Swallowed by the dark of the theater, a man sweats under the lights. His eyes glitter and he stands, adjusting the strap of his acoustic guitar. He begins strumming his second song. Then, a voice from the dark cuts through the air and everyone stops breathing. 

It's six minutes into his August 24 set at the Opera House at Boothbay Harbor — and Bill Harley is being heckled.

Harley has spent the last 25 years writing and performing children's songs and books, storytelling and entertaining. When I describe what Harley does to those who don't know him, they say, “Like Raffi?” and I shrug. I was never a Raffi kid.

Harley tells stories about growing up. “We all know them,” he said. “They're happening to the kids — and I'm also asking the adults if they remember.” When you take adults back to those stories of growing up “something kind of loosens in them,” he said.

With an artless charm, he covers Pete Seeger's “Abiyoyo” and depicts both the young boy, playing the ukelele to tame the beast, and Abiyoyo's ensuing goofy dance. It's a crowd-pleaser. 

Some of his earliest successes, “Zanzibar,” “Black Socks,” and his album “Cool in School,” are now classics. Asked if it was strange to be interviewed by an adult who remembers singing “Zanzibar” in the '80s as a kid, he laughed.

“That kind of thing is beginning to happen. Someone will come up to me and say, 'Hi, these are my three kids and when I was nine... ' and I have to say, 'Stop, I don't want to hear anymore!'”

Harley doesn't back down to the heckler. He smiles and responds with an air of mock disbelief that makes the adults in the crowd laugh. I lean forward to get a better look at the heckler — he can't be more than 6 years old. His mother wrestles him back into his seat and the show continues.

Moving back and forth between story and song, Harley entertains about 60 or so grandparents, parents, young adults and kids. His two hour performance is over in a flash. Adults have sung along and kids have laughed at the jokes they didn't even understand. 

Sometimes Harley plans his set as he arrives on stage, checking out who he has in front of him. Audiences of both children and adults are the most difficult, but he is a seasoned improvisor. 

Harley loves the art of storytelling. He draws inspiration from Shel Silverstein and Bill Cosby. “I always liked Shel Silverstein because he didn't edit himself — and pushing things too far is an artist's job.

“I'd also like to hang out with Bill Cosby because I feel a kinship with the way he looks at childhood.”

Harley said he hopes to soon take a step back from live performances and teach storytelling to young adults. “It's about assigning meaning to things that have happened,” he said. “You're saying something about the way the world is and the way it should be.”