Where can I find some good stories for storytelling?

Question

The audience is mostly teenager and adult but some children will be present. The performance needs to be 3-5 minutes long.

Answer 1

As a "story teller" I know there to be Thousands out there, and I offer this as one option.

Almost anything by Mark Twain, can be related to a wide exanse, in the ages of an audience. One I happen to be fond of and also relate to in my background is Huckleberry Finn/Tom Sawyer.

Certainly your time constraints can't allow for reading an entire book, but consider various segments of the tales. My first thought was the fence painting excerpt.

One of the secrets to getting and possibly keeping the attention of any audience, as a story teller is some embellishment, certainly looking at the audience as often as possible,. or constantly if you memorize a piece or know it well enough. What I mean by that last sentence is in part improviing, embellishment, and the context of the tale.

Another valid issue, I have used, is "props" and/or minor costuming, relative to whatever tale you're telling.

Neither of those suggestions may be allowed for you, but they can be very effective.

This can be as much a monlogue as some Actor performs, as someone else famous. "Good tale spinnin"

Steven Wolf

Answer 2

Look up the English and Appalachian "Jack" tales, of which Jack and the Beanstalk is the best known. There are several dozen, at least, and many are about a coniving Jack a lot more adult than the boy in the beanstalk story.