And now Audio Theater Central. Hello, welcome to Audio Theater Central. This
is the show that explores family friendly audio drama through news, reviews and interviews.
I'm your host, JD. Setter. This is episode one hundred and
ninety seven. This is gonna be a fun one. We've got a review
of The Lamb, the mini series from Witnesses coming up, and I'm gonna
be joined by Christopher Green to review those episodes and we're gonna have a great
discussion talking about that show. We'll also have a few audio drama updates coming
up here shortly. But before we get to that, I just want to
say thank you to everybody who sent in feedback for the monologue segment from the
last episode. I get so many comments and I there's just not going to
be time to address them all in this episode, so perhaps we'll do an
entire segment about just the feedback. But I heard from Caleb Bresler, an
actor, Glenn Haskell who's also an actor and a writer, Blake, a
frequent commenter here at ATC, several of the ADA members, and just a
lot of great feedback on that. So thank you to everybody who who sent
in their comments. Regarding that, I do really appreciate it, and so
we'll see if we can work that into a future episode. But I also
wanted to say again that ATC two hundred is coming up very soon, so
if you want to send in a voicemail to be featured on that episode,
I would love to include it, so be sure to hit up our contact
page to do that. And lastly, before we move into the next segment,
Easter is this month on the thirty first of March, so just a
quick reminder that we do have a list of some great audio dramas to listen
to around Easter, so that list is linked up in the show notes,
or you can head over to audio Theatercentral dot com slash Easter and see that
full list. Water up this program to bring you a special report and in
other news tonight a brief look at the headlines now they want exciting, fast
piece news that's relevant and entertaining like this. Well, a quick thank you
to those of you who are using the new news submission form, but if
you aren't, I cannot guarantee that your news will make it in the show,
so please please please send any updates that you have regarding shows that you
are involved in to us through that form going forward. You can head over
to PFM dot link slash ATC news to go right to it, or click
the banner in the sidebar on our website at Audiotheatercentral dot com. A couple
of events coming up if you are interested in getting into audio drama production.
First of all is the Lamplighter Guild there The Summer Guild for twenty twenty four
is July fourteenth through the nineteenth at the Lamplader Campus in Mount Morris, New
York. And if you are interested in working on audio dramas regarding writing,
acting, sound design, music composition, all of those topics will be covered.
Phil Lawler will be teaching script writing this year. Voice acting will be
taught by Daniel Cross. Sound designed by Alan Hurley. So this is a
great opportunity to get a real deep dive into working on high quality audio dramas
with an emphasis on these particular disciplines. So link is in the show notes
if you want to check out the twenty twenty four Summer Guild from Lamplighter.
Also coming up this year, John Fornoff is launching the Audio Drama Institute and
this will be a week long seminar on writing for Audio Drama in person in
South Georgia June ninth through the fifteenth. John will be teaching along with Phil
Lawler and Kathy Buchanan. So the three of them are teaming up to really
pour their expertise and their energy into this next generation of creatives, and John
said they're wanting to give them the tools to change the world. So if
you are interested in audio drama script writing in particular, this is another opportunity
to learn from the masters in this field. These three writers are all fantastic.
They have written some of the highest quality audio drama in this industry over
the years, so they're going to be great people to learn from. That's
about all of the information we have right now. There will be more specifics
coming, including a full website with more details regarding what would be involved,
the cost and everything like that. That's coming soon. But I wanted to
get this out to you so you could at least start making plans if that
sounds like something you're interested in. Again, that is in June of this
year. Now. A few items that are already out that you can check
out now. First, is not an audio drama, but it is a
podcast. It is called Your Fellow Odysseans, and this is a podcast hosted
by Daniel Roth, who is a long time Adventures an Odyssey fan who I
met at Sonic Khon last year, and this is a show where he just
talks with other Odyssey fans and they share how the show has impacted their life.
Well. Yours truly was a guest on the latest episode, which released
on March first, So link is in the show notes to check that podcast
out and particularly that episode if you'd like to give that a listen. If
you just can't get enough of hearing me talk about audio drama, No,
but it was a really fun conversation. We talked for about an hour and
really enjoyed talking about Adventures of Odyssey specifically and how that show has had such
an influence on my life. And obviously this show here because ATC would not
exist without Adventures not Also in January, the Audio Drama Alliance participated in a
challenge where the members were challenged to produce a short audio production. It didn't
have to be specifically audio drama, but a short audio production that could not
exceed five minutes, and it had to be around a theme of Lost and
Found, so several of the members participated in this and produced some really cool
stuff. There's a link in the show notes to check out a roundup of
all of the ones that the members were ready to release to the public.
So I think there's six or seven pieces there that you can check out there,
all under five minutes. Some really cool, creative stuff came out of
that, and I think you're going to want to check them out. It's
going to be a lot of fun, and I do believe this is probably
going to be the first of many of these, so you'll have some more
stuff to look forward to in the future in this short form audio range.
So it's going to be fun. Also out now is the latest edition of
the Dragnet Show from First Acts Productions. It's called Directionally Challenged or Disobedient.
