Sobol, Joseph Daniel

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SOBOL, Joseph Daniel

PERSONAL:

Male. Education: Sarah Lawrence College, B.A. (creative writing and literature), 1976; University of North Carolina, M.A. (folklore), 1987; Northwestern University, Ph.D., 1994.

ADDRESSES:

Office—East Tennessee State University, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, P.O. Box 70548, 410 Warf-Pickel Hall, Johnson City, TN 37614-0548. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER:

Musician, folklorist, educator, and author. Westchester Conservatory of Music, classical and folk guitar instructor, 1973-75; member of New Artef Theater Company, 1981-82; member of Firebird Theater Company, 1982-83; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, supervisor of folklore archive and John Edwards Memorial Collection, 1983-85; Cleveland Community College, Shelby, NC, visiting artist, 1985-87; Catawba Valley Community College, Hickory, NC, visiting artist, 1987-88; Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, graduate assistant in the department of performing arts, 1990-91; Stories of Urban Life (SOUL; community-based oral history theater project), Chicago, IL, composer-in-residence, 1995-96; Roosevelt High School, Chicago, IL, folklorist-in-residence for ESL program, 1995-96; Union Graduate School, Cincinnati, OH, adjunct faculty member, 1995-97; Oakton Community College, Skokie, IL, adjunct professor of speech, 1997-98; Hebrew Theological College, Skokie, adjunct professor of speech, 1998-99; Helen Pierce International School, Chicago, IL, folklorist in residence, 1998; Senn High School, Chicago, folklorist-in-residence for ESL program, 1999; Mather High School, Chicago, IL, folklorist in residence for ESL program, 2000; East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, associate professor and coordinator of graduate program in storytelling, 2000—. DePaul University, Chicago, visiting professor of storytelling, folklore, and ethnography, 1995-2000. Has also been an artist-or folklorist-in-residence in various communities and learning institutions around the country. Member of musical group Kiltartan Road.

MEMBER:

National Storytelling Association, American Folklore Society, Dramatists' Guild, Regional Organization of Theaters South.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Joseph Jefferson Citation for outstanding original music, 1995, for In the Deep Heart's Core; Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs Neighborhood Arts Program grants, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000; Homegrown CD Award, Acoustic Guitar Magazine, 2000, for Citternalia; Storytelling World Award, and Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Award, both 2000, both for The Storytellers' Journey.

WRITINGS:

(Coadapter, codirector, and author of score) James Stephens, The Crock of Gold (play), first produced in Chicago, IL, 1990.

Voids of Passage: Puberty Rites of the '60s (storytelling show), first produced in Chicago, IL, 1991.

(Composer) In the Deep Heart's Core: A Mystic Cabaret (musical play), poetry by W. B. Yeats, first produced in Chicago, IL, 1993, U.S. tour, 1994-99.

(Editor, with William Bernard McCarthy and Cheryl Oxford, and contributor) Jack in Two Worlds: Contemporary North American Tales and Their Tellers, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1994.

In the Deep Heart's Core: Songs from the Works of W. B. Yeats (audio recording), Classic Digital Recordings (Chicago, IL), 1995.

The Storytellers' Journey: An American Revival, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 1999.

Also composer of Citternalia (sound recording), c. 1999. Contributor to books, including Who Says?: Aesthetic and Ethical Issues in Storytelling, edited by Carol Birch and Melissa Heckler, August House (Little Rock, AR), 1996; Traditional Storytelling Today: An International Encyclopedia, edited by Margaret Read MacDonald, Fitzroy-Dearborn Press (Chicago, IL), 1998; and More Ready-to-Tell Tales, August House (Little Rock, AR), 2000. Also contributor to periodicals, including North Carolina Folklore Journal and Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

The Education Tree: International Folktales from an American Inner-City High School; Cast a Cold Eye: Songs from the Poetry of W. B. Yeats, Volume 2; Voids of Passage, a collection of coming-of-age stories.

SIDELIGHTS:

Professional folklorist, storyteller, and musician Joseph Daniel Sobol has been an active participant in the fairly recent revival of the art of storytelling in the United States. Currently a professor of storytelling at East Tennessee State University, he has traveled across the country with various theater groups, worked as a folklorist-in-residence at numerous schools, and written or composed music for stage productions. Of these, Sobol has gained particular acclaim for In the Deep Heart's Core: A Mystic Cabaret, for which he set the poems of W. B. Yeats to music that helps tell the story of the Irish poet's life. Sobol uses a variety of musical styles in this play, including everything from jazz to folk and Celtic renditions in a two-act production. The first act portrays Yeats's life as a young man, full of energy and optimism, while the second half shows him in old age, a more cynical person whose abiding interest in politics leads him to write such great poems as "Easter 1916."

Sobol, who had been interested in Yeats's poetry for years, worked on In the Deep Heart's Core for about a dozen years before a chance meeting with singer Kathy Cowan in Ireland led to a collaboration that resulted in the play's first production in 1993. The show then went on tour from 1994 to 1999 with Sobol and Cowan's group, Kiltartan Road, and music from the play was also recorded for a compact disc. The resulting work has received wide praise from theater critics, as well as a Joseph Jefferson Citation for outstanding original music. Noting that Yeats intended his poems to be heard aloud and not just read, reviewers appreciated Sobol's efforts to enhance them with music. For example, Chicago Sun-Times contributor Hedy Weiss wrote, "Sobol and his collaborators possess an unerring gift for remaining true to the sound and fury of Yeats' poetry. And the musical settings seem like the logical extensions of the poet's fire."

Besides his work as a musician and composer, Sobol's chief interest has been storytelling, an art form that over the last few decades has gained wide popularity in the United States. Sobol discusses this phenomenon in his book The Storytellers' Journey: An American Revival. The book includes interviews with storytellers working all over the United States and also provides a detailed history of the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling, a preeminent organization for professional storytellers. Noting that this is a "scholarly work, looking at the phenomenon of storytelling on a number of levels: social, mythic, psychological and cultural," Rambles online contributor Donna Scanlon felt that The Storytellers' Journey will be of greatest interest to those who are already involved in storytelling. Another reviewer, Anne Lundin, complained in a Library Quarterly article that Sobol's study does not give credit to children's librarians who, she asserted, have served as "powerful agents in the history of storytelling in America." Lundin felt that this "omission is critical" and that "Sobol gives the impression that most performers discovered storytelling as a found art, without acknowledging the groundbreaking work of librarians over the last century." On the other hand, Choice critic A. K. Wilson concluded that Sobol offers "a rich insight into the individuals working to keep contemporary storytelling alive."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

An Scathan, October 31, 1996, Joan Farrell, "W. B. Yeats: Poet's Words Set to Music, Stage," p. 18.

Chicago Sun-Times, December 30, 1994, Hedy Weiss, "Yeats' Wondrous Poetry Comes Alive at Bailiwick," p. 29.

Choice, November, 1994, L. Evers, review of Jack in Two Worlds: Contemporary North American Tales and Their Tellers, p. 454; November, 1999, A. K. Wilson, review of The Storytellers' Journey: An American Revival, p. 594.

Jewish Exponent (Philadelphia, PA), October 17, 1996, Michael Elkin, "Composer's Work Is Poetry in Motion," p. X7.

Library Journal, February 15, 1999, Richard K. Burns, review of The Storytellers' Journey, p. 160.

Library Quarterly, January, 2000, Anne Lundin, review of The Storytellers' Journey, p. 167.

School Library Journal, December, 1999, Judy Sokoll, review of The Storytellers' Journey, p. 168.