Bobby Norfolk brings Spooky Stories to St. Louis

If you are looking for a Halloween plan that leans more on storytelling than jump scares, Bobby Norfolk is bringing his Spooky Stories showcase to St. Louis this week. The evening runs from 7:00 to 9:00 pm on Thursday, October 29, at Power Creative's WEvent Space, a restored church in Tower Grove South at 3221 Oak Hill Avenue. Doors open at 6:15 pm, so there is time to get settled before the first tale.

The bill is built around five nationally known storytellers. Norfolk, a three-time Emmy winner and North St. Louis native, is the headliner, joined by Greg Carr, Beverley Brennan, Sherry Norfolk and Ken Haller. The program mixes eerie poetry, spooky songs and Halloween humor, and it is paced to grow darker as the night goes on, with the lighter material coming early. The show runs about two hours and includes an intermission, and it is recommended for ages 12 and up, so it works for older students through adults.

Norfolk is the obvious draw here. He started his storytelling career at the St. Louis Storytelling Festival in 1979, hosted the Emmy-winning CBS series Gator Tales, and spent ten years working at the Gateway Arch as a National Park Service Ranger. He grew up with a debilitating stutter and overcame it by performing at a fourth-grade poetry recital in 1961, a detail that adds some weight to a career built on the spoken word. He has since published eight award-winning children's books and several audio CDs, and he runs Folktale Productions, the company he started in 1989.

The rest of the lineup is just as rooted in the local scene. Beverley Brennan is a humorist, storyteller, singer, writer and director who spent 22 years as Director of Speech and Theatre at Harris-Stowe State University and another 20 working in St. Louis Public Schools. Greg Carr also teaches Speech and Theatre at Harris-Stowe and has had plays produced at Cleveland's historic Karamu House, with his newest work, Tinderbox, taking on the East St. Louis Race Riots of 1917. Sherry Norfolk has been a professional storyteller since 1981 and is a Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap and Young Audiences National Teaching Artist. And Ken Haller wears a lot of hats: he is a St. Louis-based actor, writer, director, pediatrician, teacher and advocate, a Professor of Pediatrics at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine and Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital, and a former president of PROMO, Missouri's statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization. He was named Best Cabaret Performer in St. Louis in 2015.

Tickets are $20 general admission and can be bought online or at the door with cash or Venmo, though the show may sell out quickly. There are free snacks and a donation bar, and the WEvent Space has a small private parking lot on Humphry just west of the main building, plus plenty of free street parking. It is a low-key, family-friendly way to mark the week before Halloween.