Cape Girardeau's second storytelling festival begins next week

A week from today downtown Cape Girardeau will earn its slogan. Three tents will pop up and people from across the country will travel to the city where the river turns a thousand tales to hear storytellers at the 2009 Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival.

The stories might not total a thousand, but eight tellers will be onstage for three days telling as many stories as they can.

Coming off the success of the first storytelling festival in 2008, organizers have learned from the first round. They built in an hour and 45 minutes for lunch instead of one hour so people could mill around downtown and enjoy eating.

"We wanted to allow people to really get a taste of Cape," said Chuck Martin, a festival organizer and executive director at the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Organizers changed ticket prices, giving people the option to purchase a one-day ticket for $15 or a three-day pass for $30. Last year, tickets were a flat $25. The national storytellers are Andy Offutt Irwin, Bil Lepp, Barbara McBride-Smith and Bobby Norfolk. Regional tellers include Kim Weitkamp, Rosie Cutrer, Sue Hinkel and Joyce Slater.

Barbara McBride-Smith

The festival runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sunday. It includes two tents going at any given time, master classes and autograph sessions.

"You're talking hours upon hours of rollicking entertainment," said Joel Rhodes, the other festival organizer and a history professor at Southeast Missouri State University.

Rhodes took his then-4-year-old daughter to the festival last year and said she still remembers the experience.

"We'll be driving down the road, and she'll see a Cape sign, that wheel, and yell 'Storytelling, storytelling!'" Rhodes said.

Before the first storytelling festival, organizers worried that no one would know what a storytelling festival was. Martin said they still worry.

Andy Irwin

"When most people hear it, their immediate reaction is the children's library and reading 'Little Red Riding Hood' to 4-year-olds," he said.

While stories at the festival appeal to children, they go further than the younger generation. Barbara McBride-Smith uses Greek mythology, and Bobby Norfolk, a middle-aged man from St. Louis, assumes the identity of his 80-year-old aunt for a few stories.

"If you close your eyes, you wouldn't believe it's a young guy up there," said Pat Cobb, a storytelling festival veteran. She's driven to Jonesboro, Tenn., to see the National Storytelling Festival almost every year since 1980.

"Usually it only takes one time to get hooked on storytelling," she said. Cobb has seen all four national and four regional tellers scheduled.

"They'll like all of them," she said.

Bobby Norfolk

She said her sons are not excited about storytelling, but her other relatives are. Cobb has already bought tickets and has family and friends from St. Louis, Jefferson City, Mo., and Okawville, Ill., coming to stay at her house in Jackson.

"If they will give it a shot, I truly do not think they'll be disappointed," Martin said.

The first day of the festival falls on First Friday, when Cape Girardeau art galleries stay open late with artist receptions. Blues on Broadway, the concert scheduled along with First Friday, will again be at the Marquette, this time with Rockin Jake.

Rhodes said all the events help further the "festival-type atmosphere downtown" that organizers strive to achieve.

The three tents will hold more people this year with the main tent seating 1,000 people and the two smaller tents accommodating 500 to 600. The smaller tents will be set up at the north end of Spanish Street and in the vacant lot at Main and Merriwether streets. The large tent will be in the park on the River Campus.

Martin said organizers have already seen increased interest. They have sold 2,550 student tickets to area schools for Friday, more than triple last year's number. They have sold 170 three-day passes to people from Muskegon, Mich., Brillion, Wis., Mount Vernon, Ind., and Southeast Missouri, and they expect to sell hundreds more.

"The last week, typically it's crazy," Martin said.

charris@semissourian.com

388-3641

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Pertinent Addresses:

400 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, MO