Storyteller brings children together
STORIES from page 11
out. They stand straight. They are an
authority.”
Usually, Hutchinson’s storytelling
projects are presented in weeklong
seminar-style sessions.
“The first couple ofjjays, I just tell
stories, and the kids sit there with their
mouths hanging open,” Hutchinson
said.
As the week moves forward,
Hutchinson often has children ask
questions of their grandparents..
The activity is helpfiil to both child
and grandparent, he said. The questions
are ones that rarely get asked - Did they
ever step on a nail? Did they ever get
spooked at night? - but they offer a
glimpse into the early lives of die elders
that some children never bother to dis
cover.
“I’ve seen tears flowing from
grandparents who never knew their
grandchild would become that interest
ed in their life,” Hutchinson said.
When Hutchinson was a youngster
himself, years ago in Kentucky as a
teen-ager, he met a storyteller who told
him that one day, he would be a story
teller, too, said Hutchinson’s wife,
Marilyn, an assistant attorney general
with the State Department of Justice.
“(The storyteller) recognized that
in him, I guess,” Marilyn said. “He
loves doing it... it’s invigorating for
him to do it”
His experience meeting the story
teller had been previously enforced
when Orson Welles’ “War of the
Worlds” was broadcast when Duane
was 9 years old.
“I was scared to hear these big spi
der-like creatures were coming out of
things that had burrowed into the
ground from Mars.
“My father walked out and looked
above the lilac bushes and said, ‘Well,
they landed in New Jersey; it’ll take
them a good three days to get here.’”
Hutchinson still isn’t sure if his
father was serious when he said that,
but after Duane realized that “War of
the Worlds” was a farce, something was
triggered inside him.
“I wanted to be able to have (that
same) sort of power that came from lit
erature,” he said.
Along with his job of storytelling,
Hutchinson has realized his ability by
publishing several biographies and
short story collections.
His most recent book was pub
lished in March - “Doctors Are People
Too: Conversations with Three
Doctors” - and it demonstrates
Hutchinson’s tendency to write about
what he knows. He has no interest in
writing about someone he doesn’t like,
and he turned down an opportunity to
write about a famed criminal.
“I just could not bear to be thinking
day and night about somebody like
that,” Hutchinson said. “I really like to
like the person I’m doing.”
“Doctors” tells the story of three
physicians. One is a family doctor
whom Hutchinson has come into con
tact with during his life. He explores the
motivations these men felt in devoting
their lives to medicine.
In addition to “Doctors,”
Hutchinson has published 12 other
books, three of them ghost story
anthologies. And in Hutchinson’s story
repertoire, even his house holds a place.
In the 1950s, his house was located
on UNL’s city campus, across from
Morrill Hall. But when the university
decided to build a parking lot on that
space in 1955, Hutchinson’s future
house and a whole row of other houses
were moved to other parts of the city,
Hutchinson’s ending up at about 30th
and Holdrege streets.
The Hutchinsons now live near the
Ag Men Fraternity, Alpha Gamma Nil
And in an open-hearted spirit, the cou
ple shares their home, cookies, punch
and a Halloween ghost story in October
with the fraternity members, who in
turn have the Hutchinsons over for din
ner every so often.
The house is often frequented with
grandchildren, and inside pieces of fur
niture that have been passed down from
relatives hold stories of their own, and
books populate almost every room.
But as he has made clear, his love of
stories doesn’t stop at the bookshelf.
“When I sit with half-circles of kids
who are just openmouthed and looking
at me - that’s thrilling.”
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Omaha theater features
exclusively original plays
SHELTER from page 11
viewing them from the outside.
It is because the theater is so
intimate that it is easier for the
actors to incorporate the audience
into some of the plays. In some
cases, the audience acts as a basis
for their productions.
“One of our upcoming pro
ductions is an interactive sljpw,”
Nguyen said.
“Only the first half hour is
scripted. After that the audience
comes up with ideas for what the
actors must do. The rest of the
show is then improvised around
those ideas.”
Many of the shows are based
on the community and its people.
Nguyen said most of the theater’s
productions take on certain issues
that reflect on the attitudes of cur
rent generations.
The theater’s previous produc
tion, “Neon,” focused on a group
of 20-somethings who are facing
their upcoming high school
reunion. It explores their ideals of
success and their fight with reali
ty
In April, two one-act plays
will feature an exploration of rela^
tionships between a rabbi and a
woman who is dying of cancer
and a Latino war hero and his son
as they take a trip to Washington,
D.C.
The theater holds open audi
tions for all of its productions and
is continually looking for one-act
and full-length play scripts that it
can produce during the season.
Tickets for shows are $8 and
shows start promptly at 8:00 p.m.
