Live and Virtual Shows

 

Tales from Beyond the Ban: Folktales from Libya, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen

In January 2017, citizens from seven predominantly-Muslim countries were banned from entry to the United States. Weaving oral histories of exclusion with folktales of hospitality and resilience, Milbre Burch invites you to share the wisdom of ancient cultures as they teach us how to be human in an inhospitable world.

For adults as well as middle school and high school audiences.

Tales from Beyond the Ban has been performed at:

  • The 2020 Virtual Women’s Theatre Festival

  • The 2019 Unbound Book Festival at Stephens College

  • Busboys and Poets

  • The Hans Christian Andersen Society storytelling series in Central Park

  • The RaceBridges online project in Chicago

  • The Performance Studies International Conference in Calgary, Canada

  • The National Storytelling Network’s 2018 Summit in Kansas City

  • The Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network

Audience Quotes

 “Hearing Milbre was a reminder of the power of a good story to create empathy.” – Lynden Steele

“I don’t think I’d ever get tired of those stories.” – Tynan Stewart

“The magic of the stories will stay with me for a long time. You are doing such vitally important work” – Toni Rahman

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Changing Skins: Tales about Gender, Identity and Humanity 

A spoken word concert of performed research on the wealth and persistence of nonbinary folktales and folk ways from around the world, interwoven with popular tales and commentary. It runs 75 minutes and features oral tradition tales from Armenia, Chile, India and Scotland, from the Inuit, Ojibway and Okanagon traditions, from the Maasai people of East Africa, and from the Jewish tradition in Eastern Europe. This performance premiered in 2010 at Columbia College in MO. It has since toured to the American Folklore Society in Nashville, TN; the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Atlanta, GA; Dixon Place in Manhattan, CA (on a double bill with Holly Hughes); at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN; the Tri-Pride Fest in Johnson City, TN; the Woodneath Library in Kansas City, MO among other venues. For adults and high school audiences.

 

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Sometimes I Sing

Travel back to 1902 with a young female reporter to the Women’s Ward of the Anamosa State Penitentiary in Iowa, where you’ll meet Minnie Wright, serving a life sentence for the murder of her abusive husband. Combining the distance of history with emotional immediacy, Sometimes I Sing indicts the systems that still keep battered women in abusive environments, even today.

For adults and high school audiences.

Sometimes I Sing has been performed at:

  • The Provincetown Playhouse at New York University

  • The International Conference on American Theater and Drama in Seville, Spain

  • The National Storytelling Festival

  • The International Conference on American Drama

  • The Mariposa Storytelling Festival

  • Georgia College and State University

  • The University of Georgia

  • The University of Missouri

Audience Quotes

“A seamless weaving of history, hardship, suffering, redemption.”
– Mary Kay Blakely, contributing editor to Ms. magazine

“Sometimes I Sing is a theatrical tour de force.”
– Patricia L. Bryan, author of Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America’s Heartland

“Milbre Burch will hold you spellbound in Sometimes I Sing.”
– Bill Clark, Columbia (Missouri) Daily Tribune

“Thank you for your work on behalf of our friends and neighbors who continue to suffer in the shackles of violence.”
– Heather Harlan, Phoenix Programs, Columbia, Missouri

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