Jeff Gere is happiest when the crowd gathered for the Talk Story Festival falls silent.

"It's always a good sign when the whole room is just breathing together. That means they're in the spell," said Gere, the founder and director of the 21-year-old, free, three-day festival presented by the city Department of Parks and Recreation.

He knows a storyteller's magic is kicking in when the listener's "eyes start to glaze over, and chin starts to go slack. Then the head leans in a relaxed way. What that indicates is that the muscles of the imagination are working overtime," Gere said.

Beginning at 6 this evening, nine storytellers will take the stage for about 20 minutes each at McCoy Pavilion in Ala Moana Beach Park to relay "True-Life Tales."

Gere, Parks and Recreation's creative drama specialist, said, "I stagger them so that the jumpy, noisy brash guy will follow the quiet, introspective woman who hooks you with the intensity of her small voice; then a musician might follow." He added, "The wealth of it is in diversity."

The stories are not kid-focused, although Gere notes younger members in the audience can be riveted by the dynamic presentations.

Highlights from the lineup: Alton Chung, a Portland, Ore., resident raised in Hawai'i, performs "Pigs From The Sea," the tale of Hawai'i's Okinawan community's efforts to send pigs to starving Okinawa after World War II; Kuniko Yamamoto presents "Japanese Fish Folk Tales" with origami; and at 8 p.m., three voices from the "Papayas and Bitter Melons" women's story collective.

The festival wraps tomorrow evening with "Revelation" stories. Sign language interpreters will be provided.