2010 Featured Storytellers

	Willy Claflin		Diane Ferlatte		Ben Haggarty
	Willy Claflin brings an extensive repertoire of Scottish ballads and a love for rubber squeaky toys to performances that range from personal experience to personal nonsense. With an astute eye for the real as well as the absurd, Willy closely observes the vagaries of growing up and then takes a left turn into wild parody. Willy will be joined by his long time associate Maynard Moose, teller of ancient tales. Warning: performances may contain music and silliness. www.willyclaflin.com		Visiting her grandparent's in Louisiana, Diane found a home on the front porch where she spent evenings surrounded by family, neighbors, story and song. You can still hear those rhythms in her animated characterizations and lively audience interaction. And those stories of good times and hard times--whether from the bayou or Africa or right next door--arrive wrapped in song or carried along on the thumping pulse of her staff, finding "that little moment that lasts forever in one's memory." www.dianeferlatte.com		Known for a dynamic performance style and full-blooded, uncensored repertoire of traditional narratives, Ben Haggarty remains one of Europe's most influential storytellers. He specializes in Wonder Tales and Bronze Age Epic Mythology, revealing that human concerns "have always been contemporary issues." As he calls up the collective voice of the ancestors, Haggerty walks the line between the epic and the familiar, bringing nimble description and crackling passion to Gilgamesh or Frankenstein. www.crickcrackclub.com
	Kealoha		Syd Lieberman		Connie Regan-Blake
	Hawaiian performance poet Kealoha holds a degree from MIT, where he graduated with honors in Nuclear Engineering. He returned home to surfing, and transmuted his inner nerd into poetry. The National Poetry Slam finalist regards his life with a scientific eye, finding our connections and disconnections. Kealoha's work explores the collision of a traditional Hawaiian identity with the complexity of a modern, hip-hop inflected life. He has also been featured on HBO's Brave New Voices series. www.kealohapoetry.com		Syd Lieberman grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Chicago, where card games and piety lived side by side. Syd tells poignant and hilarious personal stories, identifies with Sean Connery, and navigates the mad world of Edgar Allan Poe as easily as he wanders the foolish streets of Chelm. Syd is well known for his historical pieces on Abraham Lincoln and Raoul Wallenberg, as well as his commissioned pieces for NASA, the Smithsonian Institution and Historic Philadelphia. www.sydlieberman.com		Connie Regan-Blake, nurtured in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, brings a bright, engaging humor and Southern charm to stories that range from hilarious traditional Appalachian tales to true-life drama. Connie helped ignite and shape the American storytelling revival as a member of the acclaimed Folktellers duo. She continues to explore new innovations, blending storytelling with chamber music in collaboration with the Kandinsky Trio, while retaining the ability to transform a theater into an intimate circle of friends. www.storywindow.com