Thank you, Jay O'Callahan

Back in 1984, I had the privilege of seeing one of the best storytellers in the world, Jay O'Callahan, perform at a theater in Boston.

I had been hired as the voiceover announcer for a radio commercial for his show. When the session was over, the producers offered me a couple of free tickets to his performance. Suzan and I attended, and were absolutely amazed at what we saw.

Jay told 4 stories in the course of the evening, and you could hear a pin drop during the entire performance. The only props he used were a box, a broom, and an apron. It was enthralling. The first thought that came to my mind as I listened and watched was,

"I wonder if that approach would work with Scripture."

I went home and began memorizing passages of Scripture, trying to apply to the Biblical text the technique I saw him use. I even called Jay up some time later to ask if I could take him to lunch and get some advice. He very graciously accepted. That was the beginning of The World's Greatest Stories.

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to again see one of Jay O'Callahan's performances. He was the featured storyteller at the Connecticut Storytelling Festival held in New London, CT. I hadn't seen him in over 20 years, and I wanted to encourage him by letting him know how he had influenced my life. Once again, he was absolutely amazing!

Defeating Giants, the sixth volume of my CD set of The World's Greatest Stories recently received the 2009 Storytelling World "Honors" Resource Award for Storytelling Recordings. After Jay's performance last Friday evening, I went up to him, explained how he had made such a significant impression on my life, and gave him a copy of the CD. I then told him,

"This would never have existed if it had not been for you."

It was a joy meeting and talking to Jay again after so many years.

ChristMiVeSt...

As many of you know, I was the St in ChristMiVeSt this past weekend! The shows all went well. This year we got to perform with each other! Judy Buch (the Ve) and I performed an old German folk tale about a clockmaker, Dan (the Mi) and I performed "The Selfish Giant" by Oscar Wilde (a wonderful, sweet story) and Dan and Judy performed a hilarious piece called "Daisy and the Mime" where Daisy, one of Judy's characters, doesn't understand why Dan doesn't talk or use props!

Then we all performed an original story that Dan wrote called "Christmas and the Dragon".

I performed "The Frankincense Monster" by Jim Krueger again, as well as "The Real Story of Christmas".

At the end of the first half, Dan had a special tribute to the men and women serving in our Armed Forces overseas. He then asked if everyone would come downstairs to write a note and say a prayer (tying a knot in a blanket for each one) for several soldiers stationed overseas.

He sent this email, from the group that is sending the notes and prayer blankets to those men.

Dear Friends -

God works in not so mysterious ways. Take soldiers serving their country, talented Christian artists, and prayer blankets - put them all together and you get the work of the Lord!

What a wonderful success this weekend was! CHRISTMIVEST was a wonderful show with plenty of laughs, captivating stories told by a mime, and wonderful classics told by a storyteller. It all started with an attempt to peek at Christmas gifts (and who of hasn't tried that?) to ending with a single voice telling quietly but boldly the true story of Christmas.

But right in the middle, a tribute was made to the men and women serving our country. Serious, painful, graphic and realistic. But did our hearts swell with pride for our servicemen! It made us reflect a bit in the midst of the fun. We were then able to assemble around a prayer blanket to pray for a soldier. And note paper was available for letters of prayer and encouragement to go with the blankets.

We were able to knot and pray a blanket at each show. And we got lots and lots of notes to go with each blanket. We prayed for Jean-Claude, Brian and Jason.

Thank you to Dan, Judy and George for a wonderful show CHRISTMIVEST (Christ first, then mime, ventriloquism and st orytelling). Thank you for inviting the Prayer Blanket Ministry to be a part of it. Thank you Jesus for continuing to work through us. And thank you Jean-Claude, Brian, Jason and all other servicemen for all that you do every hour of every day of every year.

Merry Christmas!

Linda

God bless you all, and have a very Merry Christmas this year!

The Sacrifice of Isaac - World Premier Performance

When I was down in San Antonio at the Independent Christian Film Festival, I told several of the stories off my new CD Defeating Giants for the first time!

One of them was "The Sacrifice of Isaac" which I told at the Awards Ceremony. It is an exciting, thought provoking and inspiring story.

Since it was video taped, I thought I would share that performance with you!



As always, you can hear a sample of the story with music and sound effects, and you can purchase the CD at www.worldsgreateststories.com.

Defeating Giants: The Show A Success!

Well, "Defeating Giants" went VERY well! It was well attended (I don't have the exact numbers, but somewhere around 300) and the performances went great for all involved!

If you would like to see some photos from the event, check out this link!

Thanks to "Nomad" from Mod-Blog and The Quizzer's Pad for taking the pictures!

Defeating Giants

We have the artwork, we have the audio, we are preparing to offer the latest CD in the World's Greatest Stories for sale!

The CD will be available at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival, and should be available on my website within the next week or so.

I will also be telling several of the stories in San Antonio, and in the show "Defeating Giants" which is in Trumbull, CT.

I'm really excited about all of this! You can listen to samples of the stories here, and see the website for the show here! And if you want to see the super cool promo/trailer for the show that my son edited, it is on YouTube here!

Defeating Giants: The Show!

Defeating Giants will be an evening of arts entertainment for the whole family! It will feature performances by New York actor and storyteller George Sarris as well as performances by internationally known mime Dan Cossette and interpretive dancer and choreographer Katherine Sarris (who happens to be the daughter of Mr. Sarris!)

