Stories are finding an audience in Kensington

Open storytelling night finds a crowd in Kensington Row Bookshop in its first year

In that time, the Kensington Row Story Salon, a monthly storytelling session for professionals and amateurs, has grown and featured at least 13 different storytellers.

Schoettler, who started the event and runs the monthly program, couldn’t be happier.

‘‘We’re losing the dinner table,” she said. ‘‘[Families] sat around the table and talked about their daily lives, or Mom told a story about the family. Those stories that Dad told or Mom told stuck with you, and storytelling is a way to recapture that.”

For Schoettler, a Chevy Chase resident and professional storyteller, recounting family tales is what interested her in storytelling.

‘‘My children were not really interested in what I was telling them, the family stories,” she said.

After meeting up with Voices in the Glen, a storytelling group based in Washington, D.C., she became interested in establishing an audience for storytelling in Kensington.

She met up with Elisenda Sola-Hopper, Kensington Row Bookshop owner, who already had a poetry reading night at the store.

Sola-Hopper wanted Schoettler to perform regularly at the store, but the program quickly evolved and the first open night was in June 2006.

Schoettler organizes the nights for free and unpaid storytellers from the area are invited to spin their yarns.

Tellers are usually local professionals, she said, with a few outstanding beginning tellers and many are members of Voices in the Glen, a greater Washington, D.C., storytelling group.

The crowds grew in response, from 10 to more than 30 adults on some nights.

Bill Mayhew, a storyteller from Beltsville, said the bookshop is a unique venue considering it’s not a paying gig, and Schoettler makes no profit from the night.

‘‘The crowd is there to hear stories,” he said. ‘‘If you want to go try out a story or anything it’s a great place.”

The audience for storytelling, while thin, never really dies out, Mayhew said. Venues like the bookshop will always be around because people are always telling stories.

‘‘People do it even if they’re not doing it on stage. ...It’s like tapping your feet or singing in the shower,” he said.

The night is referred to as adult storytelling, not because of lurid or taboo material, but because some themes and stories aren’t intended for a younger audience.

‘‘Some stories are too complicated for children to follow, maybe the humor’s a little too sophisticated, or it might be a downer and something you don’t want children exposed to yet,” he explained.

Mayhew got into storytelling as an elementary school teacher and found it was the easiest way to keep his students’ attention and explain lessons like the origins of Annapolis.

Schoettler said that storytelling became one of her passions after she discovered it was a way to relive her past and pass lessons on to others.

‘‘I tell a story about my aunt, and every time I tell the story, she’s back,” Schoettler said. ‘‘I can get her back there and you can come to know her.”

Tonight, Moira Doughtery a Prince George’s County resident, is expected to tell her Irish folk tale stories as well as family accounts.

Schoettler said the nights would go on as long as there is an audience, no matter how big or small.

‘‘I always hope that people will listen to my story and think about theirs,” she said. ‘‘I tell my stories so you remember your own story, and then you realize how important it is for you to tell yours.”

For more information on the open storytelling and poetry programs at Kensington Row Bookshop, visit www.kensingtonrowbookshop.com or call 301-949-9416.

If You Go

The Kensington Row Story Salon takes place at 7 tonight at the Kensington Row Bookshop, 3786 Howard Ave. For more information, call 301-949-9416.