talk to that storyteller and find out more.” (Indeed, at the show I attended, I saw several curious audience members at intermission pepper one of the storytellers with questions about the leather-clad “human puppy” that she had on leash that night).

  Mosa Maxwell-Smith, a storyteller and improviser from Oakland, described listening to stories at Bawdy in this way: 

"I can be a very judgemental person. I can't imagine having anything in common with some people when I first meet them, but then I hear their stories and—wow—my mind is blown! I love it when a story shatters my preconceptions and allows me to feel deeply connected to someone I otherwise might not have ever known."

  As for the future of Bawdy, De La Tour continues to recruit storytellers. She has added a “Bawdy Slam” night as a way to encourage more people to share their stories. She’s recently inaugurated a Bawdy series in Los Angeles, and is working on BawdyTalks (TEDTalks for the sex-positive community).  

  I asked Blythe Baldwin, a slam poet and visual artist from San Francisco who has performed at Bawdy many times, to sum up its significance to the community: 

"The importance of Bawdy, as a storyteller and an audience member, is that it offers catharsis in an area that many of us keep secret of out of shame or fear.  When you tell a story, you speak truth to life, and when you own your sexual experiences you own the very thing that makes you human: your wishes, your desires, and your capacity to love. Bawdy brings people together through all of that."

  Learn about upcoming Bawdy Storytelling shows at www.bawdystorytelling.com.

Shout Out: Fireside Storytelling (San Francisco)

I've been so wrapped up in watching storytelling online lately, that I had to take a breather tonight and head out to see some real, live storytelling.

So I headed across the bridge to the Climate Theatre, a cozy 50-seat black box in San Francisco, to see Fireside Storytelling, a new monthly series of personal storytelling.

I had a great time--despite the fact that, as you longtime readers will recall--I don't even particularly like personal storytelling as a genre.

Six storytellers plus a story from the emcee. A theme, tonight's was "I faked it," which was interpreted in a variety of ways by the tellers.

Why did I enjoy the show so much?

The enthusiasm of the producers. The cozy feeling of gathering in a small room to hear stories on a rainy night. An aesthetic of "sitting up late at the kitchen table with really interesting people." A lack of polish (but not a lack of confidence). A chance to see storytelling in its natural habitat... okay, it was on a stage, under theatrical lighting... but from people who hadn't crafted the story as part of an eight week class, or a day-long workshop... just people who the producers knew were good at telling stories from their lives.

Overall, the evening had a decidedly different feel for personal storytelling from the carefully polished sentiment and nostalgia that graces so many of the storytelling community's stages. Neither did it have the alcohol-fueled agitation of other established personal storytelling nights.

I suspect this series, just three months old, could well become a beloved institution in San Francisco.

Storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham on Alabama's Ghost Trail

While combing through YouTube for video of storytellers, I found a terrific interview with Alabama storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham, recorded for the Alabama Ghost Trail (a project of Southwest Alabama Tourism). She's mostly not telling stories in the interview (though there are a few), but talking about storytelling, so I thought I'd let her do the talking. (Interview in three parts, about 30 minutes total)

Part 1, she talks about ghost stories, and a little about her own ghost, Jeffrey.


Part 2: More about Jeffrey, the importance of storytelling in the Southern United States and her part of Alabama, blue bottle trees, and family storytelling.


Part 3: telling ghost stories to children, why ghosts come back, collecting and preserving ghost stories.


These videos were produced by Matt Wilson in association with the University of Alabama Fellows Experience and Southwest Alabama Tourism. You can find more videos from the Alabama Ghost Trail at: http://www.youtube.com/user/AlabamasGhostTrail

Why Memoir? Part 3.4

In the various responses to my question (Why are audiences eating up personal memoir as a genre at storytelling events?), people suggested to me that personal memoir stories would appeal to:

1) folks who grew up deprived of these types of tales told round the kitchen table (and damn the television for it!); or,

2) folks who grew up with these types of tales told round the kitchen table, and miss that (damn that television!); or,

3) folks who grew up deprived of traditional tales (damn television!) and as a consequence can't relate to traditional tales, ergo, by default, prefer personal tales.

