by Sven Kelling | Mar 27, 2019
The recipient of the National Storytelling Network’s 2017 Circle of Excellence Award, Motoko has enchanted audiences of every age since 1993. She trained with master mime Tony Montanaro (1927-2002) and renowned Appalachian storyteller Elizabeth Ellis. Motoko’s repertoire includes Asian folktales, Rakugo and Zen tales, ghost stories, mime vignettes, as well as oral memoirs from her childhood in Osaka and her life as an immigrant in the U.S.
Motoko has appeared on PBS’ Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and toured Miyazaki, Japan, as part of CarnegieKids in Miyazaki Project, sponsored by Carnegie Hall. She has been featured in festivals and theaters across the U.S., most notably, the National Storytelling Festival, Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, Bay Area Storytelling Festival, and the Provincetown Playhouse at NYU. (See the list of her credits.)
As a teaching artist, Motoko has been awarded numerous grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and New York State BOCES. Her story CDs have won a Parents’ Choice Silver Honor Award, a Storytelling World Award, and a National Parenting Publications Award (NAPPA). She is the author of A Year in Japan: Folktales, Songs and Art for the Classroom.
2015 saw the premiere of her storytelling concert, “Rakugo: Comical Tales from Japan” (featuring Masayo Ishigure on koto and shamisen) at the University of Massachusetts. In 2016 Motoko made her fourth featured appearance at the prestigious National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, where she premiered “RADIANT: Stories from Fukushima,” an original one-woman multimedia performance on Japan’s 2011 nuclear power plant meltdown.
The combination of skill, talent and ability to translate emotion to motion created entertaining and exciting imagery. Motoko puts the audience on an emotional roller coaster. She takes you up, down, upside down and lets you off feeling exhilarated and charged up…Her show was a winner.
Massachusetts Daily COLLEGIAN
by Sven Kelling | Mar 27, 2019
Barbara McBride Smith’s life tapestry sparkles with more variety than Grandma’s button box. From Texas to Boston, Massachusetts, from the New Jersey shore, through Oklahoma, and back to Texas again, she has picked up wit, wonder, and wisdom from the most unlikely places and strings those gems of life together into a diadem of diversity. A bonafide wordsmith whose wicked wit is underscored by serious research and scholastic excellence, Barbara brings a stellar reputation for performance quality to the stage. After listening to Barbara’s interpretation of Greek myths, Bible stories, or life in general, you will want to slap your knee and shout, “What a woman!”
by Sven Kelling | Mar 27, 2019
Tim’s love for show business began when he was six years old, watching a thrilling performance of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus. Waiting for his big break Tim filled his childhood with performance opportunities. He was cast as Ebenezer Scrooge in a second-grade production of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and a few years later played Jed Clampett in “A Beverly Hillbillies Christmas.” Demonstrating to his Sunday school teacher that he could raise one eyebrow and thereby look “wicked” Tim landed the role of King Herod in the annual church Christmas pageant.
As a young teenager Tim formed a puppet company providing entertainment for children’s birthday parties. His fee was $20 per show, but he offered a $5 discount if you could give him a ride as he was not old enough to drive. As an award-winning high school drama student he toured the United States in 1987 with a Broadway-style musical, performing in more than a dozen states. As a theater major in college, Tim studied Shakespeare and romantic opera, but when he took an elective class in storytelling he found himself.
After college, Tim taught English language arts for five years. Drawing on his love of show business his teaching methods were often considered “unorthodox and disruptive.” In 2000, Tim left the classroom to pursue a career as a professional storyteller. (Ironically, he is now hired as an educational consultant to bring creative and innovative programs to schools across the country and is approaching his 10,000th performance!)
In 2012 Tim began touring nationally on the storytelling festival circuit performing on stages from Connecticut to California. Occasionally, Tim provides applied storytelling workshops for corporate and non-profit groups. His client list includes the County Commissioners Associations of Georgia and North Carolina, Dollywood DreamMore Resort, and Ballad Health.
In 2020 Tim received the Oracle Award from the National Storytelling Network for exceptional commitment and exemplary contributions to the art of storytelling in the Southeastern Region of the United States.
Tim’s wife Bonnie is a professional music educator and currently maintains a small violin studio. She also homeschools the Lowrys’ two daughters – Libby, who plays the ukulele and loves everything Harry Potter; and Bethany, who plays the piano and loves fishing for large mouth bass. The Lowrys make their home in Summerville, SC which is known as “The Birthplace of Sweet Tea.”
by Sven Kelling | Mar 27, 2019
Bil Lepp is a study in contrasts. A thoroughly honest man, he is a five-time champion liar. Behind that “yup, yup, yup” persona is an absolutely brilliant mind—so smart he’s scary, but really funny too—kind of like a cross between Neil deGrasse Tyson and Robin Williams. An accomplished author, Bil Lepp’s books cover topics from parenting to very little things. As carefully architected as The Eiffel Tower, Bil’s stories often start out plausible, then quickly morph into the outrageous and fantastic. On occasion, he is completely serious and you can follow him into stories of the courage and honor of ordinary folks. But beware—Bil’s wit will hit and you will never see it coming!
by Sven Kelling | Mar 27, 2019
No one plays with an audience like Carmen Deedy. Regardless of the number of people in the venue, Carmen shares every story from her heart to your heart, individually and personally. She possesses the unique gift of not only speaking to all people, but to each person, simultaneously. She once said, “Great story is the art of letting go.” But even as she ‘lets go,’ Carmen will hold your heart in the palm of her hand. She has been an invited speaker at venues as varied as The American Library Association, Refugees International, The International Reading Association, Columbia University, the Smithsonian Institute, TED, the National Book Festival, and the Kennedy Center, but her favorite audience is her grandchildren, for whom she also loves to cook—a true abuela cubana.
