True's personal story....

True Thomas the Storyteller (aka Robert Seutter) has been storytelling for many years. He comes by it naturally. When he was in kindergarten, his teacher asked him why he put a big black blob of paint on the paper in finger painting. His reply: "It's a cave... full of bats!"

True has had a very interesting life (in the Chinese sense.) His childhood had some rough moments involving foster homes, group homes, adoption, and more. At 17, he joined the Marine Corps and started to really travel. From guarding nuclear weapons in Philippine jungles to being a "Grunt" and going to many places, the Marine Corps visits included Asia, Europe, and more. While in the Marine Corps, he became one of the youngest and lowest ranking Marines to be sent to USC Navy-Marine Cinematography program.

While in California, the Minnesota boy fell in love with California and after he got out, he headed back to LA. There he worked a wide variety of freelance and odd jobs (security guard, location rep, and any number of weird gigs). He worked as video/soundman for Dick Clark Productions, as a line producer in Saudi Arabia making training films for one of the worlds largest oil corporations, Aramco. During this time he traveled a great deal, visiting Africa, the Middle East, Asia and more.

Back to Hollywood, True worked on perfecting his chops as freelance Video Editor and Post Specialist. His clientele ranged from late night commercials to Disney and Medical videos. He worked for several years as the lead editor for Energy Productions, and won awards for his editing. True continued to travel, working as a producer and post supervisor.

After a while, he found his technical skills pulling him toward system design and ended up working for ASC/Leitch. He became the head of customer support and later, an Inside Sales Engineer, designing sophisticated broadcast video server systems.

While doing all of the above, he freelanced, doing RPG design, game theory and writing.

Around 1988, Rob runs into a re-enactment group called the Queen Medb Encampment, a 501c3 Non-Profit org, who reenacted ancient Celtic history and personaes. After meeting them, he applied for the name of "True Thomas de Rhymour, a 13th Century Scottish poet and prophet." Eventually, he was nominated as their Bard and, for the next seven years, immersed himself in Celtic history, culture, and folklore. He was given the title of Ard Ollave (High poet). Part of his responsibility in the organization was educating and training others, as well as entertaining. At this point, True was storytelling at rennaissance and Irish faires, and had started to make a name for himself.

He moved on to storytelling at schools and then to anybody who would hold still long enough to listen. With the help of Jon Hughes and later Bill Howard, he founded Storytelling at Eagles, which ran for two years featuring weekly storytelling.

From there, they moved to a variety of venues and founded a 501c3 State and Federal Non-profit Organization called DreamShapers. Its focus was on creating venues for storytelling and the folk arts. In the next three years, they sponsored and created over 190 storytelling shows throughout the Los Angeles area.

In 2002, True, as he was known, passed the torch over to Ken Frawley, the current President of DreamShapers, and True, as he put it, "got out and pushed." True wore many hats and was integral to the creation of the Los Angeles World Storytelling Festival. Now True is working diligently on further developing the many aspects of his storytelling art, and also works as a consultant for the Media and Event production fields.

True is an avid proponent of storytelling. He teaches the art, creates events, and has performed in a wide variety of places from campfires to battlefields. His personal storytelling philosophy is that a good storyteller should be able to tell to anyone, anywhere it's physically possible. That anyone can and should tell stories, and that to become a master of the craft, can take a lifetime. He's also a big believer in the spiritual side of storytelling. He believes in the power of stories and that the right story, in the right time and place can change the world.