A close-up of the Crankie box for “Paranormal,” a story by Russell Jones.(Barking Legs Theater)

Storytelling in a box was a handheld art form in Appalachia before electricity and the many screens that we watch today.

Think of a long scroll - illustrated, wound around two spools and loaded into a decorated box with a viewing window.

Then, turn the scroll - cranking the spools by hand while narrating the story unfolding inside the box - and what you have is a “Crankie.”

This weekend, “The Crankie Show: Hand-Turned Tales by Magical Thinkers” presents stories of eleven artists living with serious mental illness at Barking Legs Theater - Saturday at 7:30 PM and Sunday at 2:30 PM - with their Crankie boxes on exhibit at The HART Gallery in June.

Peggy Douglas of Southern Exposure is the writer who collected the stories and wrote the monologues for “The Crankie Show.”

Frances McDonald of Mark Making is the show’s visual art director.

(Barking Legs Theater)