2025 Ojai Storytelling Festival!
This Year's Lineup
October 23-26, 2025
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Just $10 will send a child to the Festival
Performances to Grow On & the Ojai Storytelling Festival are committed to fostering a vibrant and inclusive environment that celebrates diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of our programming and operations.
At Performances to Grow On , we are dedicated to creating a space where people of all races, ethnicities, abilities, and socioeconomic backgrounds can experience the joy and transformative power of the performing arts. We offer scholarships, sensory-friendly performances, and diverse programming to ensure that everyone feels welcome and included.
Meet the Tellers
Regi Carpenter
2025
Master of Ceremonies
For over twenty years Regi Carpenter has been bringing songs and stories to audiences of all ages throughout the world in school, theaters, libraries, at festivals, conferences and in people’s back yards. An award winning performer, Regi has toured her solo shows and workshops in theaters, festivals and schools, nationally and internationally.
Regi is the youngest daughter in a family that pulsates with contradictions: religious and raucous, tender but terrible, unfortunate yet irrepressible. These tales celebrate the glorious and gut – wrenching lives of four generations of Carpenter s raised on the Saint Lawrence River in Clayton, New York. Tales of underwater tea parties, drowning lessons and drives to the dump give voice to multi-generations of family life in a small river town with an undercurrent.
Regi is the recipient of many awards, including Storytelling World, Parent’s Choice, and Parents’ Guide to Children’s Media Award. Her stories have been featured on Sirius Radio, Apple Seed Radio, The Moth, and NPR. Her story Snap! is a winner of the Boston StorySlam. Snap! is the true tale of her severe mental illness as a teenager and her journey back to reality. Her memoir, “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Dinner: stories of a seared childhood” is “an unexpected gift that leaves us longing for more.” Booklist Review
Regi is also the founder of Stories with Spirit, a creative initiative dedicated to bringing songs of joy and stories of hope to grieving children and the people who love and care for them in homes, hospices, and hospitals.
Paul Stickland
Paul Strickland is a professional storyteller and theatre artist who lives in Kentucky. He has well over 7 hours of unique family friendly stories in his repertoire, including reupholstered folk tales, fairytales for adults and future adults, tall-tales and even historical stories that just happened to have never happened.
Paul was a Teller-in-Residence at the International Storytelling Center in 2024. He was a Featured Teller: New Voice at the National Storytelling Festival and Featured Teller at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival in 2023. and the Cave Run Storytelling Festival among others, in 2022.
In November of 2018 he made his NYC stage debut Off-Broadway at the SoHo Playhouse with his shadow and flashlight ghost story play 13 Dead Dreams of “Eugene".
Always adapting to whatever audience is in front of him, Paul LOVES telling stories in every imaginable environment, from comedy clubs to elementary and middle schools, corporate events and even two prisons - where he was NOT an inmate at the time.
Collections of his stories have won "Best of Fest" honors more than 18 times at Fringe Theatre Festivals in the US and Canada. Selections from his comedy performance "Levels of Difficulty" are still played nearly every day on SiriusXM radio.
2025
Featured Storyteller
Minton Sparks
2025
Featured Storyteller
Minton Sparks is a multifaceted artist whose talents span spoken word, novel writing, teaching, and essay composition. Her captivating performances have graced prestigious stages, from the renowned Jonesborough National Storytelling Festival to the iconic Lincoln Center and the legendary Grand Ole Opry. She has also shared the stage as an opening act for celebrated musicians like John Prine, Nanci Griffith, and Rodney Crowell.
Sparks' literary works and evocative writing have garnered widespread acclaim, receiving praise from esteemed media outlets such as NPR and BBC. Her debut recording featured a notable vocal contribution from the legendary Waylon Jennings, while her second recording included a collaboration with the Grammy-winning artist Keb Mo'.
Driven by her passion for fostering literary expression, Sparks founded the Nashville Writing and Performance Institute, where she imparts her wisdom and expertise through writing workshops held both domestically and internationally. In 2022, she further cemented her commitment to the spoken word and poetry community by launching the Minton Sparks' Spoken Word and Poetry Festival in Nashville, providing a platform for artists to showcase their talents and connect with fellow enthusiasts.
