Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site is excited to announce the return of the annual Not Just for Kids Storytelling series on Sunday evenings in August, starting at 6:00pm. This storytelling performance each week is open to the public of all ages. Local tellers, with well-crafted tales will perform during the 29th year of this program at Schoharie Crossing.
On August 1st, Kate Dudding will perform, “Pandemic Ponderings: Stories of How I’ve Been Coping and Finding Joy.” Dudding is a storyteller from Saratoga County and has won several Regional and National storytelling awards such as the Northeast Region ORACLE Award from the National Storytelling Network.
August 8th, Joe Doolittle of Scotia will be at the site to tell, “If the Waters Could Talk, the Stories They’d Tell…” This storyteller delivers with his humorous, good-natured style for audiences throughout upstate New York. He loves to tell personal and family stories and has developed many historically based tales about the early history of the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys and the Erie Canal. Doolittle is also co-producer of Story Circle at Proctors in Schenectady.
Margaret French will perform the program, “Nudging Reality,” on August 15th. She a regular storyteller at Caffe Lena and at Woodlawn Commons in Saratoga. French is also a member of the StoryCircle of the Capital District, LANES (the association for storytellers in the Northeast), and the National Storytelling Network.
August 22nd, Jeannine Laverty will tell, “Summer’s on the Move.” Laverty lives in Saratoga and has been telling international folk tales since 1979. She has taught weekend workshops in storytelling for adults at Sagamore and other Adirondack sites since 1980 and performs as part of the storytelling ensemble, SweetLand Storytellers.
Wrapping up the 2021 series on August 29th, Sandy Schuman will perform, “NY’s American Anthems: The Stories of Yankee Doodle, Take Me Out To The Ballgame, God Bless America, and More.” Schuman is a winner of the Susquehanna Folk Festival Liars Contest and the St. Louis Jewish Storytelling Contest and has been featured at The Northeast Storytelling Conference, Riverway Storytelling Festival, Caffè Lena, Proctors, Tellabration, and Limmud Boston.
Not Just for Kids Storytelling will be held outside, under a tent near the Visitor Center, 129 Schoharie Street, Fort Hunter, NY 12069. We encourage you to bring a lawn chair or picnic blanket to sit on. The program begins at 6pm and is free to the public due to the generous support of a Saratoga Arts’ Community Arts Grant that has been made possible with funding by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Karen’s Produce and Ice Cream is also another wonderful supporter of these programs.
For information please call the Visitor Center at (518) 829-7516, email SchoharieCrossing@parks.ny.gov, or visit our web page: www.parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/schohariecrossing.
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation oversees more than 250 individual state parks, historic sites, golf courses, boat launches and recreational trails, which are visited by 71 million people annually. For more information on any of these recreation areas, call 518-474-0456 or visit www.nysparks.com, connect on Facebook, or follow on Twitter.