(What is it with storytellers and television? I'll gladly throw mine out the window too, but you'll have to pry my cold dead fingers off my high-speed internet connection before I give up episodes of Lost streamed to my computer.)

So which is it?

Are audiences hungering for something they've never had?
Or something they once had and lost?

Did your family tell stories, either around the dinner table or at gatherings of the extended clan? Does that experience have any impact on how you feel about hearing personal stories at storytelling events?

2nd Story: A Great Idea

A follow up to my previous post.

Normally, I wouldn't rise to the bait of an anonymous poster, but she called me on my snark, and this made me realize something that Sean has commented on before: from my blog postings, the reader can't tell what I actually feel about a subject. So here's an update.

Over in Chicago, Serendipity Theatre Company's got a good thing going with 2nd story, a monthly series and annual festival featuring personal storytelling at a popular wine bar. It sells out. It gets good press. It develops writers' performance skills and actors' writing skills. It celebrates the art of the well-told story.

And storytelling plus wine? That's a damn good idea. I wish more o.g. storytelling events featured wine.

Would that any venue I tell stories in is featured in a Zagat guide.

Jealous much? Yes, I am.

Because the old school storytelling community has missed the boat on this one. Dropped the ball. I looked at the roster of 2nd Story's storytellers. I looked at the behind-the-scenes organizers. I looked at the sponsors. Don't see any of the old guard. I can see storytellers skipping over WNEP's Skald (it's off-Loop, it's fringe, it's under-the-radar). I don't see how they could have missed this one.

(Am I missing something from two thousand miles away, just relying on Google? Yes, yes I am. Fill me in, Chicagoland people)

In my previous post, my use of the word "cringeworthy" wasn't a swipe at Ms. Stielstra, for her definition of storytelling. It was a swipe at the Chicago Storytelling Guild, who are either invisible or irrelevant in the Chicago arts community.

My remarks on the wine tasting at 2nd Story wasn't meant to be a swipe at the event. I just don't understand (not being an experienced wine taster or frequenter of wine bars myself) how the wine tasting and the storytelling go together. An organized wine tasting seems to me much more formal and stuffy than the communal, relaxed vibe that the storytelling can bring out. But I haven't been there. It works for 2nd Story.

2nd Story shows two things about the American Storytelling Revival:
1. That the Jonesborough, Tennessee-centric movement that started 35 years ago has narrowed its vision and become so inward-focused that it misses opportunities to connect with new audiences. (I've been saying this on the blog since the beginning)
2. The Revival of Storytelling will continue without them. The theatre and literary community, in recognizing the power of the personal story, are celebrating the art of storytelling. Hell, the business community, from "knowledge management" experts to marketing and branding gurus are carrying the storytelling torch, too (to my chagrin).

So, I apologize for not being clear.

But just we know, going forward: I've got my own biases and preferences:

I don't particularly care for personal memoir as a genre. (As if that's not clear already from my numerous entries on the toopic)

And reading a story out loud off of a piece of paper is storyreading, not storytelling, and isn't a performance art. And putting it on YouTube doesn't make it a better experience.

I like wine.

Storytelling: What Radio Does Best

DCist covers a lecture by Ira Glass, host of National Public Radio's This American Life. Glass tells his audience, as he has many times before, that storytelling is what radio does best, and that it’s hardly ever used for that purpose.

Which I find ironic now that This American Life is starting its SECOND season as a television show. (Storytelling may not be what television does best, but it's almost always used for that purpose).
(Has anyone seen the show? I haven't looked at the DVD of Season One yet.)

And coming up May 1 a live version of TAL will be broadcast via a digital satellite video feed (everywhere except the West Coast). Only this live event will show clips from the upcoming TV season. Wait. What?

Fans will go to movie theatres to watch a live feed of a radio host showing clips from a TV show? WTF?

DCist article: "Empathy is What Makes Us Sane."

