Friday. Of the 13 participants, many met for the first time on Friday night. After a short warmup and an overview of storytelling techniques, we broke into four groups and began work on our pieces. Each group was told to tell an individual story, and a group story based on Colorado lore — and it was amazing to see how differently the pieces turned out. Click here to read more about the individual pieces.

On Saturday afternoon, we took a break from our story preparations to host a free workshop for the community. Twelve adults and children participated and were able to work one-on-one with our performers telling personal stories and fairy tales.

When Sunday rolled around, we somehow managed to rehearse our story projects and also prepare enough homemade food to feed an army. The menu: fresh-baked bread, fruit, cheese and almonds, chicken vegetable soup with wild rice, vegetarian chili, melon, and brownies a la mode. When possible, local and organic foods were used.

The show! The audience and the performers sat at tables surrounding the performance space, and the littlest members of the audience sat on benches in front. Storytellers entered and exited from each of the diagonal corners, and there was no clear boundary between audience and performer: so long, fourth wall! The all-ages, family-friendly show was informal, enthralling, and had the feel of being huddled around the campfire sharing tales.

Group project summaries

Ben, Jeni, John K and Jonah had a selection of stories dealing with ghosts, cemeteries, and spirits. Instead of choosing just one favorite, they decided to incorporate aspects of all the Colorado stories into their individual experiences; the result was a series of fictionalized stories, in which history and modernity, reality and the undead, intertwined.

Andrea, Jeremy and John W received stories of modern Colorado lore, and they chose to tell the story of "The Frozen Dead Guy", a cryogenically frozen man who was stored in a shed in Nederland, Colorado until discovered by the town, who now holds an annual parade and festival in his honor. They distilled the story to the phrase "frozen time" and then interwove the Frozen Dead Guy story with stories about times in their own lives when they each experienced or wished they could experience time standing still.

Dan, Sevrin and Rachel had a packet of stories about the frontier days in Colorado, and they chose a Native American legend about a man whose wife was ravaged by a Spaniard while the man was hunting. Upon his return, his wife steals his knife and kills herself, and he is devastated by grief; he hunts down the Spaniard and exacts his revenge. They chose to write themselves into the story; they created a traveling circus along the man's journey, and they each embodied a character at the circus, drawing on their own experience for material. Each character gave the man a particular piece of wisdom to consider on his journey.

Cheryl, Daniel and Liz had a packet of biographies of famous Coloradans, and they picked a story about the famed wife of a silver mine magnate, Baby Doe Tabor. They each also chose a story from their own experience to share; they told their individual stories one after another, very simply, closing with a costumed, spectacular rendition of "Baby Doe: the Musical".