Student discounts are available for
all Sunday shows with a valid stu
dent ID.
AP, Times, Journal
take Pulitzer victories
NEW YORK (AP) — Journalists
whose work shed light on financial
crises in Asia and Russia, President
Clinton’s impeachment and voter fraud
in Miami were among the winners of
the 1999 Pulitzer Prizes.
Also receiving the prestigious
honor Monday were authors of books
on Earth’s geology, New York City his
tory and aviator Charles Lindbergh.
The Associated Press swept both
photo categories — something no other
news organization has done — for the
second time. Other double winners
were The New York Times and The Wall
Street Journal.
In all, the Monica Lewinsky scandal
inspired three prize-winning entries.
In Portland, Ore., staffers of The
Oregonian washed down McDonald’s
french fries with champagne to cele
brate an award for explanatory report
ing. Richard Read’s series followed a
load of frozen fries from their origin in a
field in the Northwest to a McDonald’s
in Indonesia, chronicling along the way
the causes and effects of Asia’s econom
ic woes.
The Times staff, notably Jeff Gerth,
won the national reporting prize for a
series on the sale of U.S. technology to
China despite security risks. And
Washington-based columnist Maureen
Dowd won commentary for her acerbic
work on the Clinton-Lewinsky affair.
“I’m just so grateful to President
Clinton that he never spoke the words,
‘Young lady, pull down that jacket and
get back to the typing pool,”’ quipped
Dowd, who once wrote of Clinton’s
behavior, “these are not grounds for
impeachment. These are grounds for
divorce.”
The Journal staff won for interna
tional reporting, for “in-depth, analyti
cal coverage” of Russia’s financial cri
sis.
Detroit-based Journal staffer
Angelo Henderson won the Pulitzer for
feature writing for a piece about a drug
gist driven to violence by repeated
holdups.
“It happened so quickly, he was just
trying to protect himself and his co
worker,” Henderson said. “It was noth
ing about malice or hatred, but after
ward realizing what you’ve done is
tough.... I tried to tell die story of how
these two lives collided, and how their
lives both changed.”
The AP won spot news photography
with a portfolio of pictures on the
embassy bombings in Kenya and
Tanzania, and the feature photography
prize for a “striking collection” of pic
tures of key figures and events in
President Clinton’s affair with
Lewinsky and the impeachmerft crisis.
“Our photo team made AP and
Pulitzer history today. We couldn’t be
happier or more proud,” said Louis D.
Boccardi, AP president and chief execu
tive officer.
The public service prize went to The
Washington Post for a series on reckless
gunplay by poorly trained police that
showed that officers in the nation’s cap
ital had shot and killed more people per
capita in the 1990s than any other large
American police force.
The Hartford Courant won the
breaking hews category for staff cover
age of the murder of four state lottery
off"cials by a disturbed worker who then
committed suicide.
The Miami Herald won for inves
tigative reporting for exposing voter
fraud in a mayoral election that was later
overturned.
Duke Ellington, who would have
turned 100 this year, received a special
posthumous citation for his “musical
genius, which evoked aesthetically the
principles of democracy through the
medium of jazz.”
For “Lindbergh,” winner of the
biography prize, author A. Scott Berg
gained access to some 2,000 boxes of
personal papers and had unprecedented
access to the controversial aviation pio
neer’s family and friends, according to
publishers’ notes.
“This is the most exciting day since
Anne Morrow gave me permission to
write the book,” Berg, 49, said in Los
Angeles. The author of two other
biographies said he spent a year trying
to persuade Lindbergh’s widow to agree
to the project, and nine years writing it.
Writer John McPhee said he was
“ 100 percent surprised” by the award.
“I thought my brother was fooling
around,” he said. “Turns out there are a
lot more people who are interested in
geology than people who aren’t can
imagine.”
New York professors Edwin G.
Burrows and Mike Wallace won the his- x
tory prize for their collaboration,
“Gotham: A History of New York City
to 1898.”
Michael Cunningham’s book, “The
Hours,” won the Pulitzer for fiction;
“Wit,” Margaret Edson’s play about a
cancer patient won the drama prize;
Mark Strand won for poetry with
“Blizzard of One,” and Melinda
Wagner won the music award for her
composition, “Concerto for Flute,
Strings and Percussion.”
The Pulitzers, the most prestigious
awards given for journalism, are pre
sented annually by Columbia
University. The awards carry a prize of
$5,000, except for public service. The
organization that wins in that category
gets a gold medal.
Including the 1999 awards, the AP
has won a total of 45 Pulitzers, includ
ing 27 for photos. The New York Times
has won 79, The Washington Post 32,
and the Los Angeles Times 24.