Performances

Folktales · Personal stories · Historical stories

Bob Tales

Rough edges are removed from fine diamonds by skillful jewelers. Folktales are just like that—only their edges were smoothed by untold generations of storytellers whose names we'll never know! The result: cultural treasures for posterity.
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Flights Of Fancy

What prompted this story was a request to assemble a program in honor of the hundredth anniversary of powered flight—that of the Wright Brothers. But flight is an age-old dream made modern.
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Tapestry

After more than a decade of performing solo I wanted to add collaboration to the mix—this was the first. Storyteller Deborah Asante and I draw upon our different heritages and styles to create a rich blend of storytelling.
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Every Picture Tells A Story

Learn to capture the stories behind those old family photos before they slip away.
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Flights Of Fancy

What prompted this story was a request to assemble a program in honor of the hundredth anniversary of powered flight—that of the Wright Brothers. But flight is an age-old dream made modern.
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Life is a Story

Personal and family stories matter. A lot. Properly remembered and preserved they can show us where (and who) we've been.
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Anything But Civil

If the man who just shot you were also your only hope for treatment and survival, would you trust him? The two characters in this drama face exactly that problem. An Irishman serving the Union Army and an escaping slave meet, wound each other, and learn each other's stories—whether they survive or not gives us historical background and insights into the larger arena of the Civil War.
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The Circle

I was commissioned to research, develop, write and perform this piece by the Department of Natural Resources to celebrate Indiana's sesquicentennial. That was in 1991. After that season of performing the story of Richard Lieber, a German American immigrant and Indianapolis resident who is directly responsible for having created Indiana's park system, I went on to tour this show through the Indiana Humanities program called History Alive!
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Diggers and Dreamers

Indiana was settled, basically, because of a failed 'highway system' that none the less brought people in and transported goods out.
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Every Day is Earth Day

I've been lost in a limestone cave, trapped (whilst swimming underwater) between two giant limestone boulders, climbed limestone precipices and walked through limestone canyons. At some point I wondered: "What is this stuff, anyway?"
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Faery Gold: A Story of Irish Immigration

Bagpipes and fiddles. Leprechauns and drums. The Great Hunger and the passage over—all are contained in this story within a story, as a young boy meets his new neighbors and their unusual music and tales.
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Flights Of Fancy

What prompted this story was a request to assemble a program in honor of the hundredth anniversary of powered flight—that of the Wright Brothers. But flight is an age-old dream made modern.
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Notes From The Underground Railroad

Not all escaping slaves knew about the Underground Railroad. Not all Quakers who knew of it approved of it. Such is the case in this, a dramatic tale of two children from very different backgrounds.
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When Worlds Collide:
The Cultures of William Henry Harrison and Tecumseh

Mark Twain said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

Tecumseh, Tenskwatawa (The Prophet), and William Henry Harrison. They seemed to typify (in Indiana) Twain's “rhyme”—a pattern of clashing cultures that define a great deal of early American history.
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