The show will be at the Calvary Church Family Life Center in Trumbull, CT at 7:30pm on November 9th (a Friday night).

Tickets are $10 at the door, $7 in advance and $5 for families or groups of 5 or more. To get tickets and other information, call 888-STORIES.

The Fifth and Final Story Is...

Well, I have chosen the last story for the latest World's Greatest Stories CD! The CD will be titled Defeating Giants and will feature the stories of David and Goliath, Namaan the Leper, Gideon and His 300 Men, Miciah the Prophet and Jehoshaphat the King, and The Sacrifice of Isaac.

That's right! The fifth and final story will be the story of Abraham when he was commanded to sacrifice his only son Isaac.

I haven't recorded the story yet, but it is memorized and ready, and I am planning on going to record next week.

I am hoping to release the CD in October. Several things have to come together by then. I hope to have them available at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival at the end of October.

I would covet your prayers as we prepare to release this CD!

Miciah the Prophet and Jehoshaphat the King!

Miciah the Prophet and Jehoshaphat the King is now one of the World's Greatest Stories!

The recording a mixing went very well, I'll try to post more later on.

I have updated my website with a sample of the story if you want to hear it!

Miciah the Prophet

Well... tomorrow I am going up to Massachusetts to record the story of Miciah the Prophet! It is an exciting story from 2nd Chronicles 18-20.

Please pray for me, that God would give me the ability to interpret the text to bring out the drama and the message. Pray also that everything would go well technically.

Gideon is mixed!

Well, last Thursday I went up to MA to mix the story of Gideon!

Gideon is a longer and somewhat more complicated story than either David & Goliath or Naaman the Leper. Sonny (my sound engineer) and I usually listen through a great number of different music selections before we find what is "just right." I was hoping we would be able to complete the mix for the story in the time allowed, but wasn't sure that would happen. Interestingly, the very first CD of production music we looked at had all the selections we ended up using! It was really quite surprising. The general tone of the music was right, and the variety within the individual selections fit what we were looking for wonderfully well.

The first "problem" we encountered came shortly after we began. We laid down the first piece of music, and it fit pretty well. It just needed some slight editing to make the flourishes hit at the right place. Uncharacteristically, Sonny didn't seem to notice the need for editing the piece. I made some suggestions that he agreed to, but he didn't seem engaged in the process. Then, suddenly, he said he thought he might be having an insulin reaction. He checked his blood sugar level (Sonny is a diabetic), and, sure enough, it was definitely low. He excused himself in order to get something to correct the problem, came back and explained that he would be fine in about 5 or 10 minutes. Several minutes later, he said, "Okay, my mind is clear again."

Some time later, the power in the studio suddenly dipped. There was a thunder storm outside, and we quickly "saved" what we were working on. A few other storms came through during the rest of the day, but the power stayed on throughout our time.

The greatest difficulty we faced was finding the right sound effects. Sonny had located a ram's horn sound effect before I arrived, so that was in place, but what does "threshing in a winepress" sound like? We listened carefully through many sounds to find the right campfire when the Midianite soldier was telling his friend his dream. We edited several effects together to get the right sound for smashing jars when Gideon's 300 men blew their trumpets. And, we found just the perfect whoosh and combined it with the right fire sound when Gideon offered meat and unleavened bread to the angel of the LORD.

All in all, it was a great day. God was clearly guiding us. You can hear a short sample of the story on my website!

On the road again...

Well, this past week I have been in beautiful Harvey Cedars, NJ (yes, there are pretty areas in New Jersey!) at a conference/retreat for home schooling families. I have been running a storytelling workshop for the teens. God has been blessing that effort. The program on Thursday night went well... now on to round 2 next week! I will be running the same program, but this time for the whole week instead of just the first half of the week.

In between (i.e. this weekend) I am at ANOTHER home school conference, this one in my home state of Connecticut. I am one of the featured speakers.

I will be sharing my "Impacting the Culture" talk, as well as several talks on homeschooling and 2 of my "Waiting on the LORD" talks.

The news on the new CD isn't terribly exciting. I am trying to schedule a time to go up and mix Gideon. I also am toying with several ideas for the other stories on the CD. Again, feel free to suggest anything you think would be interesting!

Hope You Can Make It!

Resurrection is an new show of mime, dance, drama and storytelling that will open your eyes to the life and victory of God, and what it means for every human soul.
Be set free to experience the thrill and exhilaration of life and new life...

7pm, Friday, May 25th.
199 Deming St. Manchester, CT, 06084.
Admission: Free. Refreshments afterwards. Free will offering to be taken.
Info: 860.870.5432. www.AmbassadorArts.org

Countdown To "Defeating Giants"...

Well... the studio time and engineer have been booked! I will be recording 2 new stories on Friday with my great creative audio engineer Sonny Dufault. The stories will be on my new CD, which is tentatively called Defeating Giants.

I memorize each story before I record it. This allows me to perform the story and refine the characters and tone. I have been performing David and Goliath for about 2 years now, and Namaan the Leper for several months. I decided that now was the time to record those stories, and mix in the music and sound effects. I am presently memorizing and getting the story of Gideon ready, and I hope to record that in the not to distant future.

Sonny, the audio engineer I work with, has a great ear. His skill in recording my voice, and then in being able to pick out or create sound effects and music that compliments the stories is unmatched. We have been working together on various projects since 1988, and I think he knows what I like, and I know and trust his advice and ideas.

So... the CD is on its way!

I'll keep you up to date!