It is exclusive on Dramafi and it is a retelling of the story of Jonah
through a lot of humor. It's very fun and the summary is Detectives Job
Thursday and Frank Honest are on the trail of a lost person's report. He
may be less lost and less kind than they imagined. It's a high seas
adventure that lands a full net of Mercy and Grace. So again you can
listen to that right now on Dramafi. Also out now, The Saints podcast
from the Mary Bakers is back to releasing episodes after taking a break for most
of the month of December and all of January, so they picked up releasing
new episodes again in February. So they're back to releasing series where they take
an entire week and release an episode each day in a series about a particular
saint. So that is also linked in the show notes. This next one
is not a full audio drama that is out, but it is the promo
for the new show from First Acts Productions called Range Drifters, so that is
linked in the show notes. A couple of minutes long there that you can
check out, and if you would like to hear me reacting to this teaser
audio, join the ATC backstage membership and you'll hear that episode there where I
reacted to that, along with a couple of other teasers that have been released
recently. Audio Imagination seventy seven Productions announced that their next show is going to
be called The Caller. Producer Matthew P. Warner said he has just completed
the script and is likely going to begin recording this month in March, and
the cast is to be announced yet, but this is going to be a
short audio drama based on the urban legend of The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs,
and it is slated to be released Fall of twenty twenty four. And
an update on the Jake Muller Adventures. The team was at Gap Digital in
the Chicago area at the end of February and into early March to record the
next two Jake Muller Adventure shows called Blood and Undead. Dugan Scherbondi and Sky
Ziskin are going to be reprising the roles of the main characters, Jake and
Ariana. We don't know much else about the cast, except for the fact
that John Fornoff and Jonathan Cook will be making appearances in either one or both
of these new shows. And I do believe these recording sessions are being engineered
by Todd Busteed. So great news there. I'm so glad this show is
back in production. Really really looking forward to hearing these few more items that
are still yet to come. Glenn Haskell when we mentioned him a moment ago
First Acts Productions, He's got a new micro audio drama series called Wednesday's Weather.
This is a six episode series and each episode is going to be less
than seven minutes, and it is going to feature Rose Beasley, Christopher Green,
and Bethany Baldwin and the first episode is going to hit Drama Fi in
early March. This is another one of the shows that I reacted to some
teaser audio four in ATC backstage, so if you want to hear that again,
joined that membership. Now we've talked about this before, but there was
another comment on the Pause and Tails social accounts where they responded to a fan
and they mentioned something about five new episodes. Now we only knew about four,
so I don't know if this is a typo or if there really are
five brand new episodes coming. But in any case, the first one is
going to drop on March thirtieth, and the rest will follow each week after
that. So those brand new Pause and Tales episodes are coming soon. I
know many of you have been really really looking forward to those, as have
I. So these are coming this month, or at least the first one
is coming this month. Also coming soon. This is interesting. Eternal Future
Productions, the producers of Pirateeers are teaming up with LRT Media to write a
novelization of the Pirateeers audio drama, and so the first one is going to
be based on season one and I believe that will be coming sometime this year,
not sure yet, there's not a whole lot of details about this yet,
but each book in this series will be based on a season of the
audio drama, and they said the books will provide a deeper look into the
characters, providing some details that are not mentioned in the audio drama but will
still align with it. So that's something to look forward to coming soon.
And also there will be a new episode of the audio drama Pirteers which will
be released Monday, March eleventh. And lastly, just two quick items here.
An upcoming production from Lamplighter Theater is going to be Tip Lewis and His
Lamp. That will be the next book that they're going to be recording.
That will be very soon. They've been holding auditions recently in recent weeks,
so I'm assuming that will be recorded here very very soon. So that's coming
up. And then also Drama Phi has announced that they are working on a
new original adaptation of the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice, so that is
also going to be coming very soon as well. So as always lots happening
in the audio drama space. I remember her from that radio program what was
it? A Western musical melodrama? You helped out with the kids radio program
and you were great, another important tool of acting, the art of becoming.
Shouldn't we applo or do or something for what? Well? I am
excited to talk about this program. You've heard us mention this, you know,
numerous times over the years, and I think the well in the updates
section just in the last episode, if I remember correctly, but also in
our conversation at Sonocon with Daniel Cross and Andy Harvey they mentioned Witnesses and so
you're not a stranger to this show. But this is the first time on
the ATC podcast where we're going to actually do a full review. We've done
reviews on the blog in the past, but this is the first time they
have released an extended series, a mini series or whatever you want to call
it. And so this is the eight part mini series from Witnesses called The
Lamb. And to help me review these episodes, Christopher Green is joining the
show. Christopher, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks
for having me. I am excited to talk about this with you because I
know in our private conversations we've referenced this show numerous times and it comes up
in conversation a lot because we're both fans of what the creator of the show,
Tracy Vandhlter, is doing here. So I figured you were the perfect
person to come on and talk about this one with me. Well, I
love talking about witnesses. Being a witness for witnesses, now that doesn't work,
but I love talking about witnesses, so I'm happy to talk about it
here. Well, and it's going to get even more meta than that because
one of the episode titles here is the witness, So I mean you're going
to be a witness of the Witnes from Witnesses, and you as the audience,
get to witness us witness the witnesses exactly, of witness exactly exactly.
So this is going to be fun. And it was released as two parts.
We had Part one four episodes and Part two also four episodes. Part
one was released in twenty twenty two and Part two in twenty twenty three.
