top of page
Additional Performers
Tabitha Enoch
Mistress of Ceremonies
Tabitha Enoch grew up in Boston, Massachusetts and moved to Charlottesville, Virginia in 1999 to assume the role of Assistant Dean in Residence Life here at UVA. In 2002, her area of responsibility shifted from Residence Life to Orientation and New Student Programs (ONSP) where her team works to build an inclusive and welcoming experience for new undergraduates with a wonderful squad of student leaders. The orientation program provides incoming students with services that enable them to transition smoothly into their new roles at the University. The following annual programs reflect some of the other work that ONSP does: Summer Orientation, Wahoo Welcome, Opening Convocation and Honor Induction, Grounds for Discussion (a peer-theater production), Transfer Student Programming, and Family Weekend. In 2019, she began serving as an Associate Dean of Students, in the Office of the Dean of Students, and in addition to Orientation & New Student Programs, she helped to shape the diversity and inclusion efforts of the Student Affairs Division and provide support to UVA’s first generation and low-income students, and undergraduate student veterans. Finally, she has also donned herself The University Hype Girl and Final Exercises DJ, where her Twitter handle is actually @UVADJTAB.
_JPG.jpg)
Clinton Atwater
Connecting Stories and People
At the heart of Clinton's work lies one simple but powerful truth: Connecting Stories and People.
Clinton's journey began around Michigan campfires, where family tales unfolded beneath starlit skies. Years later, while balancing life as a Pharmacy Operations Manager and pursuing a Master's in Leadership, he discovered Toastmasters—and with it, his authentic voice and true calling.
What started as a quest to improve presentation skills revealed a deeper purpose: not just telling stories, but helping others tell theirs. Through mentorship, training with master storytellers, and performances at events like Tellabration!, Clinton's vision crystallized into what would become Storytelling Connections.
Let Me Tell Ya! emerged as Clinton's flagship initiative—a supportive storytelling community fostering connection through both live and virtual events. When the pandemic threatened to silence live storytelling, Clinton transformed challenge into opportunity, bringing Let Me Tell Ya! online and expanding its reach globally.
Today, Let Me Tell Ya! thrives with monthly swaps, library showcases, museum events, and collaborations with master storytellers—all creating spaces where diverse voices can be heard and celebrated.
In 2025, Clinton will receive the prestigious ORACLE Award from the National Storytelling Network for Service and Leadership in the Mid-Atlantic region—a testament to his dedication to nurturing the storytelling community.
Through Storytelling Connections, Clinton:
-
Entertains audiences with captivating performances at festivals, libraries, and schools
-
Empowers others through interactive workshops that help people find their unique voices
-
Celebrates tradition by producing events that welcome storytellers from all backgrounds
This isn't just Clinton's story—it's part of something larger. Because in every tale he tells, and every voice he helps to lift, the same truth echoes: when we share our stories, we discover we're all connected—one story at a time.
Rob Craighurst
Goofy. Touching. Thoughtful. Rob’s stories rustle around inside your soul, find a place to sit, and smile back at you over a cup of tea. Don’t be surprised when they elbow you while you’re thinking of something else and say, “Hey, remember me? I was in one of Rob’s stories you heard long ago. Mind if I look over your shoulder?”
Twenty-plus years delighting audiences with talking mice, foolish boys, and tall tales tickles him as much as it does his listeners. Many followed him back to 1904 to investigate a murder in Charlottesville. A true story. All the men become the mayor, the women, the mayor’s wife. Things go
downhill. The murder. The arrest. The trial. The outcome. But who did it? The travelers on the tour return from 1904 alive. But after two hours of Rob’s storytelling, they’re not the same.
Want more stories? Rob and his wife, Sue Berres, run Fresh Stories Served Hot, LLC. Grab a friend and let seasoned storytellers escort you to lands far away and into your heart. Many of this festival’s tellers
have graced its stage. Special treat: The Friday evening before this festival, June 13, Charlotte Blake Alston and Liza Newell will be holding forth in a special two-hour concert. Two very talented
storytellers. Not to be missed.
When not telling stories, Rob shares his life in Charlottesville with his wife, daughter and a few cats.
(The number of cats is negotiable at the moment.) You can also find him contra dancing, making homemade ice cream, or doing the landlord thing, which means keeping his tenants and properties
happy. Oh yeah, he’s also renovating the house next door. But that’s another story.
Charmaine Crowell-White
Charmaine is a graduate of San Jose State University in San Jose, California and has performed and directed for many theater companies across the United States. Her extensive film credits include, Peggy Sue Got Married, Major Payne, Hannibal, Thomas Jefferson, An American Scandal, a worshiper in the PBS mini-series the Abolitionists, the role of Minerva in The Spielberg Lincoln Film, a free slave woman in Killing Lincoln, and a laundry servant in the AMC television series Turn. Charmaine was a background player in a pilot episode in The Kevin Durant T.V. Series. She also played several background roles in Ethan Hawke's Showtime series Good Lord Bird.
