Professional actress Michéle LaRue performing onstage.
LaRue will perform four stories of her 30 Tales Well Told lineup in what is billed as a story hour for grownups. The four stories are:
Someone Must Wash the Dishes, an anti-suffrage satire written in 1912 by prominent pro-Suffragist and Unitarian minister Marie Jenney Howe, which satirizes arguments against women’s right to vote that were seen as accurate in their day — but ridiculous today.
Gettysburg: One Woman’s War, which views the American Civil War from a female perspective, introducing Mary Bowman on the day the battle of Gettysburg began. The program dramatizes three tales from novelist Elsie Singmaster’s classic Gettysburg: Stories of the Red Harvest and the Aftermath published in 1913.
The Apple Tree, a comic celebration of spring and poor housekeeping. In this story written in 1903 by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, the collision of two very different couples — one obsessively good at housekeeping and the other not so much — reveals the true value of a glorious spring day.
A Pair of Silk Stockings, the story of Little Mrs. Sommers, who is swept away by an impromptu holiday from home.
All four stories harken back to a time when literature was written for the ear, LaRue explained.
“Long before radio, family members and friends shared stories aloud — reading by kerosene lamp in farm houses, or by gaslight in Victorian parlors,” LaRue said. “Over the years, during my performances, I’ve seen contemporary adults light up like children hearing a new story. Despite TV and films, the internet and special effects, we still crave to simply listen to a tale well told.”
LaRue will perform at the following locations:
- April 26, 6 p.m., Twisp Public Library, The Apple Tree and A Pair of Silk Stockings.
- April 27, 3:30 p.m., Pateros Public Library, The Apple Tree and A Pair of Silk Stockings.
- April 28, 3:30 p.m., Tonasket Public Library, Gettysburg.
- April 29, 2:30 p.m., Omak Public Library, Someone Must Wash the Dishes.
- April 30, 6 p.m., Quincy Public Library, Someone Must Wash the Dishes.
- May 1, 7 p.m., Chelan Public Library, The Apple Tree and A Pair of Silk Stockings.
- May 2, 1 p.m., Apple Blossom Festival stage, Memorial Park, Wenatchee, The Apple Tree.
- May 3, 1 p.m., Cashmere Public Library, Someone Must Wash the Dishes.
- May 4, 10 a.m., Waterville Public Library, Someone Must Wash the Dishes.
- May 5, 11 a.m., Soap Lake Public Library, Someone Must Wash the Dishes.
