There have been so many bad “An Evening with Mark Twain”-style productions, with just one actor on a completely black stage telling stories, that it’s become a style that can be parodied. When something has a lot of visual density, a weak story is more forgivable than in something that’s extremely stagy.

Screenshot #4: Donkey Kong: From the Files of Unsolved Mysteries.

Songwriters can indeed be good storytellers, but the storytelling isn’t the focus of their performance; nobody comes to hear Springsteen’s spoken stories, they come to hear his songs, with the stories as an interstitial bonus. Same with Prairie Home Companion; the show packs a variety of comedy sketches, musical performances, etc., with the news from Lake Woebegone being only a small segment of the two-hour whole. Storytelling is still a skill that some cultivate, but it isn’t the main attraction for an audience. It’s probably the oldest human performance art, and it’s now just about the least practiced or appreciated.

However, I would add two datapoints to the “storytellers” introduction. Folkish singer/songwriters are also good storytellers, have you heard Arlo Guthrie? Or heard Bruce Springsteen tell the story of flunking out of the draft?

NPR also has some good story telling, both Garrison Keillor and “This Americal Life” abound with good stories. They might not be *easy* to find, but they are out there.