Second night of storytelling to take Bedell stage Friday

The second installment of three planned storytelling events this year, "An Evening of Storytelling with Regina Carpenter and Jim May," will be presented Friday at the River Campus of Southeast Missouri State University.

"Regina and Jim as our storytellers will make for a great evening," said Dr. Joel Rhodes, history professor at Southeast and co-producer of the event.

Jim May

May, of Spring Grove, Ill., will be making his second visit to Cape Girardeau.

"Jim May was with us at last year's storytelling festival," Rhodes said. "He tells stories in the tradition of Mark Twain, but to me he's very [George] Carlinesque, without the obscenity part. His best stories are about the animals he's worked with over the years."

Carpenter of Clayton, N.Y., appeared at the Ghost Storytelling event in 2011.

"Regina's stories are very warm and personal," Rhodes said. "A lot of them are grounded in her experience of growing up in that golden era of the 1950s and '60s."

The event is co-sponsored by Southeast and the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau. After five years of presenting the Storytelling Festival during three days in April, the festival was replaced this year with three events in Bedell Performance Hall. The decision reflected a decline in the festival's attendance and the potential of inclement weather during April.

Stacy Dohogne Lane, director of public relations for the convention and visitors bureau, said the River Campus has been an ideal venue to host storytelling.

Regi Carpenter

"Logistically, it's a dream come true," Lane said. "It's a great location and easy to get to, and weather isn't a concern. It's an incredible facility, and our previous storytellers raved about it."

Theresa Messmer, senior administrative assistant at the River Campus, said supporting the community is one of the goals of the River Campus.

"Part of what we do is to serve the community," Messmer said. "Bringing gifted storytellers to Bedell is one way of doing that. We're happy to be hosting, and we're looking forward to it."

The first storytelling event at the River Campus, "An Evening of Storytelling with Donald Davis and Delores Hydock," was in January. Lane said more than 300 people attended.

"We had a great turnout, and a lot of people were from out of town," she said. "We had high numbers from the St. Louis area to show up."

Another storytelling event at the River Campus is tentatively planned for September.

"An Evening of Storytelling with Regina Carpenter and Jim May" is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday in Bedell Performance Hall. Tickets for adults are $12, and tickets for children ages 14 and younger are $5. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact the River Campus box office at 651-2265 or visit rivercampusevents.com. The box office is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays.

klewis@semissourian.com

388-3635

Pertinent address:

518 S. Fountain St., Cape Girardeau, MO