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Open Book
1011 Washington Ave S
Minneapolis, MN
in the Performance Hall

Suitable for adults and teens. May contain strong language. $15 or $12 for students, seniors, Northstar members, or with a Minnesota Fringe button or a Tellabration! button. You can buy your Tellabration! button in advance.

Buy Tickets:

General – $15.00 with Tellabration 2011 button – $12.00 with Fringe button – $12.00 with student ID – $12.00

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Or send a check with the number of tickets and buttons you are ordering to:

Northstar Storytelling
P.O. Box 581154
Minneapolis, MN 55458-1154

NOTE: Checks sent after Tuesday, November 22 may not arrive in time to secure your reservation!

About the Performers

Josette Antomarchi is a charming French native who delights in sharing her life stories. She started her career touring Europe as a professional actress, then came to the States as a founding member of Theatre de la Jeune Lune and also performed with many other distinguished theater companies in the Twin Cities. Josette is a member of both Northstar Storytelling League and Northlands Storytelling Network, and she was a Guest Teller at Northlands’ 20th annual spring conference in Madison. “I love to tell of the magic and mischievous twists that take us by surprise,” she says, “just like in folk and fairy tales. They keep me in awe of my daily life.”

Peter S. Cook is a Deaf performing artist whose work incorporates American Sign Language, pantomime, storytelling, acting and movement. He has appeared in PBS shows The United States of Poetry and Alive from Off Center’s “Words in Your Face,” been featured at numerous storytelling festivals, including the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and traveled around the world with the Flying Words Project. In 2003 he was invited to the White House for the National Book Festival. Peter lives in Chicago and teaches in the ASL-English Interpretation Department at Columbia College. He loves to tell stories to his son.

Raised on a hill farm in Wales, John Dingley performed with the Young Farmers Club, trained with the Royal Shakespeare Company’s satellite program in Wales and competed in live theater. More locally, he has performed at Theater in the Round, Na Fiana Irish Theater Players of MN, Phipps in Hudson, and in Milwaukee, Chicago and Winnipeg. He is a founding member of Celtic Players of MN and often sings the national anthem at Canterbury Park. In the 2011 Minnesota Fringe Festival, John performed John Dingley and the Biggest Pack of Lies You Ever Heard, a collection of embellished experiences, humorous insights and Welsh songs. John is also an animal scientist and entomologist, a stone mason and a master glass cutter and engraver.

Ben Habegger is a senior at Eastview High School and the 2011 Minnesota State High School League State Champion in Storytelling. Ben pulled off a rare performance in the State Finals and was ranked number one by all the judges. He joined his speech team his sophomore year and he has worked hard to hone his craft. He has placed first or second at nearly every tournament he’s competed in. “Standing in front of a crowd and entertaining people is one of the greatest feelings ever,” according to Ben. He specializes in folk tales.

Marcie Rendon, White Earth Anishinabe, writer, playwright, poet, mother, grandmother and sometimes performance artist, creates so that Native people may see themselves and be seen. We are kept in their mindset as “vanished peoples.” Can you believe you exist if you look in a mirror and see no reflection? And what happens when one group controls the mirror market? As Native people, we have known that in order to survive we had to create, re-create, produce, re-produce… The effect of the denial of our existence is that many of us have become invisible… however, not everyone can still that desire, that up-welling inside that says sing, write, draw, move, be… we can sing our hearts out, tell our stories, paint our visions…we are in a position to create a more human reality…in order to live we have to make our own mirrors…

Ward Rubrecht grew up in a storytelling family and spent many a summer on the road to the Illinois Storytelling Festival and other events throughout the Midwest. After college, he re-engaged with the art. For three years, he worked at City Pages as a spoken word, slam poetry, and storytelling critic, though some local artists may wish he hadn’t. Ward has performed at a number of Twin Cities events, including Two Chairs Telling and Story SlamMN; in the latter, he took first place in the inaugural 2011 season. He is interested in the intersection between traditional folk telling and modern spoken word, and in finding the lessons to be learned from all tellers and all styles.

Allison Broeren (Host) is the current co-Managing Director of the Rockstar Storytellers, SlamMaster of the nationally ranked Poetry SlamMN!, and founder of Story SlamMN! at Kieran’s Irish Pub. City Pages describes her as “[the force] behind the Twin Cities competitive poetry scene…bombastic, kinetic, and most importantly, highly entertaining.” Allison hosts, performs, and plans shows all over the Twin Cities and has produced four successful Fringe shows by Mumble Mumble Productions.

Return to Tellabration! 2011 home

Northstar Storytelling League is a fiscal year 2011 recipient of a Minnesota Festivals Support grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is funded, in part, by the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.