This will be of particular interest to undergraduates of performing arts and the substantial community of those engaged in storytelling, filling a noticeable void in an emerging field of scholarship. Michael Wilson addresses the recent rise of storytelling as a professional performance art by providing a critical survey of current practice and a critical framework for those debates currently taking place, and those debates which will undoubtedly emerge in future. The text includes critical analysis of a range of practices alongside interviews with key contemporary practitioners about their work.

The relationship between storytellers and actors is at one level based on a misunderstanding that actors dont improvise or base performance on the audience. But these are valid criticisms that some actors have of their own traditions. Having sat through too many wooden story performances, one of the sources from theatre all storytellers need to draw on is stand up comics who use social observation such as Richard Pryor or Billy Connelly. Look at their timing and the way they can create the character and situation with tone. accent, physical use of space(mime!) on the stage so that we the audience are painting in the details in our mind ( )