A Ghost Storied Walk and Pub Crawl in downtown St. Marys. A Story Slam. A sold-out Memoir Writing Workshop. Storytellers in Residence programs at area schools. A First Nations dance troupe, and an Artisan tent. These are some of the new programming featured at the ‘Once Upon a Thames’ Storytelling Festival that starts this Wednesday, June 1st and runs until Saturday night.
Thanks in part to funding from Canadian Heritage’s ‘Building Community through Arts and Heritage’ program, this year’s Festival will celebrate our local community, its past and its present. This program also increases opportunities for local artists and artisans to be involved in their community, and for local groups to commemorate their local history and heritage.
On that note, this year’s Festival theme is Rural Routes – a celebration of our area’s rich agricultural heritage, and our own need for nourishment through food, and through narrative. Once Upon a Thames is celebrating it’s 8th year with Storytelling and Music concerts for all ages on Friday at 7:30pm, programming for adults, children, and families on Saturday June 4th from 1-5pm (including a very special hour long presentation by First Nations dance troupe Gonrah Desgohwah White Pine Dancers), and ending with a concert for older youth and adults at 8pm on Saturday, June 4th. Admission to all concerts at Milt Dunnell Field at the Flats, a block from downtown St. Marys, is by donation.
Haunting History stories of St Marys, as they’ve never been told before! Come and walk in the footsteps of years gone past, and meet characters and spectres that will chill you to the bone. Enjoy a glass of Ale to prepare you and to revive you at the beginning (the Parkview Creamery) and end of your tour (The Merchant House )- then home safe to bed to have sweet dreams … maybe! The St. Marys ‘Once Upon a Thames’ Storytelling Festival presents its first ever Ghost Storied Tour & Pub Crawl on Thursday, June 2nd, 2011! Come join us as storyteller Gail Fricker from Stratford regales us with the history of St. Marys, mixed with some morbid and macabre ghost stories from St. Marys and Perth County. Tickets are $20 a person (Includes a pint of craft beer and light refreshments at The Creamery and The Merchant House) and are available by emailing events@stmarysstorytelling.org, by phone: 519-229-6468, or online via Perth Arts Connect at http://perthartsconnect.ca/events.php?ts=1306987200
On Friday at noon, join Community Living St. Marys at the United Church Hall for a Community Luncheon with featured guest Storyteller Ruthanne Edward from Ottawa. Lunch will be served from 12-12:30, and Ruthanne will tell a story from 12:30-1:30pm. Admission to this lunch and story session is a goodwill offering (suggestion $10).
A special Artisan’s Tent will be featured at the Festival site on Saturday, June 4th from noon to 5pm. Featuring the work of local and area artists and artisans, the tent will also house booths from McCully’s Hill Farm, who will have pies and dessert items for sale, Stratford’s Urban Farming Experiment, who will offer local food samplings and planting demonstrations for kids, and ‘street eats’ on sale from the new Local Market Co-op, a workers cooperative grocery store in the downtown core of Stratford that promotes goods that are either grown or produced locally.
Festival favourites from years past include La’Ron Williams, Aaron Bell, Mary-Eileen McClear, Gail Fricker, and Charly Chiarelli. New storytellers to the festival this year include Ruthanne Edward (Ottawa), Sarah Granskou (Kitchener), Ivan Coyote (Vancouver), and musical guests The Fugitives from Vancouver (performing with Halifax’s Poet Laureate Tanya Davis at the Story Slam on Wed., June 1st), Stratford’s own mother/daughter duo The Wildwood Flowers on Friday night, and The Great Wooden Trio, a storytelling and musical group of friends from Toronto, Milton, and Guelph on Saturday night.
All events at the Flats are by donation. Tickets to the Ghost Storied Tour and Pub Crawl can be reserved by email events@stmarysstorytelling.org, by calling 519-229-6468, or can be purchased online at www.stmarysstorytelling.org Tickets to the Story Slam ($5 cover) are available at the door. For more information visit www.stmarysstorytelling.org, or find us on Facebook under St. Marys Storytelling.