Sheila Arnold
Sheila Arnold, fondly known as Ms. Sheila, has been presenting Storytelling Programs, Historic Character Presentations, Christian Monologues, Professional Development and Inspirational/Motivational Speaking for schools, festivals, churches and organizations nationally and internationally since 2003. Sheila is also an Historical Consultant for museums, historical societies and organizations. One of Sheila's greatest joys is being the co-founder and Artistic Director of Artists Standing Strong Together (ASST), which formed during the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, and continues to be a source of inspiration, strength and action in the storytelling and artists world. Sheila has been honored as a 2021 MacDowell Artist Fellow, a 2020 Mt. Vernon Research Fellow and a 2019 Hewnoaks Artist Colony summer residence Noted Artist. In the past she has worked as a Drama Ministry Director; Colonial Williamsburg employee; Substitute Teacher; and Social Worker for aggressive teens with emotional problems.
Sheila lives in Hampton, VA, near her son, Kristopher; her two grandsons, Brooklyn & KJ; as well as, her father and stepmother, Wallace & Vera Arnold. She communicates often with her Atlanta-based sister, Stephanie.
2025
Featured Storyteller
Jasmin Cardenas
2025
Featured Storyteller
Jasmin is professional actress working throughout Chicagoland’s vibrant theatre community, last seen on stages across the city: Steppenwolf, Goodman, Urban Theater, Lifeline, Teatro Luna, and Adventure Stage Chicago. A proud SAG-AFTRA member who’s TV Credits Include NBC’s Chicago Fire, Showtimes' The CHI & ABC's Betrayal and several independent films. Proudly represented by the Big Mouth Talent Inc. Jasmin Cardenas is a Colombian-American Storyteller, Theatermaker, Actress, Educator and Social Activist. She uses theater to create spaces where people can connect and tell their stories. She co-founded WorkersTEATRO in Chicago, IL to amplify wage worker stories.
Jasmin was awarded a 2020-2022 international LAB Fellowship by The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University and was selected to be the 2022 U.S. Emergent Theater Artists for World Theater Day by UNESCO and the International Theatre Institute (ITI).
In 2023 she was awarded the USArtists International MidAtlantic Arts Grant to support her solo show DISPOSABLE. In 2020 she produced her first short DOC Film about essential workers, Essential?...Tengo que Trabajar/I have to Work.
Winner of the 2018 OUTSTANDING STORYTELLER ALTA Award, Jasmin was recognized by the Alliance of Latinx Theater Artists of Chicago. Her personal tales explore the uncomfortable truths found when you grow up between cultures. One of the the first two Latina's awarded the 2012 Race Bridges Storytelling Fellowship, she created two new social justice stories from her life now available on her CD My Brothers' Keeper: Stories of Social Justice and Civic Responsibility.
Her one-woman show, written and performed by Jasmin is called ¿Niña Buena? A coming of age story highlighting the joys and challenges of being Latina y Americana. It has been toured in the Midwest and Puebla, Mexico.
Jasmin is a professional actress working throughout Chicagoland’s vibrant theatre community and is a proud SAG-AFTRA member.
Josh Goforth
Josh Goforth must have been born musical—he was already playing piano in church at the age of four— but it was an experience he had in the sixth grade that really lit the fuse of his precocious musical career. A performance at Goforth's middle school by Sheila Kay Adams caused him to start thinking about the musical heritage and stories of his native Madison County, NC. Josh was able to listen and learn from local masters like Gordon and Arvil Freeman and Jerry Adams. Goforth is a highly accomplished storyteller and acoustic musician playing close to 20 different instruments. After high school he went to East Tennessee State University to study music education with a Euphonium concentration, and to be a part of ETSU's famous Bluegrass and Country Music Program. In 2000, he played fiddle for the movie Songcatcher, both onscreen and on the soundtrack. He has toured extensively with a variety of ensembles, including the ETSU Bluegrass band, David Holt, Laura Boosinger, and with several bluegrass bands like Appalachian Trail, the Josh Goforth Trio, the Steep Canyon Rangers and Open Road. He has performed in all 50 US states, all over Europe, Asia, and Australia. In 2000, 2003, and 2005, he was named Fiddler of the Festival at Fiddler's Grove and, after winning the third title, was designated "Master Fiddler" and retired from that competition. He has performed at the Grand Ole Opry, the Lincoln Center, as well as Carnegie Hall. In 2009 he was nominated for a Grammy for his album with David Holt entitled "Cutting Loose". He currently is on faculty at the Academy for the Arts in Asheville and performs all over the world.
2025
Featured Storyteller