STORYTELLING DINNER
Jo Radner’s “Mischievous Yankee Smile” Comes Back to the Corner House December 8
Maine storyteller Jo Radner will return to the Corner House Inn on Thursday, December 8, with a magnificently mixed bag of stories stretching from the sublime to the ridiculous.
What stories will she tell? This year, she says, it will be a crazy quilt of tales, something for every taste. A magical, funny, moving folktale she heard from Bhutanese Nepali refugees – New Hampshire’s newest residents – will share the evening with some of her signature spoof “oral histories” of leading nursery rhyme characters. (How
did the cow get over the moon? Did Peter Pumpkin Eater really keep his wife “very well” in a pumpkin shell?) And Jo may also tell one of the real-life stories from her new CD,
Yankee Ingenuity: Stories of Headstrong and Resourceful People.
Jo’s deadpan humor and verbal agility have made her a favorite at theaters, festivals, conferences, schools, and community events, and she offers storytelling and oral history workshops. “Jo tells in an understated Maine style with a smart, wry wit and powerful punch,” says Jeff Gere, director of the Honolulu Talk Story Festival where Jo performed this fall.
Jo lives in the woods of Lovell, Maine, neighbor to weasels, bears, moose, and the ghosts of the strong-willed ancestors who appear in her stories. Her audiences call her “a smart, genuine teller,” “comfortable to listen to.” She delights in eccentrics and in people who think (whether or not they are correct) that they have the unique, best way of doing things. She believes that humor and gravity are good bedfellows.
Past president of the American Folklore Society, Washington Storytellers Theatre, and the National Storytelling Network, she is writing a book about the long tradition of humorous writing and performance in rural northern New England. She has been studying, teaching, and collecting stories most of her life and has been entertaining audiences from Boise to Boston since the 1980s.
Come spend an evening with Jo Radner and enjoy her storytelling potpourri on Thursday, December 8. Storytelling Dinners are held each Thursday evening at the Corner House in Center Sandwich. Dinner begins at 6:30 PM, and storytelling starts after dessert. The cost is $19.95 per person, plus tax & gratuity. For more information and reservations contact the Corner House Inn at 603-284-6219 or online
at
info@cornerhouseinn.com.
