Tales of 2 Storytellers Include Touch of the Autobiographical

Vicki Juditz is a Pennsylvania native who married into a Catskills theatrical dynasty. After a television career in New York City she moved to Los Angeles, where local theater critics wrote that she is a “natural storyteller.”

Cheryl Montelle left St. Louis as a teenager for a dance career on Broadway. Then she moved to Los Angeles, where she took up motherhood and the art of storytelling. Juditz and Montelle will appear on stage Saturday under the auspices of Los Angeles Dreamshapers, a group devoted to reviving the traditional art of storytelling. Their program is titled “Honeymoons and Dancing Hearts--Romance on the Real Side.”

Producer Jon Hughes said the stories will be about “urban women, including a wedding and honeymoon, and the crazy quirks that make them both sobering and memorable. Also motherhood and the changing role of modern women.”

Juditz and Montelle will perform in costumes, including a wedding dress and a bathing suit, that make it clear the art of storytelling has evolved from cracker barrels, plaid shirts and calico dresses.

Juditz, a veteran of national storytelling competitions, said her tales are a form of modern autobiography.

“I’m trying to do what a very good short-story writer does,” she said.

Montelle said storytelling today is “about having a past, but living in the present.”

In one of her stories Saturday, she will recall that there came a moment during a dance audition with the legendary Bob Fosse that she began to realize, “I think I need a life now.”

Both women, who are married mothers of 2-year-old daughters, said they are looking for “a positive message in poignant situations.”

BE THERE

“Honeymoons and Dancing Hearts--Romance on the Real Side,” an evening of storytelling presented by Los Angeles Dreamshapers, Saturday, 8 p.m., at Traditional Music Society Folk Music Center in Encino Park, 16953 Ventura Blvd., Encino. $8-$10. Call (818) 704-4240.