And the reason why we haven't really addressed it before now is because we were
waiting for the entire run to be completed. Now the eight episodes total just
shy of two and a half hours, So two hours and twenty one minutes
here, and I'm ready to dive into this. So Christopher, would you
I didn't I didn't prep you beforehand, but you've listened to the show enough
you might know this already. But would you like to do the honors and
give us the summary for this show? Certainly drive nails laughing where you stand,
So go ahead, say, isn't he They will come? He will
see. Also, there's no time they've taken him. We were in the
garden they arrested him. From shocking beginning to painful end, experience the arrest,
trial, and death of Jesus Christ through the eyes of those who were
there for each major event, from the disciples in the garden of Gsemine to
Simon of Syreene on the road to Golgotha, to Mary Magdalene at the empty
tomb. The lamb takes an unflinching look at the story you thought you knew,
told by the witnesses in their own words. So this is written directed,
produced, sound design by Tracy Van Dolder, and my goodness, she
does an amazing job. And you here are experienced as a writer, director
of producer. You've been doing that for years with your show Shadows and Daylight,
which I unfortunately forgot to mention at the top when I introduced you.
But longtime listeners already know that about you. But Shadows and Daylight is a
show that you've been running, So you know what she's going through here,
trying to crank out a show on a consistent basis and doing pretty much everything
yourself. Yeah, that takes a lot, and I think she does a
fantastic job at it. I think, you know, listening through this time
around, too, always really struck. I mean, I'm struck by everything
that Tracy is doing, and here she does a fantastic job. But I
think especially I was struck by the sound design this time around that I thought
was just very fantastic, very immersive. And I think with a show that
has the particular format that Witnesses does, it could be easy to go very
light on the sound design because there are sort of extended monologue sections, I
suppose you might say, so it would be easy to sort of lean heavily
on that and be sparse in the sound design. But I don't think that
Tracy cuts any corners. I think she did a fantastic job on that.
Yeah, yeah, I would agree, And I also should say here at
the outset, just as a full disclosure here, both Christopher and I have
been involved in past episodes of this show, though we were not involved in
any of these episodes, but we'd be happy to be an additional ones,
Tracy, if you're listening, just saying, yeah, Well, before we
jump into the details here, now, this is uh, this is a
very familiar story if you know the Bible at all. There there's not there's
not going to be any spoilers here, So we are going to talk,
you know, in depth about the scenes and things that we're not gonna worry
about spoilers because there's nothing really new in these in terms of story. There
is in terms of presentation, though, and so we will get into the
details and parse that out a little bit more. But before we do,
for the people who haven't heard these episodes yet, we're going to give you
a little taste here. So let's give a listen to the trailer for the
Lamb from witnesses? Is everything all right? There? They're taken the robi.
What are you doing? No? Stop to this? How could you
do this? No? Do this? You writ I won't abandon him.
You are then, Simon? I panic? We all panect John? Are
you the messiah? I am who we have for anyone? Witnesses? So
what you're saying is you are the king of the Jews, but not the
one they want you say? So the things they said through him, oh,
would have been silent? What kind of a man doesn't fight back?
Huh? I am just trying to keep the carrier's cross or die by his
side. Your choice? All right? Are we I don't know what is
happening? They call you fool with just a rumble? Are you sure?
John? What happened? John? They've taken and we don't know where it
is? Oh? Man, so good? That is such a good trailer.
And you know all I could think when he said, do we have
need of any more witnesses? Tracy, if you're listening, yes, keep
making it yes exactly. So we're gonna hit on some of the main cast
members real quickly before we start jumping into the episodes, And as per usual,
we have Mark Henry Cooney in the role of Jesus, and he has
played that role the entire run of the series, even the prior episodes of
the show, not just this mini series, and my goodness, he always
does such a good job. I love his performance. I think what I
like about Mark's performance as Jesus, playing that, doing that voice and everything
is the vulnerability, especially as we get into hearing all this and the you
know, the trials that he went through. There's a vulnerability to it.
I don't know how else to put it, but I light that that shines
through. Yeah, and I should say, since this episode is coming out
the month of Easter, he also played Jesus in the audio drama Alliances Easter
production of The Most Important Passover, and you know, he does an amazing
job with that character of Jesus, and so if you haven't heard that,
you definitely want to check that out as well. But this is so interesting.
I love the way that Tracy takes these stories that we're very familiar with,
especially in this case. I mean, this is, you know,
part of the cornerstone of Christianity. You know this story, this is the
Salvation story, right, And you think you've heard it, you know,
and there's nothing new, but there is there are little things that find it
their way in there, and the way Mark plays Jesus. And then we
have, of course the major characters of Pilot and Joseph of Arimathea and Barabbus
and the Disciples and Mary Magdalene, and they all just come together in this
beautiful cohesive narrative that just pulls you in. Yeah. Absolutely, I think
you know. You and I were talking the other day in fact, about
Bible productions and those kinds of things, and how there can be running the
risk of just telling the same story and the I mean obviously inspiring important stories,
but there can't run the risk of just telling it the same way for
the hundredth time. But yeah, Tracy does take a really fresh take.
