For the host of Interactive Readers’ Theater at the Radford Public Library, Joelle Shenk, every story is interactive. She reads stories at the Blacksburg Children’s Museum and monthly at The Lyric Theater in Blacksburg each following a theme involving movement and energy.
“Interactive Readers’ Theater with Joelle” will take place from 11a.m.-12 p.m. June 14 at the Radford Public Library (30 W. Main Street, Radford).
“Joelle” is Joelle Shenk of JoELoe (it’s pronounced “Joe Low”)Productions, a Blacksburg theater school that holds classes, workshops, and summer camps designed to train and inspire young people, some as little as 4, in performance, movement, public speaking and confidence building.
She held a workshop at the library last summer, creating a story, then including music and movement and exploring how to tell a story without words according to Catharine Fae, youth services librarian.
“For Interactive Reader’s Theater, Joelle has the children participate in telling the story,” Fae said. “She asks them for key pieces of description or imagination and, as the story moves along, the plot line and character development is invented by the children.”
Much like interactive storytelling, Joelle Shenk’s life story, at just 30, would already make a compelling read.
Homeschooled in western Maryland, as a young person she “did a lot of church plays, community outreach, singing, dancing, readings at nursing homes”. She then trained and traveled with a full-time professional drama company out of Tennessee for years training primarily in improvisation and skit drama, settling in the New River Valley ten years ago collecting degrees from New River Community College. All the while, she was working in theater where she says she “found a love for children’s and youth production theatre,” before launching JoELoe Productions.
“I had been teaching children’s theatre for 6 years under a different company, but wanted to add different types of classes,” she said. “I did a test class on my own and soon the interest grew and grew. Now I am blessed to have classes for preschoolers, homeschoolers, high-schoolers and have the freedom to develop all of the in-between.”
Education research has long found that the ability to tell a story is a necessary prerequisite to a person’s later success in reading and writing. More recent research exploring interactive storytelling finds it’s a fun way to promote engagement and to foster new forms of creativity as children exercise language and empathy.
Shenk describes the “audience as story-teller” structure of interactive theater as not just a journey, but a big, group adventure.
“Interactive storytelling is a little bit of everything!” Shenk said. “Friends have the opportunity to hear a story, make up a story, see a story come to life, and be in a story. I weave all of these methods together, and off we go on an adventure through stories! Incorporating imagination, props and high-energy allows the children to be entertained, but also take part in their own way.”
Interactive Readers’ Theater is open to everyone, but probably most enjoyed by kids under 11. Shenk says she believes theatrical techniques can provide life-skills at any age.
“I always tell people, if you feel silly doing it, you’re probably doing it right! Let go. Is the kitchen spatula just a spatula? Or is it a wand? a microphone? a giant lollipop? Think outside the box! You have an imagination, don’t be afraid to use it!”
The tagline of the library’s summer reading program is “Reading takes you everywhere,” conjuring the self-directed power of reading for enjoyment. Interactive Readers’ Theater conjures a self-directed power of story-telling is headed for adventure.
For more information about Summer Reading Programs at the Radford Public Library, call (540) 731-3608 and about JoeLoe Productions, call 230-5084
