Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools Community Education Services

Twain’s Tales includes five short stories by the master American storyteller — “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” “Science vs. Luck,” “The Joke That Made Ed’s Fortune,” “The Belated Russian Passport” and “Is He Living or Is He Dead?” — as well as the fence-painting chapter from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The play takes place on the front porch of a general store in what could be Hannibal, Missouri in the late 1800s. The five locals — the storekeeper and his wife, a printer, a reporter, and a riverboat pilot — spend the morning entertaining each other by seeing who can spin the tallest tale. In his own lifetime, Samuel Clemens held all four of these occupations, and his ability as a storyteller may very well have been born while listening to such individuals spinning their yarns at the general store.