FROM THEATER TO STORY AND BACK AND FORTH

 

Falling in love at age twelve with the Des Plaines Footlighters, Megan played Helen Keller’s mother in The Miracle Worker.  Speaking the line, “Helen folded her napkin,” the audience sighed and a shiver of awe danced up Megan’s spine.  In high school Megan attempted to behave like a normal girl, making the cheerleading squad, but quit “all that” in her junior year because popularity was empty next to Thorton Wilder’s Our Town, or Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

 

Graduating in 1981 with a BFA in Theater from Illinois Wesleyan University Megan was immediately cast in a Chicago production as Mary in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and was invited to teach theater at New Trier High School in Wilmette.  Directing Oliver! and A Company of Wayward Saints at New Trier inspired an Illinois State University Professor to offer Megan a scholarship for an MFA in Directing.

 

Completing her MFA at ISU, Megan worked as an intern at Wisdom Bridge Theater under the artistic direction of Robert Falls.  Inspired by his confidence, Megan joined forces with her ISU friends to open an off-loop theater company.  Megan’s Chicago directing credits include:  A Ruffian on the Stair, The Assignment, and Good for which she was honored with a Joseph Jefferson award for excellence as a director.  Acting credits include: Estelle in Sarte’s No Exit, and the Muse in Artoud at Rodet.  Writing and directing The Cenci, an original adaptation from a Percy Bysshe Shelley poem triggered an awakening for Megan.  Words!  At the core of her love for theater was a visceral fascination with the power of words!

 

She began to write in earnest; mostly short stories.  Hired to write scripts for a corporate communications company Megan worked in the business industry for ten years experiencing first hand how the right words, in the right way could initiate deep change.  In 1990, Megan attended the National Storytelling Festival and encountered the art of Storytelling.  Another shiver of awe up the spine!  Story was the root of theater!  Megan began “telling” her own words, thriving on the immediacy and intimacy of the teller/audience relationship.  She told at festivals, schools, libraries, corporations, museums, historical societies, clubs and coffeehouses, homes and weddings, as well as on the radio.  Megan explored the many genres of storytelling; personal stories, ghost stories, fairy and folk tale, history, legend and myth, myth, myth.

 

Keeping her hand in theater, Megan directed the Chicago premiere of In the Wake of the Welded and Seventy Scenes from Halloween.   As an actress she played Jo in A Few Good Men, and Olivia in Twelth Night.   Then Megan began the “combo” work; adapting stories and myths into “theatrical” events.  The Yellow Wallpaper from the novella by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was produced by the Reiditch theater company in England.  A Letter To Maria from Thomas Jefferson’s private letters was produced at the Theater of Western Springs.  The Nordic Wolf, a story opera created and performed with Chicago a cappella, a world class singing ensemble.  Song of DuPage, created and performed with the Glen Ellyn’s Children’s Chorus.  Fire in Boomtown with Amy Lowe, a story/musical about the Chicago Fire which won the 1999 Ed Press Distinguished Achievement Award as well as a Parent’s Choice Gold.

 

Helen’s Troy was developed in performance at home concerts, universities and coffeehouses.  This summer at Oak Park Festival Theater, Megan polished the epic in a seven week run to wonderful audience response.  In July, Linda Sterling invited Megan to bring Helen’s Troy to Bainbridge and Island Theater and return for a run at the Majestic Midway in 2005.  

THE PROCESS:

Each story event is approached as a unique encounter between the producing organization, the venue, and the audience.  Megan pulls from her repertoire and/or creates story programs to fit the needs and/or theme of the event.  Ever attentive to the whisperings of Soul and Myth, Megan's stories are always filled with heart opening humor and psychological insight.  Megan's devotion is two-fold:  craft stories to their deepest creative potential; tell stories in a loving way to people who need them.

TYPES OF VENUES:

• Schools, Universities, Workshops, Retreats: 
  Stories that enhance curriculum, awaken imagination, develop historical memory, and model integrity.
  
• Festivals/Performance Venues: 
  Stories that release laughter, deepen insight, point toward the mysterious, arouse philosophical conversations, and revisit mythological roots.
  
• Corporations: 
  Stories that inspire innovation, revivify brand equity, bypass barriers, and plant metaphorical structures.
  
• Libraries/Historical Societies/Community Clubs: 
  Stories that broaden cultural understanding, support community, refine aesthetic awareness, and celebrate historical memory.
  

Through careful interviews and research, Megan finds and creates the right story for each setting.  When telling, Megan refines and adjusts according to the audience response.  Listeners walk away from the storytelling experience feeling as if the story was created just for them!  And like a stone thrown into a pond, the gift of a story ripples for a long, long time.