Flatwater Tales Virtual Storytelling Festival is June 5

The 2021 Flatwater Tales Storytelling Festival, featuring three world renowned storytellers, is scheduled for Saturday, June 5.

The festival will offer an evening performance recorded in front of a live audience, three live online interactive workshops, and a live online after-party, a press release said.

The annual event is led by volunteers from the three Rotary Clubs in Oak Ridge. Due to concerns about COVID-19, this year’s event will be online.

The featured storytellers are three acclaimed performers: Andy Offutt Irwin, Bil Lepp, and Kim Weitkamp. They are known to audiences nationwide for their wit, wisdom, and abilities to make audiences laugh, cry, and reminisce, the press release said. The three storytellers have achieved national recognition and appear regularly at festivals, including the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee.

On Saturday, June 5, the Flatwater Tales Storytelling Festival will present the art and magic of storytelling with a virtual performance at 8 p.m. The three tellers will record a live show that will be performed before a small audience exclusively for Flatwater Tales. This performance will include an unrehearsed improvisation segment, hosted by emcee Paula Gordon Lepp, a new feature in the storytelling world, the press release said.

“Their stories are already unpredictable, and the improv portion will build on their creativity and spontaneous story-making,” the release said. “A ‘blooper’ roll and a live after-party will conclude the event.”

Tickets are $15 for the evening performance. Workshops are $20 each or all three for $45. The after-party, a live real-time party with the tellers and emcee, is $10 with some giveaways for the audience. A whole day ticket, including all live interactive workshops, the evening performance and the after-party, is $50.

When they register, participants will receive an email confirmation of their purchase. An email link to their events will arrive before the festival. If you have any trouble registering, send an email to [email protected] or call (865) 275-5270. After June 5, ticket holders will receive an email providing online access to their sessions for two weeks, the press release said.

Tickets are now on sale on the Festival’s Eventbrite page at: Flatwater Tales Storytelling Festival tickets. For more information on Flatwater Tales, visit the website or send an email to [email protected]. Tickets are also available at the Ferrell Shop at 232 Jackson Square in Oak Ridge. The event is being professionally produced by veteran virtual technical artists, Six Feet Apart Productions.

“The Festival’s goals are to help bring our community together, introduce people to storytelling and Oak Ridge, support local economic activity, and celebrate and support the clubs’ community projects,” said Emily Jernigan, Flatwater Tales chair and former Breakfast Rotary president. “We continue each year to grow Flatwater Tales with a wider audience and have expanded our storytelling efforts to include helping children find their voices using this age-old art form.”

Who are these internationally acclaimed storytellers?

Let’s meet them (this information is from the press release):

Bil Lepp, an acclaimed teller from Charleston, West Virginia, and five-time winner of the West Virginia Liars’ Contest, takes listeners on a winding, incredulous path before tying up all the loose ends in a neat, fantastical package. He tells humorous, imaginative tales, and says that while all the details may not be accurate, the feelings are always honest.

Bil’s live interactive workshop “Chaos Doesn’t Happen on Its Own?” will be at 11 a.m. If you have heard Bil’s stories, you know that they twist and turn. If you haven’t heard Bil, well, they still do. Part of what he does is introduce an idea or concept early in the story, and then distract the audience from thinking of it again until it’s time for the big payoff at the end. Also, Bil strives for his stories to seem like he’s just coming up with them on the spot because he believes the best storytelling resembles a spontaneous conversation. How does he do it? How does he manage all the loose ends? Where do the ideas and loose ends come from in the first place? Sign up for the workshop and find out!

Kim Weitkamp has mastered the craft of blending humor and heartache, seriousness and silliness, all linked together by music. She has a lengthy list of accomplishments and is most known for the characters, comedy, and songs she brings to her performances. In her work as a humorist, storyteller, singer, and songwriter, she has taken home an armload of awards and recognitions, including seven award-winning audio collections. Kim says, “It’s all about the people. I love people. People are a walking, talking story. I am no different; I just get to share mine from stage.” Kim has also presented workshops around the country and online, including at colleges, conferences and corporations, and now at Flatwater Tales.

Kim’s live interactive workshop “Tongue and Pen” will be at 1:30 p.m. “Tongue and Pen” is the perfect stepping stone no matter where you are on your creative journey. Your time with Kim will be part conversation, part lecture, and part pen. Whether you are writing for on-stage performance or writing for the written page, you will learn to expand your thinking on how to approach getting your creative thoughts into something tangible. The hardest part of writing is doing it. You’ll learn how to tweak the muse, carve out time and space, and stop making excuses. Learn some fresh new ways to layout your story so that you can see it from different perspectives, giving you a deeper well from which to draw from as you write and edit. This workshop is not solely for spoken word performers and authors. It also benefits anyone engaged with the creative process.

Andy Offut Irwin’s silly putty voice, hilarious heart-filled stories, and amazing mouth noises (arguably, the greatest whistler in the world) make him a one-person-showman. Andy is equal parts mischievous schoolboy and the Marx Brothers, peppered with a touch of the Southern balladeer. One of the most sought after performing storytellers in the United States, Andy is especially known for relating the adventures of his eighty-five-year-old-widowed-newly-minted-physician-aunt, Marguerite Van Camp, a woman who avoids curmudgeonship by keeping her finger on the pulse of the changing world around her as she seeks to grow—even at her advanced age—in the New South. Along with being a vagabond storyteller, Andy works as an arts educator, keynote speaker, theatre director, songwriter, comedian, newspaper columnist, camp counselor, and Shakespearian actor.

Andy’s live interactive workshop, “Laughing Makes You Smarter” will be at 3 p.m. It includes humor, wit, and storytelling to help you develop cognitive connections leading to deep and enduring learning, and maybe even to serious business. The workshop will help you discover that there is a connection between emotion and the ability to remember and learn. What’s your earliest memory? There’s an emotional connection to it, isn’t there? Now, c’mon, admit it. We’ll explore why wit is important, even in serious stories.

Tickets are now on sale on the Festival’s Eventbrite page at Flatwater Tales Storytelling Festival tickets and at the Ferrell Shop in Oak Ridge. For more information on Flatwater Tales, visit the website or send an email to [email protected]. 

“If you cannot attend the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, be sure to join us at the Flatwater Tales Storytelling Festival,” the press release said.