---

With all my complaints about personal memoir dominating the storytelling scene, you'd think I'd be down on TAL. Funnily enough, while I do have complaints about the show, it's not their choice of genre. It's their style and tone I that mars the compelling storytelling (i.e. their need to explain the moral of every story and their overreliance on the personal memoirs of their own production team (Blumberg, Glass, Hitt, Goldstein, Updike, Vowell, etc. --all very talented writers and editors, but frankly, when it comes to determining how interesting their own lives are, they're not by any means impartial).

Snarky but dead-on coverage by The Onion, from a year ago: "This American Life Completes Documentation Of Liberal, Upper-Middle-Class Existence"

Why Memoir? Part 3.3

Simon Brooks had this to add to the discussion:

A number of years ago (over 15 most likely) I read an article on storytelling in the USA (I was in the UK back then) and the growing - then- desire to hear personal stories and how the British writer was disapponinted in not hearing any traditional tales. I never understood the popularity of personal stories. Why would I want to hear about some stranger and their life? What is the point? I do not care about them; I do not know about them - I want to hear good 'old fashioned' stories.

Three years ago a friend of mine let me borrow a Donald Davis CD recording - "The Crack of Dawn". I had it for a long time before I listened to it and my friend kept asking if I had listened to it, and what did I think. This coincided with hearing Jo Radner tell a brilliant story that made me sit up and think. It was not a tradition tale at all. I am not really sure why I was there. But something went off inside me, so when I got home I sat down and listened to the Donald Davis CD. I was amazed. Bowled over. Enthralled. I ordered a bunch of his stuff for the library. A couple of years ago I heard Elizabeth Ellis and was knocked out, reduced to tears. I heard Jay telling his "Pill Hill" stories and was inspired by his telling and by the tales he told. I heard Meg Gilman last year at STF and loved her personal story, for it's strength and passion.

I left a job working for Valley Quest in White river Junction to put more of my time into storytelling. At Valley Quest we would create treasure hunts for communities in communities and would collect personal tales from the elders. These stories were so important as they captured personal experiences in a time in history. If it were not for this program, many histories of local areas and the 'customs' held there would have been lost. Over the years I have come to realize the importance of some of these
stories. They teach us about ourselves, about our community, about the
society we live in, or have lived in. Maybe, in some way, we can look at these personal stories as, in a certain light, contemporary folktales. These stories that are being recorded are capturing the now. In a few hundred years time, who is to say that these tales will still be being told, but not as personal stories, but as folktales.

Me, myself, I enjoy, once in while, hearing a really good personal tale. I find them - sometimes - enlightening, teaching me something about myself in much the same way some folk and faerie stories do. But I personally love to tell the 'tradition' folk and faerie tales. I do not think I have the talent - right now - to tell a personal tale. Maybe the second wave in the rise in popularity in hearing personal tales comes from a growing interest in storytelling and this new audience is finding it easier to relate to personal stories - they can see something of themselves in these tales which they cannot (I blame tv for everything) in the 'tradition' stories.

I would love to see a balance at festivals of both. Not for me, I would prefer the majority to be traditional tales, but maybe if people 'learn to listen and grow' through personal stories, they will find the magic and power of the older stories.

Why Memoir? Part 3.2

Ruthanne Edward, from Ottawa:

I have noticed that The Moth style events (story slams etc.) are pretty much entirely personal stories and primarily a younger crowd than a typical storytelling event. I think this stems from what others have said about how people feel disconnected, don't have the same opportunity to tell their own and hear other's stories as in the past. We are also all coming from much more diverse backgrounds with different experiences than ever before. I think in this regard that personal stories serve two purposes. Hearing the stories of someone from a similar time, place or culture as you helps to reinforce your personal identity. Hearing the stories of someone from a different time, place or culture is new, exotic and hopefully helps you to begin identifying with them.

