The Art of
the Living Story
Every moment together is a living, breathing moment of community and connection that we create together. It's simply magical.
She doesn't just tell stories.
She inhabits them.
Cynthia Millhorn is a professional storyteller in the deepest sense — not simply a performer who reads from a page, but a teller who listens as much as she speaks. Every story she carries has been shaped by years of study, lived experience, and a genuine belief that narrative is the most powerful force in human connection.
As a performing member of the Jonesborough Storytellers' Guild and a graduate of dual master's programs in Communication & Storytelling Studies and Liberal Studies, she brings both scholarly rigour and irresistible warmth to every stage she stands on.
Booking categoriesLive Performance
Solo shows, ensemble work, and intimate storytelling sets for audiences of every size — from festival stages to living rooms.
Educational Storytelling
Classroom residencies, university lectures, and workshop intensives on the craft and power of narrative.
Women's Stories
A specialty and a calling — centering the female experience through folktale, history, comedy, and original material.
Comedy & Character Work
Distinct voices, physical characterization, and the kind of comic timing that makes history feel like a conversation you never want to end.
Grief & Healing Narrative
Stories that hold space for loss, forgiveness, and the quiet heroism of survival — from a teller who has walked that road herself.
Daughters
A One-Woman Show · Deconstructed Folktale Narrative
Daughters is a one-woman show of deconstructed and real-world based folktale narrative — amplifying the voice of women, celebrating and examining the female experience in all its complexity, contradiction, and untamable magic.
The show reimagines the stories of four female archetypes from the Brothers Grimm — villainous and virtuous alike. The audience peers into their personal journeys and is invited to understand the motives behind the difficult decisions they make when faced with limited choices.
Come experience the truth behind the myth — as one woman unveils four distinct female voices of empowerment and the untamable magic of the feminine soul.
Daughters was the outstanding capstone production of Cynthia's graduate work in Communication & Storytelling Studies and Liberal Studies at East Tennessee State University in 2024 — a culmination of years of scholarship, performance practice, and a lifelong devotion to the stories women carry.
Book DaughtersOne-Woman Show
Solo Performance
Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales
Deconstructed & Reimagined
Women's Empowerment · Choice
Villainy · Virtue · The Female Soul
Outstanding Graduate Capstone
ETSU · 2024
The Villain
Misunderstood. Cornered. Utterly human.
The Innocent
Not as helpless as the story would have you believe.
The Mother
Every choice made from impossible love.
The Wild One
The one they couldn't name, couldn't tame, couldn't silence.
Botticelli Babes —
the other show.
Where Daughters goes deep and mythic, Botticelli Babes goes wide and hilarious. Part history lecture, part standup comedy, part live audience game show — it's the fringe circuit hit that teaches women's history the way it actually deserves to be taught.
Same scholar. Same storyteller. Completely different room.
Book Botticelli Babes"Drunk History meets TED Talk meets SNL — and then does something none of them would dare."
A story isn't finished
when the teller stops speaking.
Cynthia believes that storytelling is not performance in the conventional sense — it is participation. The audience is never a passive receiver. They are co-creators, witnesses, and at their best, changed by what they experience together in a room.
It's essential that I listen to my audience just as I need them to listen to me. This ensures that every moment together is a living, breathing moment of community and connection. It's simply magical.
This philosophy shapes every engagement — from a university lecture to a grief workshop to a fringe stage. Cynthia doesn't arrive with a script and a spotlight. She arrives with a story and an invitation.
Every room is different.
Every performance is tailored.
From festival mainstages to intimate workshops, Cynthia meets every audience where they are and takes them somewhere they didn't know they needed to go.
Live Storytelling Performance
Solo shows and sets for festivals, theatres, arts organizations, and cultural venues. Original material and traditional tale-telling in equal measure.
One-Woman Shows
Daughters and Botticelli Babes — two distinct full-length productions available for booking at festivals, theatres, and academic institutions.
Educational Workshops
Craft-focused intensives on storytelling, writing, and performance. For students, educators, arts organizations, and anyone who wants to find their voice.
Guest Lectures & Speaking
Academic and professional keynotes on narrative, women's history, grief, creative practice, and the power of story to heal and transform.
Residencies
Multi-day engagements for schools, universities, and arts organizations — building story culture from the ground up in a community.
Grief & Healing Programs
Performances and workshops under the Stories That Heal banner — for audiences navigating loss, transition, and the long work of forgiveness.
"Storytelling is my favorite activity. Whether I'm onstage or in front of a classroom, I know that I'm just one part of the puzzle."
Every story deserves
the right teller.
If you're looking for a storyteller who brings genuine craft, warmth, wit, and the occasional standing ovation — the conversation starts here.