By BILLY THOMAS for OLY ARTS
As summer begins, master storyteller Elizabeth Lord invites you to join her on a journey into Camp Galilee, a (fictious) Christian summer camp on the shores of Lake Tahoe. Lord’s new one-woman show will be on stage at Olympia Family Theater in mid-June, and brings her audience with her on a poignant and humorous journey that includes singing hilarious songs about Jesus. Drawing inspiration from her regular childhood summer visits, and the divorce of her parents at age four, Lord’s new show aims to show that sometimes a child gets homesick when away from home, but sometimes a child is just plain sick of home—and can’t wait to get to camp.
Many people have favorite memories about our times at camp. Lord aims to bring these memories to life on stage: “My favorite part is while telling a story to the audience, there can be a special connection made between myself and the audience that is like no other type of live performance,” explains Lord. “It is intimate and real.”
Lord has been performing professionally as a storyteller since 1994 when she was a senior in high school. She began telling folktales at children’s events, and eventually moved on to perform for adults, weaving original tales and stories from her own life. “Storytelling is what we all do on a daily basis,” says Lord. “It is how we communicate, as humans. What I do is put these stories on stage, in a hopefully smart and clever way so as to reveal our common humanity. I enjoy revealing the humor that is inherent in all that is human and fallible.”
Audiences have found the type of authentic storytelling that Lord delivers to be captivating. Over the last decades, new podcasts and live storytelling shows such as Serial, S*Town and The Moth have found a growing audience around the nation and around the world, gaining audiences of millions of listeners. Olympia’s own StoryOly, co-founded by Lord, has been part of this wave of authentic first person narratives.
Lord has been honing her craft for decades in anticipation of this growing audience. Previous shows by Elizabeth Lord include: The Swimsuit Area, Please Write, Vegas Childhood, Personal Ad, Smoking is Cool, Cheap Rent, Getting There, and Show Don’t Tell. This master of the narrative craft is Olympia’s own storytelling treasure, and not to be missed in her upcoming one-woman show.
WHAT
HOMESICK
WHERE
Olympia Family Theater
612 4th Ave E Olympia WA 98501
HOW MUCH
$10-$20
WHEN
June 15, 16, 17, 2018
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