Me again.
Perhaps the appeal of The Moth's aesthetic (ten minute true stories from the teller's personal life (although recent squabbling in the blogging community over the veracity of Malcolm Gladwell's "true" story at The Moth seems to indicate that they don't let the "true" part get in the way of a good story) is this: the simple elevation of the well-done kitchen table story with a microphone and a spotlight (in a venue with a well-stocked bar) celebrates America's obsession with the cult of the individual.

And I suspect the resonance for The Moth's audiences is not just similar "time, place or culture" (because they go out of their way to find tellers with odd jobs and unique experiences to share) but similar reactions to experience. That is, it's the emotional content that resonates, not necessarily the contextual details. And in doing this, it validates the idea of the individual. (Although, the concept of "Everybody has a story to tell" is by no means exclusive to nightclubs in the Village)

And again, if you've got an underused storytelling muscle in your frontal lobe, it's easier to visualize a story set in a familiar milieu, be it New York in the 1990s or Middle American in the 1950s.

Why Memoir? Part 3.1

I posted the question as to why personal memoir was so popular to the Storytell Discussion list. Several folks replied, and I asked for and received permission from several of the responders to post their thoughts here.

Gregory Leifel, from Illinois, http://www.thrivingmoss.com and very very soon, www.AhhhFinally.com, wrote:

does anyone think the reason could also partly be society's obsession with the previously private side of others?

Now I'm sure everyone here is going to deny wanting to know anything about any celebrity, yet something is driving this celebrity/private side obsession. Is it transferring over to storytellers and the audience preferences? No, seriously. Are we more open to stories that approach how another person personally looks at life or life's challenges because we've been inundated with the private lives of many celebrities? Has it made it okay? Do we expect the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in all its ugliness and glory?

After all, fairy tales and literary stories make you reflect in an anonymous way. You don't know the characters personally, because they aren't real, but you learn lessons from their challenges. Now, similar messages within personal stories are perhaps more identifiable because the real live storyteller on the stage is just like you, real with tough challenges. (celebrities are real people living in an unreal setting). Non-fiction books outsell fiction, but they didn't used to. Is this a result of the information society? We just gotta know details? We expect to know, so tell tell tell?

My feeling, at least with the popularity of personal stories in the U. S., is that our youth over quite a number of decades is no longer exposed to fairy tales. Maybe the Britney Spears' and Paris Hiltons of our pop-culture are so characterized that they are the fairytale stories now. And somehow it's transfered over to how we all tell stories.

My response:
Interesting to compare the rise and fall of teen pop stars with the fortunes and misfortunes of princesses and youngest sons... but I don't think an obsession with celebrity is pushing the hunger for memoir.

(And what about this? We'll clamor for more details for TV memoirs, tell all biographies... there are no taboos in the publishing world. But onstage... plenty of topics are kept out. The whole truth? No way. Not at storytelling events. Just the nice stuff. The humorous stuff. The stuff that honors the bonds of family and love and wisdom and apple pie.)

I think you're closer to the mark, Gregory, with the ability to identify with the protagonists. Adults, particularly, may more easily relate to a personal story than an anonymous folktale character. Perhaps the audience member has reached certain age at which they recognize that they themselves are not as smart as you thought they were and so maybe just maybe this guy onstage knows something (or is sharing that the story of that self-same epiphany).
Or,
the audience member has an atrophied imagination, and path of least resistance is to follow the story that requires only the image of the very storyteller in front of you and the carefully described landmarks familiar from nostalgia.

Why Memoir? Part 2

Copyright.

When Sean mentioned in his Roadblock #10 post that storytellers might be wary of violating the copyright of another author or storyteller, I was dubious.

Sure, I get the common sense logic. You can't be accused of violating another person's copyright if you're telling your own story.

Apparently this is an ongoing issue of concern in the storytelling movement, but it raised its head in the 1980s at national conferences.

But seriously, folks. Were storytellers accusing each other of "stealing" each other's repertoires? Were storytellers "stealing" folktales from other tellers?

From my own anecdotal evidence, I can see it might have happened. I learn stories better if I hear them, instead of find them in a book. Visualizing a story from a book is easy, but visualizing the story from book to stage is an added step, which requires more effort. Path of least resistance: tell the story you heard from someone else.

