By Melanie Steen
“I often say, give me history, warts and all.”
Brian ‘Fox’ Ellis has worn many hats over the past 45 years as a storyteller. On this particular evening, he’s wearing the hat of ornithologist John James Audubon.
“I have been bird watching in most of the places that John James Audubon went bird watching,” says Fox. “I am actually the official Audubon in Kentucky, where he lived longer than anywhere in the United States. I’ve traveled most of the Americas where he traveled.”
Besides retracing the actual steps of Audubon, Fox can spend countless hours doing research. And what better way to hone your craft as a storyteller than by visiting museums and libraries. His recent travels brought him to the Hayner Public Library, in Alton.
“I’m looking for those stories that help embody who he is,” says Fox. “I can’t tell his whole life in 45 minutes to an hour, so I look for quintessential stories.”
“We’re really excited to work with Fox,” says Benjamin Pollard, with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. “We’ve worked with him in other capacities. He’s a historian, naturalist, a storyteller. It’s one thing to see and read about history, but to have someone that brings it to life like Fox does, it’s completely different.”
Fox has been portraying Audubon for 25 years now, and says he does not avoid sensitive subject matter.
“You don’t shy away from these stories, you tell them just straight up and let the audience figure out what they want to,” says Fox. “Audubon was a brilliant painter, an amazing ornithologist, and a great writer – really blending art and science and literature as an eyewitness and participant in history.”
“I have done some storytelling workshops with him, and he just brings everything together really easily,” says Ramona Pollard, with the Nature Institute. “He made it sound really easy for us to tell stories just like he does, which I thought was a lot of fun. So I try and incorporate a little bit of that in the education that I do.”
“He’s unbelievable,” says Penny Schmidt, Advisory Board Member with the Audubon Center at Riverlands. “And it makes me want to go look more closely, not only at his drawings but also at the birds – as he’s encouraged us to do.”
“I could talk about birds all day,” says Fox. “I work for the Illinois Audubon Society, I lead bird hikes as part of my job. But I let the audience choose their favorite birds, and whatever bird they mention, I can quote what Audubon wrote. He wrote a biography of every bird in America and I’ve read all of them.”
Fox’s storytelling has taken him to 26 countries, and he’s performed in all 50 U.S. states.
“I’ve performed in Florida, spent a lot of time retracing his steps down there,” says Fox. “In New Jersey, he toured the Great Lakes , the Gulf Coast. He went up to the Rockies, and I’ve performed for the Montana Educational Conference and the Montana Audubon Society.”
Including Audubon, Fox has portrayed more than 30 historical figures.
“I also portray a number of poets,” according to Fox. “I am a published poet and I play Walt Whitman. I play
Edgar Allen Poe and I do the scary stories for Halloween, but I also have a program on Poe’s poetry which is what he wanted to be known as. I play Herbert Hoover, he was my first president, and I’ve recently been commissioned to play John Adams for our 250th birthday next year.”
Fox’s persona, in and out of character can certainly fill up a room. For him, holding a captive audience is second nature.
“When I was a little kid, I was the class clown, I got into trouble for talking too much,” says Fox. “I used to entertain all my friends in junior high and high school.”
It is rare that a self-described class clown can turn laughs into an art form, but Fox seems to have mastered it well.
He says the past four-and-a-half decades have been a wild and wonderful ride, time traveling and stepping into very some important shoes.
“I do love my job, I say it often” according to Fox. “I mean, I get paid to go wonderful places and I just have to stand up and talk for an hour.”