So and so what's so cool about this one is that typically when you know
in Sunday school or when you know and this is not to disregard the importance
of Sunday school or sermons, but typically when these this story is recounted in
those scenarios, they're usually looking at it from the perspective of the disciples,
and this comes at it from all these other different characters perspectives that are involved
in it. And so that's what I really really like about this. So
each episode of this mini series is told from the perspective of a different character,
and only two of these eight episodes are from a Disciples point of view.
So what happens is we go through the story chronologically from judas betrayal all
the way to the resurrection. But like I said, the point of view
rotates from different characters with each episode, with the exception of a couple of
points towards the end and the last two episodes, there is a couple of
they're not really flashbacks, but there are scenes that sort of jump back on
the timeline for a moment and then it kind of catches back up, but
it's because it's from a different character perspective. But for the most part,
the entire mini series runs in chronological order. So we're going to start off
with the first episode, The Servant, which is focused on Malcus and Malcous
was played by David Sanborn, and my goodness, he does a fantastic job
as this character. Mm hmm. Absolutely, And I mean, you know,
I don't want to jump ahead necessarily, but another standout for me,
and that one was Sean Condy and as Judas man, I felt like empathy
for Judas and I didn't know how to feel about that. Yeah, but
yeah, like that just fantastic. So it's it's like you said, it's
Malcus's pov in this in this story, but Judas is a big part of
it as well, and yeah, you know, both great. And this
is one of the shorter episodes. So I don't have a whole ton to
say about this because it is really sort of setting up the rest of it,
you know, like I said, it starts with judas betrayal and him
meeting with the with the high priests and you know, setting up i'll I'll
lead you to him and all that kind of stuff. But I just really
appreciated how it was such you know, it's a really interesting perspective to hear
about the whole scene at the garden and all of that from this different character.
And it makes sense because he has the most dramatic moment really in that
scene, in that showdown, so to speak, in the garden. But
you know, he was sort of ambivalent, you know, he was just
following orders. He was sort of ambivalent about Jesus. But then when this
thing happens and suddenly you know he's got this major injury. But then moments
later he has zero pain and he's recent stored completely and he's just like,
whoa, Like, what just happened to me? Mm hmmm mm hmmm.
I think there's a there's something to be said to like you said, I
mean, this is this is a shorter one, this is the where we
start the this mini series story overall, you know, but there's definitely something
to be said on where you Something I've been thinking about a lot lately too,
in terms of writing, is like where where do you start a story?
Because you've got a story in your head, You've got what part is
going to be backstory? What part is going to be the start of the
story? And you know that kind of thing because you don't there's always a
story that happens before the story and you don't tell it. And so where
do you choose to start a story or a scene or all those kind of
things. Do you want to explain everything ahead of time or you know?
And I like the way that Tracy did this because I feel like she started
at a point in the story that you know, again, you said,
most like you said, most people that are going to listen to this are
going to be familiar with the major beats of the story of Jesus in this
crucifixion, and so you could start relatively anywhere and people would understand where we're
at. So choosing the point that she did, I think was really smart
because it's it's kind of an action moment a bit too, you know,
with the ear and all this kind of thing. It's kind of an action
moment. You know. She could have started at the Last Supper and then
kind of gone to this, but she starting here I think was a wise
move to really get us in the get go kind of like, Okay,
this is what's happening. There's a bit of action. Especially in a dialogue
heavy medium and in a format that does have a lot of monologues, it's
nice to start with something that has a bit of action. Yeah. Yeah,
that's a good point, and I'm sure there was intentional on her part.
Yeah, we don't have a last suffer scene. Really. I mean,
it's an interesting choice and I think it works. I think it really
works. So because each one is not just focused on a particular character,
as you said, there are sort of little monologues from this character's perspective,
speaking really too directly to the listener. And you know, this is something
that I think I've become a little oh notorious for in the audio drama circles,
is how I have a dislike of narrators. And there's a difference here
because these are characters in the story and they're not just you know, this
random voice coming at you from the ether. You know, it's not like
that. This is a character in the story, and they do sort of
speak directly to the listener to a certain extent, kind of just telling their
perspective here. But I think it really does work, and that's sort of
the format that Tracy has started with from the very beginning of the show,
and it I think this is one of the exceptions where I think it really
does work. And I'm not anti narrator, but I think that some people
just lean too heavily on that storytelling device, and in this case, I
think it's a strength rather than a crutch to the storytelling. And so I
like that perspective. And then so we move from Malcus, and what's interesting
is, even though we might be moving to a different perspective, those characters
can still show up in other episodes of course. Well they're not just completely
gone, you know, but we're going to be hearing the rest of the
story from somebody else's point of view. And so that brings us to episode
two, which is called The Coward, and this is Simon Peter's perspective,
and Simon Peter was played by Nato Jacobson. Now this is interesting because Nato
is sort of known as like showing up in all these shows everywhere and playing
like numerous characters. This time he only plays Simon Peter, and it's all
these other actors who were playing five, six, seven different other characters.