If everyone started telling the same Jack tale, or the same ghost story, sure, that's going to turn audiences off.

But in the analogous realm of traditional music, it's not at all uncommon to hear three or more different versions of "Sally Goodin," "Muleskinner Blues," and "Cripple Creek" in one weekend, both on the mainstages and around the campfires. That's the whole point of tradition. To carry it on. Sure, there are original bluegrass tunes being made all the time and post-punk old-timey revival re-imaginings of standards, but if you go a whole weekend without hearing a Bill Monroe arrangement of a tune, it's not a bluegrass festival.

So... back to storytelling. Traditional art form. Material hundreds if not thousands of years old. Material, therefore, in the public domain.

Artists are surprised that others are appropriating the same material?

Sure, you can call it unethical. Rude. Lazy. But like the story goes, "you knew it was a snake when you picked me up."

"Screw you all and the folktales you tell-- I'm switching to stories from my own life."

From what I hear, the change in material did not stop unethical performers from appropriating the personal memoirs of others for their own repertoire.

I live in a major metropolitan hub filled with theatre festivals in the summer. Several of them just do Shakespeare. Several just do musicals. Do they end up programming the same shows, opposite each other? Hey, it happens. Two, sometimes three "The Tempest"s in one summer. A handful of "South Pacific"s. They manage. They don't throw the classics out the window and start creating their own new scripts.

(Hmm. Bad analogy. --the perils of thinking in the blogging moment-- If these theatres ran themselves like the storytelling world, they would punt the classics, start creating their own new scripts, audiences would eat it up, and we'd never see "Midsummer Night's Dream" or "Hamlet" again.)


Copyright isn't the whole answer.

Stay tuned for more, on audience preferences, and on an academic's look at the movement.

Why Memoir? Part 1

I was explaining to a visiting storyteller one of the secrets to success in improvised storytelling is an accident of the American storytelling scene: the popularity of personal memoir.

My improv storytelling ensemble isn't trying to re-create Gilgamesh, or the Canterbury Tales, or an Anansi story. Storytellers Unplugged often relies on the dramatic power of layering multiple stories. A collage of solo monologues. Given a theme, an image, or a single word, and we can riff all night in various voices.

So when I say, I don't tell personal stories, what I mean is, I don't tell my own personal stories. I'm not interested in telling them. But when it comes to improvisation: I can make up personal memoirs all night long. So can my other ensemble colleagues.

It's just not that difficult.

And audiences respond to it.

Sean Buvala touches on this point in one of his Roadblocks to Success postings.

I don't quite agree with his comparison of storytellers who rely on personal memoir and stand-up comics, because the intent of each type of performer is different, as is the persona/mask they present to their audience... but there's a question that's been bothering me for some time.

Why?

Why are storytelling audiences so interested in personal memoir? (To the point where one Festival, with two decades of production under its belt, got audience survey comments back: "Why are your performers telling folktales and myths? I came to hear stories.")

I know that oral history can be compelling. I'm fascinated by the life stories collected by StoryCorps, some even make my cry. And I totally understand why the Library of Congress wants to save all these stories, as history. But what's going on in the storytelling revival-- that the traditional stories that fueled the movement in the beginning are being pushed aside for more stories about lived experience?

Why is the boom in the alternative storytelling movement (e.g. the Moth, Fringe Festival solo performers, --and soon to switch places with the "mainstream" storytelling movement which is driving itself if not to the fringe, then to folksy irrelevance) so focused on personal memoir?

Why, as Ben Haggarty of the UK put it --after having been banished to a small classroom at 9:00 AM on a Friday morning in order to present his 2 hour version of Gilgamesh, as the Jonesborough-style festival that had hired him had nothing longer than a 50 minute available during the weekend-- do American storytelling festivals reserve the spotlight on the mainstage for stories that in any other culture are told around the kitchen table?

I've been poking around, asking this question. I'll be posting some responses from other storytellers, from academics, from various
You have theories? Feel free to post in the comments.