THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 17, 1994 TAG: 9411170036
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
LYNN RUEHLMANN is a teller, but not the sort you find behind a bank window. She's a storyteller. And nothing, not even the imaginary fourth wall of theater, separates the veteran actress from her audience.
Storytelling can be a very intimate and sophisticated performance art, said Ruehlmann, organizer for ``Tellabration 94! The Night of Storytelling.''
``It is its own art form,'' she stressed.
Nationwide, 70 storytelling festivals will take place simultaneously Saturday at 8 p.m. In Norfolk, Ramblin' Conrad's will be the site for the area's first ``Tellabration,'' a benefit produced in affiliation with the National Storytelling Association in Jonesborough, Tenn. Proceeds will help fund area storytelling events.
Richmond has participated in the 6-year-old event, but no Hampton Roads festival had ever been organized, said Ruehlmann, adding, ``I thought we were a big enough area, and had enough professional storytellers, that we should have one here.''
The bill includes local tellers Larry VanNostrand, whose repertoire includes ``Witch of Pungo,'' and Oona MacGillivray, who concentrates on multicultural folklore. Also booked are Kay Warnalis Zentz, Susan Corbitt and Wolf and Weaver, a storytelling team.
The program is geared to adults, Ruehlmann said. ``Storytelling initially was developed by adults for adults. Nowadays, we spend so much of our time on computers. I think we miss the intimacy and the humanity of sharing face to face.''
Ruehlmann has made a part-time job of storytelling for all age groups, and not just at schools and libraries. Last month, she told Halloween ghost tales to the grown-up members of the Broad Bay Point Greens Garden Club in Virginia Beach.
``She just captivated us,'' said Nancy Gormley, hostess for the event. ``It's that old adage: You're only young once, but you can be immature forever.
``She captured our attention and held it for an hour. She used her whole body to tell the story. Her mannerisms, the use of her face and body. It was really very exciting.''
Ruehlmann, who has worked in Hampton Roads theater since the late 1970s, has a repertoire of hundreds of stories, appropriate for numerous situations.
``My major source is folklore,'' she said. ``So that means I'm reading all the time to find new stories and keep up. I look at folklore from different countries and on different themes. And I occasionally do personal stories. Lately, I've really been getting into signing.''
She recalled attending a program that utilized a signer for the hearing impaired. ``And I found myself watching the signer more than the program,'' she said. ``So I began taking classes last year.''
To sign ``means I have to be more precise in the story. I have to make sure I can do the signs. I can't ad-lib.''
A month ago, she tried her hand at it.
Ruehlmann had been hired to tell stories to a group that included a dozen deaf children. ``I had to make this instant decision, and I finally decided to do it. I talked to the interpreter before I started and told her I was just beginning to do this with my storytelling. She had been signing for my other stories.
``So when I started the sign story, she was still standing there a little behind me. As I got a couple of sentences into it, she sat down.
``What a relief.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff color photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON
Storyteller Lynn Ruehlmann has organized the area's first
Tellabration storytelling festival.
Festival of Tales
For copy of graphic, see microfilm
by CNB