"Why tell stories? Flash back to 1963 and the civil rights movement. Out of that turmoil sprang the Free Southern Theater, a Mississippi troupe that used stories to provoke a moral conscience. The theater slowly faded away, but the need for such stories didn't.

'It was still important to get our stories out to the people,' says John O'Neal, founder and artistic director of Junebug Productions, one of the professional companies working with the festival and heir to the Free Southern Theater. 'We had to keep talking, we had to keep on telling our stories. They're a means of improving the quality of life."