The story goes like this: Laura J. Bobrow moved to Leesburg five years ago and being a master storyteller, she thought Leesburg needed a storytelling festival. One day she went to lunch with another master storyteller, J.G. “Paw-Paw” Pinkerton, and told him her idea.
The Stamford, Conn. man responded with Laughs. Pinkerton thought the acronym for Loudoun’s Annual Unforgettable Gigantic Hilarious Storyfest was fitting for what has become a national storytelling festival, the only one of its kind focused on humor, said Bobrow, storytelling liaison for Laughs. “It’s not that all the stories are funny. Any good storyteller can put a touch of humor” into the stories, she said.
Like a story needing a teller, Laughs needed a place, so Michelle Vanhuss, director of the festival committee, encouraged the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Services to sponsor the festival. The festival was held last year at Claude Moore Park in Sterling, where it will be held again this year for the second annual event. Vanhuss is the special projects coordinator for the Parks, Recreation and Community Services.
LAUGHS WILL COMBINE national master storytellers and regional storytelling groups for this year’s two-day event June 22-23. The storytellers will perform on four stages, rotating from a solo stage, where they will tell stories for up to an hour, to two shared stages with two to three storytellers each allotted 15 or 30 minutes. A fourth stage will be reserved for children-oriented programs and storytelling.
“Storytelling is a shared experience, and shared experiences are the bases of relationships,” said Pinkerton, who told stories at last year’s event and will be the master of ceremonies this year. “It’s the most powerful form of communication in the world because you participate with your imagination as you listen to the story. Therefore, you’re emotionally engaged. You’re not just watching something. You’re engaged to making it happen.”
Pinkerton said storytelling is more personal than watching television. “It’s a direct communication eyeball to eyeball between the teller and listener,” he said.
Bobrow agreed. “Storytelling is incredible,” said the poet, songwriter and children’s writer. “It encompasses all the arts I’ve been involved in. It’s sharing at the same time. The same story you tell, everyone hears differently. … If you listen to the told story, the pictures are yours.”
BESIDES THE STORYTELLING, there will be family entertainment provided by two clogging musical groups, folk singers, string bands, theatrical groups, puppeteers and magicians. Throughout the day, roving entertainers, such as an organ grinder playing a street organ and three clowns with something up their sleeves, will wander the grounds. In addition, 10 craft and vendor booths will be set up. At a few of them, the Loudoun Heritage Farm Museum will provide demonstrations of homespun crafts from the past century, such as blacksmithing, apple pressing and ice cream making. Other vendors will sell food and refreshments and provide information about storytelling.
The festival attracted 1,000 visitors each day last year and is expected to bring a crowd twice the size this year, Vanhuss said. The festival is based on a national storytelling festival in Jonesborough, Tenn. of 20 national storytellers and follows the American tradition of humorous storytelling, an art practiced by Mark Twain, Davy Crockett and Will Rogers.
“It’s basically a lost art,” Vanhuss said. “You can use your imagination. With TV, it’s site on scene. You don’t get to visualize the character in your terms.”
“Once you go, you’re hooked,” Bobrow said. “It’s something you can’t describe. Once you experience it, you have to go back.”
The Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Services sponsors the event but hopes to start a “friends of” group.