So I thought that was kind of funny. Yeah, they had to spread
it around, you know. Yeah. I like what you said though about
the narrator thing too, because you know, I'm very much on the same
page with you. I find a lot of audio dramas lean too heavily on
it, especially the like especially the big sort of like companies that are starting
to jump into it, the ones, you know, the DC Marvel that
are like, you know, I think they invented the format now and they're
coming in and everything is man if I hear one more found footage audio drama,
I'm going to lose it. But yes, oh, I'm so tired
of news reporters and found footage. Not like there's a way to just just
make it happen, Like just don't have to tell us that's happening, just
make it happen. That said, I mean, I think Witnesses and a
bit of Time Travel to audio dramas that I love to tell people out.
They both use a lot of narration, and they both do it really,
really well. And I think what I like in this mini series compared to
even Older Witnesses productions is I think this mini book ends with the narration but
has a lot more sort of what I for lack of a better phrase,
traditional audio drama character interaction in between those bookends compared to some of the Older
Witnesses stuff. That's not meant as a negative remark about the Older Witnesses episodes,
but I feel like it's a growth point here that I really like that
still retains it the narration in those book ends, not losing the part that
makes it unique and makes it the Witnesses in fact, but it just it
plays it out a bit better, and you know, we can get to
this later because I don't want to jump out of the order, but there's
a really interesting I'll just say this, there's a really interesting aspect to the
monologue narration in part versus the interactive audio drama part in the last episode that
we can talk about later that I thought I really liked so but anyways,
yeah, yeah, And another note real quickly on this sort of style of
telling the story. It sort of reminds me a little bit of what Paul
McCusker did with the Air Theater production of A Brother Francis. I believe that's
the one where he told the story from the different point of views of different
people throughout his life. So it goes in chronological order, just like this
story does, but each section is told from a person that Francis knew at
a particular era or point in his life, starting you know, with his
closer family and all the way up through. So this is sort of like
that. It's each episode continues the story but just picks it up at a
different point and you get to hear about the central character, which of course
is Jesus, but from these different characters point of view. And we're kind
of just repeating ourselves here A little bit, but it's just a really cool
way to tell the story, especially one which we're so familiar with, and
so I really appreciate it. But one thing that I really love also,
No, sorry, I was just going to say, and I don't want
to beat a dead horse here, but I think one of the reasons why
the witness monologues that you're talking about and that narration works so well here,
Like somebody could be listening to the show right now and being like, oh,
okay, JD and Chris they hate narration, but they like it in
witnesses. So what is it about the witnesses narration that is making it work?
So because we want you to copy for the right reasons, to learn
from the right reasons. But yeah, obviously these are our opinions. But
what I think makes that so effective is like you're saying, it's the witness
because of that, we see the impact, we feel the impact of Jesus'
actions. So we're not being just told what he did, We're being told
how that affected these people in particular, how that changed them from the beginning.
They don't just start out at the same place, how that changed them,
how that affected them. And then we in turn as listeners are hopefully
then affected by Jesus and more than we would if we were just sort of
observing ourselves, because we have a guide with us helping us to understand how
we might feel about what's happening. If that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely,
Yeah, that's a great point without being so on the nose that it's
just like feel this, you know, yeah, right, yeah, exactly.
It also kind of reminds me of something that I believe it was Back
to the Bible, one of those organizations years and years ago, they did
an Easter story where they sort of broke it up and did something similar,
but it was just a narrative. It was a single voice narrative. It
was not a full fledged audio drama, so you just hear one character telling
their little chapter of the story, so to speak. This is something different,
and like you said earlier, Tracy's really uped her game again. The
beginnings of Witnesses were still great, but this is a different level. She's
gone to a different level with this mini series and I think it really stands
out. And one of the things that I always have appreciated about her writing
is the realism that she's able to capture from these characters and just make them
feel so genuine and relatable and little things that she works in, just like
in this episode. Yeah, we're finally getting around to talking about episode two,
The Coward, and there's a moment where I believe it's Thomas gets sick
and you hear that and he's he's just like it makes you even though this
episode is not from his point of view. You know, all the disciples
are there, they're discussing this event. Jesus has just been arrested. They're
they're they're freaking out, they don't know what to do, they're scared,
and he's just so upset that he gets sick and he vomits, and it's
just like, that's real, that's real stuff. The nice thing too,
is, you know, I was thinking about this in contrast to again going
back to the you know, discussions that we've had recently about Bible fiction production
like stories and stuff like that that are out there, and like audiodrama and
other mediums and that kind of thing, there is a real risk of running
too far with sort of the creative license and either creating unintended sort of like
weird theological side effects and things like that. And then there's the other side
of straying so dogmatically close that it's uninteresting beyond like you know, well,
it's like, well this is exactly I could just go read the Bible.
Now, what's the point kind of thing, right, But what I like
here is that these these human moments, these human things that you're talking about,
they're flourishes, not indulgences. So they add seasoning, they add flavor,
a little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper, but they
don't become a whole other story in themselves that is just loosely based on it.
It's still the story. The meat is still that, but there's a
little bit of seasoning on the meat just to help us. Man, I'm
hungry now, but you get what I'm trying to say. Yeah, one
hundred percent, that is an excellent way to put it. I totally agree.
And speaking of that way of the sheet, the really humanizes these people
because these were real people. That's the thing. These were real people.
