Do any of you remember radio drama? How about hearing recordings of radio dramas? Do you listen to “talking books” on car trips? There is something special about listening to a story-teller, to the power of sheer aural language. Notice how the experience engages your imagination even as the images come from outside yourself.
Well, some of my former students are teaming up with veteran writer and producer Phil Lollar, the co-creator of Adventures in Odyssey (a Christian children’s series of radio dramas that some of you may remember), to create a similar kind of children’s drama, to be entitled “Iliad House.”
They are raising funding via Kickstarter. After the jump, a description of the project.
From Iliad House: An Audio Drama by Phil Lollar — Kickstarter:
Iliad House will be an ongoing, independent audio drama, clocking in at about half an hour per episode. For you folk unfamiliar with the term “audio drama,” it’s like a talking book but better because instead of one narrator it’s an entire world come alive with characters, sounds, and music. There is no visual stimulation, so it fully engages a listener’s imagination. Our target demographic is 8–14-year-olds and anyone who enjoys great stories well told. Wonder, excitement, adventure—it’s all here in Iliad House. With this campaign, we’re going to fund the show’s pilot mini-series followed by the first full season of 12 episodes!
Why call it Iliad House? Well, we’ll just leave with you with this: The Iliad by Homer is an ancient, epic poem about a war among gods and kings. Iliad House is also about a war, but instead of flesh and blood it is against the principalities of this present darkness. We’re going to explore some rather intense subject matter and stories, but in a fun, funny, and engaging way that offers real answers and hope.
Fourteen-year-old orphan Jesse Davidson lives with his emotionally-distant and peculiar uncle Christopher Portalis in the Iliad House, a mysterious old mansion on an island off the east coast of the United States.
Just when Jesse is finally getting used to living on the island, he discovers that the old abandoned train he and his friends have been using as a clubhouse for the past year can actually move—through time!
“Jesse Discovers the Train Engine” by Cliff Cramp”Jesse Discovers the Train Engine” by Cliff Cramp
They get caught up in a series of adventures fraught with temporal distortions, political intrigue, secret societies, and supernatural battles, all as they try to cope with the daily pressures and craziness of adolescence.
While traveling through the future and the past, they learn hard truths and secrets about themselves, and that there is forgiveness and redemption available to all who desire it. And, as Jesse and his uncle come to understand each other, Jesse begins to see that there is much more to Iliad House, and to why he and his uncle are there, than anyone realizes.
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