THE HEALING CIRCLE

The Storyteller

I once had a good friend tell me that people told me things that they would normally keep to themselves because they felt safe with me or felt drawn to me for some "God-only-knows" reason.  I have had people entrust their most precious secrets to me.  These people weren't necessarily close friends or relatives, however, they were people I just met, sat next to on the train, or waited in a long line with.  They just felt the need to express their innermost thoughts to me at that present time.  My friend told me not to see it as a curse but as a gift.  She went on to say that I was a storyteller and each story that was given to me was a gift and I should treat it with care and pass the gift down through the generations.

That bit  of enlightenment hit me like a cool wind on a sizzlling, hot, Florida day.  Her words shed some new light on my life's purpose.  I am, like many of you, continuing an aged old tradition of storytelling.  Before there was book, radio, film, or television there was the word, the spoken word.  This was how people were educated, entertained, and enlightened.

Today, we have so many ways to get the word out and the storyteller's audience has grown.  Playwrights, authors, journalists, T.V and Film writers, actors, singers, dancers, and musicians all have the ability to reach across countries to the ends of the world.  We have the oppurtunity to tell someone's story, be it our own, our loved one, a stranger, or an ancestor.  When we write, speak, dance, act, compose, and paint we are telling a story, saying something about ourselves and our society.  What will they say about us a hundred years from now?  What kind of legacy are we passing down to our future generations?

There have been so many beautiful, complex, painful, triumphant stories that have been given to me.  I do so cherish them like a precious memory.  I once had an old man who had moved to the U.S. from Jamaica tell me his life story and about the love he had for his wife who passed away.  While he was telling the story I could envision an actor on stage telling the story to an attentive audience.  My own mother sent me tapes of her telling me about her horrifying life as a young tormented woman, passing it down to me like a family eirloom to do with want I want.  These stories will be handled with care and shared with others who might find themselves locked in the pages of their own stories.

This is why I have created Theatrapy, a theater company that focuses on telling the true story, life's story, and passing it on like a torch to light the dark path which is our future, with hopes of finding a light at the end of the tunnel.

This is Nzinga from the Director's Chair.

Please feel free to share you comments about being a storyteller on the website.  Thank you.

 The Director

Nzinga, affectionatley known as Queen B. by her students, has been in the entertainment business for nearly 20 years. She has been directing and writing for theater for 7 years.  Queen B studied Theater and minored in Dance at Long Island University in New York.  She founded the Healing Circle Theater Company and wrote and directed her first Off-Broadway play in 2002.  She has also travelled as an opening act for various Neo-Soul recording artists  and recorded her own album, Urban Folklore, independently.  For the past 7 years she has focused her talents on working with youth and women in the community, exposing them to the creative arts while promoting empowerment and involvement.  Queen B is currently a Theater Instructor for USF’s Prodigy Youth Program and CEO of Healing Circle Entertainment.  She lives in Orlando, FL with her spouse and beautiful three children.