This is this is not a fictional story, and so making them come to
life in this way really does help you to understand the story from a different
I keep using point to view and perspective and I feel I don't want to
become redundant, but that's really what she's doing, and it makes it come
alive to you, and I really love that. And because we're focused on
Peter here in this episode, one of the ways that happens is you really
feel where he's coming from, Like he's when he denies Jesus and all of
these things happen, he feels the deep regret and all of those feelings after
this happens and he realizes what has happened. We don't know one hundred percent
from scripture whether he was just caught up in the moment or if he was
really intentionally trying to deceive people. Was he really just trying to look out
for his own skin here or was he scared? We don't really know one
hundred percent, and so it could be interpreted a couple of different ways there.
But regardless of his motivations for his denying of Jesus in that moment,
you know that his regret was real and you feel that in this episode and
in the performance from Nato. Yeah, absolutely, And so he the way
he's characterized here as as just this coward of he was scared, he didn't
know how to respond in that moment when they start questioning him around the fire,
and so he denies that he knew Jesus. But it makes it all
the more poignant that he was the one that preached on the Day of Pentecost
the plan of salvation. And also we know that it was due to this
fact of his denial that Jesus focuses on him when he appears to them after
raising from the dead at the little Fire on the seaside there and he questions
him basically retesting his allegiance. Do you really believe in me? You know,
Peter, And so hearing him in this moment after immediately after the denial,
it really makes those moments later on feel so much more poignant to me.
Anyway, Yeah, I think you said that really well. So then
we'll move on to episode three, which is titled The Governor, which is
of course about Pilot Ponchous Pilot, who is played by Anti Harvey. You
know, I'm gonna say this probably on all of these episodes, but the
main characters in each one of these, the actors for them were just spot
on. I mean, they really really nailed these these characters so so well.
Absolutely there's no point speaking for myself anyways. Though, wasn't really any
point where I was listening and I had any sense of like, oh,
this is not like a big production group that put this out kind of thing.
There was no thought like, oh, this is like, you know,
an indie thing or something like that. But at every moment I was
like, this is hey to use this word, and when we're talking,
came about audio drama. But for lack of a better phrase, cinematic feel
to things. There's got to be a better word for that when we're talking
about audio drama. But it sounded good. I think There's only so many
ways to say that, I guess, but I think that term works.
I mean I've heard it applied to audio drama scores and things like that before,
so yeah, I think it works. We can borrow that term.
We need to find something though that is a very audio drama term and start
doing it when people talk about movies, just so they can see how it
feels. Not kidding anyways, We'll work on that sonomatic or alematic. We're
gonna have to. We're gonna have to work on that automatic sauna sonomatic.
You know, pilot has always been an interesting person to me, and you
know, I want to read the story in the Bible. It's just always
been, you know, because he's been portrayed so many different ways in different
stories, and he's often shown as this evil guy, and I don't necessarily
know if that was really the case. I think he was sort of between
a rock and a hard place here himself, sort of between the higher ups
in Rome, trying to quell this uprising in his region that he's supposed to
be overseeing, and also trying to honor to a certain extent, or at
least recognize the laws and religious customs of the Jews. And so I think
in some respects he was trying to do the best he could, you know,
but he was just kind of stuck. And so that's the way he's
always felt to me. And I know I've mentioned this in the past before,
so longtime listeners will probably be tired of me mentioning it anytime an Easter
related story comes up. But I read a book years ago called Pontius Pilot
by Paul Elma, and it is an absolutely fascinating book and it goes really
deep into now speaking of biblical fiction, this is biblical fiction goes deep into
Pilot's early life before he ever came to Judea, where he started out as
a soldier, and all of this stuff. He does rely on as much
historical documentation as he could possibly find for the customs of the Roman military and
all of that kind of stuff and the political landscape at that time and how
things might have played out. But it is a fascinating book. It's linked
in the show notes if you want to check it out, but I highly
recommend it, and it really has helped me to understand this story a little
bit better. And so just hearing him portrayed in this way here in this
episode was really cool to me. And it's cool also that he comments on
the common of the name of Jesus, because a lot of people in our
modern day they don't realize a lot of this historical context that I do appreciate.
