Released on: April 25, 2008, 8:04 pm

Press Release Author: National Audio Theatre Festivals, Inc.

Industry: Education

Press Release Summary: The National Audio Theatre Festivals is proud to announce
that Brother Blue will be a featured guest artist and conduct various workshops
during their week long 27th Audio Theatre Workshop to be held in West Plains MO,
June 22-27, 2008.

Press Release Body: He is Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill, but everyone knows him as Brother
Blue. He is called by many the worlds' greatest storyteller. He says he wants his
stories ".to be bread for the mind, the imagination, the heart, the soul.." He says,
"I speak my stories from the middle of the middle of me to the middle of the middle
of you." His repertoire includes original Brother Blue stories, traditional stories
from western culture, folk tales and spiritual stories from Africa and Asia, and his
renowned own one-man versions of Shakespeare's plays.

The National Audio Theatre Festivals, Inc. (NATF) is proud to announce that Brother
Blue will not only be a featured guest artist will but also conduct various
workshops during their week long 27th Audio Theatre Workshop to be held in West
Plains MO, June 22-27, 2008.

Brother Blue has received many awards. In 2002 he was the first recipient from LANES
(League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling) of an award named for him,
The Brother Blue Award, honoring extraordinary commitment and support of
storytelling and storytellers. The National Storytelling Network presented him with
a Lifetime Achievement Award for sustained and exemplary contributions to
storytelling in America. He has also received the Zora Neale Hurston Award from the
National Association of Black Storytellers; a Peace and Justice Award from the
Cambridge (Massachusetts) Peace Commission; and the Anne Bradstreet Lifetime
Achievement Award from the Cambridge Center for Adult Education for contributions to
the poetry community. In 1975 he was awarded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Local Programming Award, and a Special Citation for Outstanding Solo Performance on
Public Radio (WGBH-Boston). By resolution of the city councils, Brother Blue also
has the distinction of being official storyteller of two Massachusetts cities -
Cambridge, and Boston.

Brother Blue has told stories for the World's Fair in New Orleans, Lincoln Center
Out-of-Doors, New York Folk Festival, Spoleto (Charleston, S.C.), Africa in April
(Memphis), and Mariposa Festival (Toronto), First Night (Boston, Massachusetts). He
was the official storyteller for the United Nations Habitat Forum (Vancouver, B.C.),
and the New Age Conference (Florence, Italy). He has appeared at many storytelling
festivals including the National Storytelling Festival (Jonesborough, Tennessee),
Sharing the Fire (League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling), Toronto
Festival of Storytelling, Yukon Storytelling Festival, and In the Tradition.
(National Association of Black Storytellers).

He has also appeared in the syndicated daily children's television series
Playmates/Schoolmates, and costarred in George Romero's film Knightriders. Video
appearances include American Storytelling Series, It's In Every One of Us, and In
Search of Joy. Since 1992 he has hosted a weekly storytelling series in which he has
presented as featured tellers over 200 amateur and professional tellers. Since 1997
he has had a weekly live television show on Cambridge Community Television, and
since 2000 a two-hour live weekly radio show.

Brother Blue holds an A.B. from Harvard College, M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama,
and Ph.D. from the Union Institute. He has taught storytelling and presented
workshops in prisons, schools, colleges, universities, libraries, and conferences
throughout the United States and in other countries. He has presented his stories
before countless audiences for radio, television, churches, libraries, schools,
colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons, conferences, festivals, and in
streets and parks in the United States, Canada, Europe (including Russia and
Sweden), South Africa, and the Bahamas.

For more information about Brother Blue, visit his website at
http://www.brotherblue.com/.

NATF's 27th Annual Audio Theater Workshop will be held in West Plains, MO, June
22-27, 2008. This unique week of audio arts training and hands-on participation is
dedicated to all areas of audio production. Beginners to experts of all ages are
welcomed for a week of learning, networking, and sharing. Returning to West Plains
for the seventh consecutive year, the 2008 workshop will feature Shakespeare and
Cowboy Poetry.

Live audiences will enjoy the fruits of the participants\' experiences during a
special performance Friday, June 27, in the Civic Center Theater. This performance
will also be broadcast, webcast, and recorded. Highlighting this summer\'s weeklong
event will be participatory workshops in, among other areas, script writing,
performing and voice, and the technical aspects of this art form.

We encourage you to visit NATF\'s website regularly over the next few weeks
(http://www.natf.org/atw.html). It will be updated as events and workshops are added
and solidified.

The 2008 NATF Audio Theater Workshop is made possible, in part, by the Missouri Arts
Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
# # #

About NATF: The National Audio Theatre Festivals, Inc. (NATF) is a 501(c)(3)
organization serving the advancement of audio theatre and evolving media arts
through education and presentation.

Web Site: http://www.natf.org/

Contact Details: PO Box 3535, Gresham OR 97030-0396, USA

Phone: 503-465-5081
Email: ed@natf.org