The Telling Tales process

How Telling Tales works

It begins with a story. . . many stories actually.

Telling Tales is, at its heart, a creative arts and capacity building project using oral history, music, theatre and mentoring.

Our oral historian interviews each Tale Teller reminiscing about their life story.
Our Creative Team interweaves the Tale Teller’s stories and develops a script.
Tale Tellers provide photographs, artefacts and favourite pieces of music that have special significance for them for creation of an audio-visual presentation.
During rehearsals, the Tale Tellers and the Creative Team come together as a group and make necessary changes to the script and audio-visual presentation.
Rehearsals culminate in a live performance, where the Tale Tellers, supported by a professional actor, tell their stories to an audience of family, friends and the wider community.
After the live production, Tale Tellers and the creative team come together to debrief, where the Tale Tellers are also given a copy of their recorded interview, a video of the performance and a photo album.

Performances

Mentoring opportunities for elders

Tale Tellers are given the opportunity to be mentored by the Creative Team in the skills required to manage and deliver their own independent Telling Tales within their communities.

This opportunity was realised in 2022 within the Boroondara Vietnamese community. Past Tale Tellers, Yen Bui and Pham Ho, along with newcomer host, Minh Huynh, were mentored by Evelyn, Vivienne and Lorraine to create a Vietnamese Telling Tales Reminiscence Circle. The conclusion of this mentoring was evidenced in August 2022 with the successful staging of the theatrical presentation.

An added and exciting dimension to this Reminiscence Circle was the introduction of First- and Second-generation Vietnamese Australians coming together as the Tale Tellers to share their life experiences.