Another thing about Tracy's writing, how she sort of sprinkles that that in
but that is that is true, and so it's not like that that was
an unknown name and there's this there's one Jesus, you know. That's that's
why he was called Jesus of Nazareth, because they had to differentiate you know,
which Jesus are you talking about? You know, so I liked how
Pilot mentions that, like they mentioned Jesus. He's like, well, which
who are you talking about here? Exactly? I mean, my name,
Chris is a a very very common name. I know so many chris is,
so it would be a bit more like that, like, oh,
you know, it's Chris. And then it's like Chris, like okay,
which Chris? Like It's so like, you know, something I appreciate about
Pilot, and a story from Pilot perspective and comes through here, and a
lot of it is straight from scripture too. It's just like the you know,
we're going to cash in on a trend here and be talking about how
the Roman Empire has an effect on society or whatever. But you know,
the Rome does have on Western society, had a huge impact on the way
a lot of things are, from the width of our roads to you know,
all these kinds of things. And so a lot of Western thought is
much more similar to the Roman thought of that day than it would have been
to the Jewish thought and the Jewish way of approaching things. And so when
we get these moments of Roman characters, I kind of like sometimes relate to
it a bit more. And I think that, you know, whether I
relate to this aspect or not directly, I think that there's you know,
he asks that famous question, like you know, you know, what's truth
and all this kind of thing, and I think that that's a question that
our culture is constantly, whether they realize it or not, all the time
asking they're trying to look for truth, They're trying to look for something genuine,
even when they're resisting that, even when they're resisting the idea that there
could be a black and white truth. And so I think it's really it's
really great to hear from that perspective. And I think going to what you
said about adding in some of that cultural context that Tracey does, I really
like the moment when he talks about the priest's ripped robes and saying that having
those ripped robes was a risk to his office, like to losing his position
or that kind of thing, And I thought, I don't know that i'd
ever heard that before, to be honest with you, And so that made
me realize the seriousness with which the priest was willing to to say, how
you know, you know, to go down this road of wanting to get
Jesus crucified in everything like that. That was really fat to me, and
the implementation of those things that you're talking about, those little culture things,
because I have seen people. I've seen this in stories, and I've seen
this in preaching and stuff like that too. You know, it's kind of
the analogous thing, you know, I don't know, You'll learn a new
Greek or Hebrew word and you're super stoked as a preacher or whatever, and
you want to get up there and you want to tell everybody like really ant
wax eloquent about these deep things. Everyone else in the audience is like,
this doesn't mean anything to me. I just want to know how to get
along with my family, who's really annoying, Like, tell me how those
sermon applies to that or something like that. Right, So there's the risk
of doing that in stories too, where you learn all these little cool,
like you know, cultural things and you can go, you know, ad
nauseum about it to the point that like, okay, is this just like
a history lesson about the culture or be getting into the story. But I
think she again, she seasons it well where it's a flourish not in an
indulgence here, So I guess I'm I'm indulging myself in saying this again,
I need to flourish it. But anyhow, No, that's absolutely right.
And this whole scene here between Caiaphas and Pilot, there's there's sort of this
verbal pushing match, sort of sort of speak going back and forth here as
there's there's sort of arguing over the laws and things like that, and and
there were a couple of really cool lines that I thought Pilot had there,
And at one point he says to Caiaphas, He's like, this feels more
personal than provincial. And I thought that was a great little play on words
there, or just a little alliteration that that Tracy put in there, But
I mean it was it was really true. I mean, he's like,
to your point about him getting so worked up and he's ripping his robes,
that it was much more than just him trying to maintain peace for Caiaphas,
it was getting to a personal level. And he says to him again just
moments after that, he says, Pilot says to him, let's not pretend
that you hate him this much because he spoke against Rome because he's like,
all right, don't be given me that garbage. I understand where you're coming
from here. You guys all talk about Rome behind my back. You know.
He's like, don't give me that, you know. And so again,
just putting these people in a light that really makes them feel so genuine
and I just really like it. And you mentioned his musings about truth and
all of that. Towards the end of the episode, there's an extended period
where he's just sort of mulling over this whole thing, everything that's happened,
And that was a really cool way to tie up that third episode there.
From pilot's perspective, Well, that brings us to episode four, and that
is called The Condemned, and that is from Barabbas' point of view. And
Barabas was played by Daniel Cross, who is actually nominated for a Best Leading
Actor for the Seneca Awards, and he really really did it's a simply outstanding
performance. In my book. I loved his portrayal here, and it's an
interesting thing. It's sort of a departure from sort of being right there in
the action as it's happening to after he's already been set free we find him
in a I don't know what the right term is for that era, but
in our modern vernacular, he's sitting there at the bar, you know,
just down in drinks because he's just like totally trying to figure out, like
what just happened here, and then he sort of starts to recount what just
happened. And it's just a really interesting way to do it. And going
back to the point about the name Jesus being a common one. Years and
years ago, I was a Sunday school teacher for kids, young, younger
kids, and my grandmother had given a bunch of Sunday school materials that she
had accumulated over the years. She was any teacher for many, many years.
And so one day, as I was prepping for a lesson, I
started just kind of flipping through some of the materials that I had acquired from
her, and I found this little booklet of short plays. And at this
time I was probably, oh, I don't know, maybe eighteen years old
or something like that. And at that point, this was the first time
that I had heard about Barabbas' first name being Jesus. Now, the Bible
doesn't tell us this, This is something that's been handed down through tradition,
So I don't know if we can say one hundred percent sure that this is
fact, but it is common held tradition in other writings outside of scripture,
extra biblical sources that this was the case. And so that plays a big
role here in this episode. And as I read that little play years ago,
I was blown away at that and the juxtaposition, and I just found
it so fascinating, and so when this episode really leans into that, I've
really really enjoyed that, and it's really really cool. Now Josephus of Which
was a writer shortly after the time of the New Testament and has written a
whole lot about the context, the cultural context for scripture, and I've enjoyed
his writings. He doesn't address Barabus really at all, and so again we
don't really know a ton about him. Some people interpreted that he was a
murderer. There's some ambiguousness about the term that he has described, with Others
just say that he was one of the insiders of this whole uprising against Rome,
and so he was a part of this I don't know what the right
term is, but one of these rabble rousers sort of. So you know,
it could be either way, I suppose, but in any case,
he was a convicted criminal. I mean, he did have a past.
So Tracy does a really great job of supposing what his life might have been
like and what led him to this point of being imprisoned at the time that
the Bible picks up with his story. And so I just really really enjoyed
this episode a lot. Yeah, I thought it was a fantastic one.
