Get your tickets now for the Old North State Storytelling Festival held Nov 4 and 5 at The Cary Theater. Enjoy humorous, heart-warming, and inspiring stories from a diverse group of talented tellers, co-sponsored by The Cary Theater and the North Carolina Storytelling Guild Events.
Four Showcase performances over Friday and Saturday. All performances are family-friendly. Featuring Josh Goforth, Janice Curtis Greene, Dr. Ray Christian – Speaker, Educator, Historian, Noa Baum Storytelling, Kanute Rarey, Sherry Lovett, Becky Stone, John Thomas Fowler, Larry Pearlman, and more!
Here are just a few of the highlight performances:
- John Thomas Fowler performance 2022 Old North State Storytelling Festival Showcase #3. John’s storytelling is a wonderful anthology of Appalachian folk tales, fairy tales, outrageous tall tales and contemporary yarns, combining traditional songs and ballads. He has been a featured teller at Stone Soup Storytelling Festival, the International Storytelling Festival Exchange Place, Madison County Florida Storytelling Festival and is the host-teller-in-residence at Hagood Mill Storytelling Festival. Johnny is an award winning musician, a two-time harmonica champion at Fiddler’s Grove Old Music Festival and a blue ribbon winner in the banjo competition at the prestigious Mountain Dance Folk Festival in Asheville N,C. and the Pickins Heritage Day Old-Time Music Festival.
- Scholar, Actor, and Storyteller Becky Stone will be featured at our Festival on Nov. 5. Becky holds a B.A. in Drama from Vassar College and an M.A. from Villanova University in Elementary Educational Counseling. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, Ms. Stone became a storyteller upon moving South over 40 years ago. Her acting credits include Lime Kiln Arts Theater, VA, Warehouse Theatre, Greenville, SC, Haywood Arts Regional Theatre, Southern Appalachian Repertory Theater, Asheville Community Theatre, Highland Repertory Theatre, Asheville Contemporary Dance Theater in Asheville and Merida, Mexico, and Asheville on Broadway. Ms. Stone has also presented at North Carolina, Colorado Humanities, and SC Chautauqua festivals and Black History Live tours as Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Josephine Baker, and Pauli Murray.
- Kanute Rarey is one of the most well-known storytellers from our NC mountains. Buy your ticket today to hear him on Nov. 5 at our Festival in Cary. From Clay County, he tells tall tales to life lessons from his own blood, sweat, and tears in life. Kanute says he may have been born and raised on a farm in rural Ohio, but moved to the mountains as soon as he could. After a quarter of a century in the mountains of Alaska and North Carolina, storytelling is second nature to him. Folks have heard him tell at the Georgia Mountain Storytelling Festival, the Moth StorySlam in Asheville, John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, the Swapping Ground and Fringe Festival at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN, and the Tejas Storytelling Festival in Denton, TX. And you can find him regaling local folk in Hayesville, NC. He says most of his stories are true… more or less. As they say, he never lets the truth get in the way of a good story.
Seating is limited, buy your ticket now. https://www.oldnorthstatestorytellingfestival.com/tickets
Stories connect us, teach us, entertain, and inspire us. We learn about the world and one another, but most surprisingly, we learn about ourselves.