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04/19/2017 08:30 AMJennifer Munro knows how to tell a good story. A professional storyteller, she’s performed in local classrooms, at fundraisers, and at the National Storytelling Festival, which draws more people each year to the town of Jonesborough, Tennessee than actually live there.
Last year, she drew her own crowd to R.J. Julia for a book signing of her short story collection Aunty Lily and Other Delightfully Perverse Stories, a winner in the category of Storytelling Collections for Storytelling World magazine. This year, she received the Barbara Reed Award for storytelling from the Connecticut Storytelling Center.
“I mostly do personal stories,” says Jennifer, who has lived in Madison with her husband Eric for 14 years. “I create stories based on my own life experience.”
Originally from Leicester in England, Jennifer moved to the United States in 1976, where she eventually ended up teaching 8th grade English at Polson Middle School. She discovered the power of storytelling when her two children, Ben and Andrew, were in school.
“When Ben was in 3rd grade, mothers were just generally invited into the classroom to read stories,” she recalls. “Anyone can do that. I thought it would be more fun to tell a story. When I did, the teacher and I looked at one another because we were both taken aback. The children listened so intently it was almost palpable.”
That moment changed Jennifer’s life. She was invited back to that classroom to tell another story. Soon, another school invited her to go in and tell stories.
“One of those stories I remember telling at one middle school, and a few weeks later I went into a neighboring middle school—it wasn’t even in the same town—and they said, ‘Tell us the one about the eye!’ News had traveled about that story,” she says. “Literally by word of mouth, that’s how that started off.”
More recently, Jennifer’s storytelling caught the eye of Director Marc Deaton of Madison Lyric Stage. Four years ago, not long after Jennifer had retired from teaching, Deaton saw Jennifer performing a local fundraiser for the Unitarian Universalist Association.
“He heard me perform and literally pointed at me and said, ‘Hmm…I think I’ve got some work for you,’” says Jennifer.
Deaton recruited Jennifer to play the third witch in his production of MacBeth. From there, Jennifer went on to play Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music—a role in which one verse had to be sung.
“There’s just a tiny little problem: I don’t sing,” Jennifer relates. “I just spoke it in the rhythm of the music. I really told it in storytelling narrative style with a musicality to it, and I think it worked extremely well.”
This week and next, Jennifer is taking on the role of Madame Arcati, an over-the-top medium in Noël Coward’s comic play Blithe Spirit.
“It’s extremely challenging and it’s physically very demanding,” Jennifer says of her role. “I have to act my stories, but it’s a very different animal when you’re just doing a monologue rather than interacting with other actors.”
As for her own stories, Jennifer gleans many of them from her childhood growing up in a working class village in England. She says they have elements of memoir and fiction.
“All the stories contain the truth of my experience. I think that’s about as close as you can get to saying, ‘Is that factual?’” she says.
An avid reader, Jennifer tutors once a week with New Haven Reads. She also hosts a storytelling guild that burgeoned out of a series of workshops that she taught a year ago.
“All the people who signed up for the workshops said, ‘We can’t stop meeting and doing storytelling!’ so we’ve been meeting as a guild,” she says.
Finally, Jennifer is helping create the next generation of storytellers. At the storytelling graduate class that she teaches at Sacred Heart University, her students often report that same reaction that marked her first experience.
“The teacher came up to her afterward and she said [the children] were mesmerized,” Jennifer says of one student’s experience. “There is something about the rhythm of narrative form of these well-honed folk and fairy tales that is so hypnotic and engaging. It isn’t just me—it will happen to anyone who tells a story.
“You can’t litter it with ‘like’ and ‘er’ and things like that,” she adds. “You have to tell it well.”
Catch Jennifer Munro in Madison Lyric Stage’s production of Blithe Spirit on Friday, April 21, Saturday, April 22, Friday, April 28, and Saturday, April 29 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 30 at 5:30 p.m. at the Shoreline Unitarian Universalist Society, 297 Boston Post Road, Madison. Madison Lyric Stage’s fundraiser “An Evening on the Mediterranean Sea” is on Saturday, May 6 at 6 p.m. at Brewer Pilots Point Marina North Yard in Westbrook. The cocktail party features heavy hors d’oeuvres, a silent auction, and music reminiscent of a spring evening on the Italian or Greek coast. Tickets are $40. For information, call 203-215-6329 or visit www.madisonlyricstage.org.