Registration Underway For Senior Storytelling Workshop

FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield Arts Council (FAC) will offer two storytelling classes for senior citizens on Mondays beginning September 10. The five-week acting and writing classes will explore what makes good storytelling.

There is a beginner class that will be held from 10 am to noon each week and a class for returning senior storytellers to run from 1 to 3 pm.

Cost is $25, and class size is limited to eight participants. The workshops will be held at the Fairfield Theatre Company, 70 Sanford Street. Register by calling FAC at 203-319-1419 or e-mailing info@FairfieldArtsCouncil.org. The program is partially funded by a Community Development Block Grant from the Town of Fairfield.

Participants will write a story from their own lives, and then the class will “workshop” each piece, using feedback from the other participants, until the story is crafted into a monologue and can be performed. Techniques used will be basic acting as well as oral interpretation.

The workshops will be facilitated by Hope Fitzgerald, who has been the instructor for the Senior Storytelling Workshops over the past two years. Ms Fitzgerald holds an MA in acting and directing from Northwestern University, and a BFA in theater from Colby-Sawyer College, with an internship at the renown Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis. She spent 20 years as a stage, television, and radio performer in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, in addition to directing and teaching acting.