Her extensive theater credits include major roles in For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf, God’s Trombones, A Raisin In The Sun, Home, Death and the Maiden, North Star, and the list goes on.
Charmaine is a living History Interpreter. Her presentations celebrate the lives of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Sukey, Dolly Madison’s personal servant. As a modern day griot, she tells stories and dramatizes tales from various African tribes.
Barbara Fornoff
Barbara Fornoff is a native of Alexandria Virginia, who grew up around so much storytelling goodness. She has told stories for Better Said Than Done and Story District. She is the producer of Cville Stories, bringing true personal storytellers together at The Batesville Market. Barbara believes we all have at least one great story to tell. When she isn't weaving words into stories, she can be found weaving yarn into cloth.
Liza Newell
Liza Newell is a performance artist who uses storytelling, song, puppetry and dance to explore the beauty and complexity of the human spirit.
Liza’s work is a tapestry of expression woven from fairy tales, folklore, mythology, and personal experiences. Her work invites individuals from all walks of life to journey into realms of wonder, reflection and transformation.
Through her myriad forms of expression, Liza’s creativity opens up new pathways for our lived experiences to intersect.
Liza believes in the power of curiosity and imagination as a driving force for change.
Glenna Ohlms
Believing that a good story well told is timeless, Glenna has entertained listeners from 3 to 103 in schools,
churches, parks, nursing homes, retirement centers, at festivals, and in her own home.
Her programs are always family friendly and often go beyond traditional tales and personal narratives to include stories in song playfully presented with puppets. She invites and encourages audience participation with the goal of folks looking back and agreeing that “a good time was had by all.”
Sandra Parks
Sandy Parks became enamored of storytelling when she was 16, now many decades ago. As a librarian, she’s shared stories with thousands of kids over the course of her career. She’s also told stories at the Appalachian String Band Festival (Clifftop), Floydfest, the Great Blue Heron, the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival, and every year of the Red Wing Roots Festival. Her specialty is Appalachian and Affrilachian stories, but she also borrows stories from other cultures as well. Her storytelling is enjoyed by both kids and well-behaved adults.
Stan Trent
“I can’t wait to hear more of Professor Trent’s stories! I am taken aback and touched by his storytelling and hearing first-hand about his experiences from childhood to now.” For over 30 years Stanley has received comments like this from students taking his teacher education courses at the University of Virginia. They have inspired him to share those stories more broadly. Stanley will always be a teacher at heart, and as he moves toward retirement, he looks forward to sharing his stories to larger audiences across the country and perhaps the world.
Many of his stories come from chapters of a memoir he’s writing. These stories are culled from a journal his students gave him for his birthday in 1982. He wrote about the joys of waking up and learning that schools were closed because of snow, confiscating Rubik's cubes, and Game Boys, and teaching the three R’s using story lines from E.T. and Star Wars. In 1992, after filling the pages of his hard copy from beginning to end, he began recounting his stories on his computer. Since that time, he has written thousands of pages filled with stories about his personal life including his family history, loss and birth of loved ones, faith, failure and success, dreams that became realities, and struggles that led to growth and transformation.
His storytelling has been influenced by relatives like his grandparents, aunts and uncles, and especially his 98-year-old mother who still tells him stories about his great grandfather who was a slave, her childhood sweetheart who later became his dad, his dad twice asking her father for her hand in marriage, how his dad’s best man got lost driving them to the justice of the peace for the wedding ceremony, and how he carried her across the threshold of the house he built for her as her wedding present.
Stanley has received awards for his memoir work including the Linda Julian Award for Creative Non-fiction, the notable list for The Best Essays for 2020, and a nomination for the Pushcart Prize. In his spare time, he piddles on his piano, reads novels and memoirs, meditates, and works out at the gym more in January than any other month of the year. He is excited about this next chapter of his life—sharing stories to inspire growth and self-actualization.
Sue Berres and Ruth Goldeen
Sue Berres (standing) is a pediatric occupational therapist at UVA with specialty training in children’s yoga as well as certification in Medical Therapeutic Yoga. She enjoys combining the magic of storytelling with the benefits of yoga in classes that are imaginative, fun, and engaging for kids of all ages and abilities.
Ruth Goldeen is a pediatric occupational therapist at UVA and has been teaching Children’s Yoga to children with and without special needs for 20+ years. Training includes Yoga Teacher training, certification in Medical Therapeutic Yoga, and a variety of specialty trainings in Children’s Yoga. Ruth has also been a trainer for therapists, pre-school teachers, yoga teachers and parents in the use of yoga with kids. Ruth has created a YouTube series (kidsyogabyruth) of 15 minute Yoga vignettes for Children with (or without) Autism – which has been translated into Vietnamese, Spanish and Chinese.
Ruth loves sharing the fun and creativity of yoga with children! While creating a story, we can “be” a tree, a dog, a cat, a waterfall . . . . a great opportunity to enjoy storytelling with our mind and body at the same time!
bottom of page