I thought the acting, I mean was incredible. Obviously a lot of other
people thought too with that nomination, but I thought the acting was incredible.
The very ending when he says that the only one he saved was me,
Oh, that line that that just hit me because I was like, you
know, obviously he's incorrect about that statement, that he wasn't the only one
that he saved, but in a sense, for each one of us,
there comes a recognition that he saved you, like personally, like not that
that he wasn't there for everyone, but that there's the sort of a personal
realization of his saving of you. And you know, I just felt like
that articulated that idea really well in a quick way. But it also seemed
like there's like almost like a survivor's guilt kind of thing going on for him,
where he's just doesn't know what to do with the fact that he was,
you know, had that substitution, you know, and it's just such
a such a great parallel. And you know, I as fantastic as a
job as Tracy does highlighting this. I mean, credit to the Bible on
that one, on that one for that parallel, for God for arranging that
to show us in a very clear way the way that that substitution for us
kind of thing. But but Tracy has a great way of kind of elevating
that to the surface here with a few efficient lines rather than just pointing it
right out, just a few efficient lines like that. Oh absolutely, And
I had that exact quote in my notes as well well, because I was
definitely going to highlight that if you didn't, because yeah, that line jumped
out at me too, just so so cool. I love that moment and
the delivery it was just perfect. And you know, it stands to reason
that because we hear about Simon Peter are also called Simon bar Jonah, which
barr means son of And so when you look at the name Barrabbas bar Abbas
and we know Abba means father, so there are a couple of different translations
of barrabbas I was doing a little research earlier. I just find these little
things interesting. And so it stands to reason that there was another name that
he went by, because we don't just go around calling somebody son of so,
and so, you know, we do have another name for them,
and so this just makes sense given the context here, that there was another
name, and if that really is true, I mean, that's just just
a perfect thing that And again, this episode was it is probably one of
my favorites for that reason because just the way it fills in all these gaps
that we don't really know about this person, but we do know that he
was there, he was an integral part in the story. And so just
hearing how Tracy pulls all that together and sort of gives us a glimpse into
what his life might have been like. And so I just thought it was
just extremely well done. So really really enjoyed that. Well. That concludes
part one, and that brings us to episode five, called The Chosen,
which focuses on Simon of Syreene and he is played by Sean Condy and again
just nailed this role so so good. Sean plays Judas as well. You
mentioned Judas earlier, and he just the voices are completely different here. Now
he gives Simon a sort of it sounded to me like an African almost approach
to this character a little bit. Did you get that vibe at all?
Yeah, there was mention of him being from Africa. I forget who mentioned
I think it's Rufus who mentions it, or somebody mentions it. So definitely
that was the I think what he was going for. And he just did
a fantastic job too. And this is another character that we do hear at
least I have heard other people tell this story from this point of view.
I mean, I've heard preachers preach from this perspective. I've heard songs about
this story from this perspective. But it's interesting to hear Simon's guilt. It
wasn't anything of his choice. He did not want to be involved in this
execution, but his guilt at being forced to participate was so palpable, and
just the way that it's shown here was so so well done. And also
the sound design here in the moment when we we get a glimpse of the
actual crucifixion of Jesus being nailed to the cross. Some really really great sound
design moments right here I really appreciated absolutely, Yeah, you really felt felt
the weight of that. I think I I I agree with the with the
summary when we said that that it was unflinching in its approach. H Well,
and that brings us to episode six called the Sun. And this is
John who is called the Son of Thunder, and he's played by David Sanborn,
and uh, we know quite a bit about John from scripture, and
so this is really interesting to kind of fill in the where that name might
have come from, you know, the son of Thunder and and she she
really plays into that using the that in the the sound design as well.
A couple of different times we have references to that. But one thing that
just really stood out to me about this particular episode is a line that John
says, I can't remember where where this happened, if it's right before Jesus
actually dies or if it's right after. But he makes a statement where he
says, there's so much I don't understand, and it just really highlights the
confusion that the disciples must have been feeling, and again makes them feel so
relatable because again, these are real human people. These are not just characters
from a fairy tale. They had real feelings and emotions. And you know,
even though Jesus did tell them the Son of Man is going to be
sacrificed or the temple is going to be rebuilt, and you know, he
told them these different things, but in the moment, they're just confused.
They don't understand. I've followed him for these these past few years. I
believed in this message. I believed he's who he said he was, what's
going on here? And and that line it just I just felt the weight
of it, the way it was delivered, and there's so much I don't
understand, and I just felt like, wow, Wow, that's that's a
poignant moment there. I think it's easy for us on the other side of
history, the other side of the Bible being collected and available to us and
you know, the the Internet, to research all of these cultural gaps that
we don't understand. I think it's easy for us to look at some of
them and go like, how come they didn't see it? Like why are
they so you know, like thick, like why couldn't they get it?
Like this seems so obvious to us on this side, you know, because
but we forget we have all of that benefit that they didn't have, and
that you know, if you see, if you see even for example,
the modern day objects actions to Christianity from people in the Jewish community, you
can see that there is oftentimes an explanation of like, hey, like we
don't interpret certain Old Testament passages the way that you do in a way that
would be necessary to be able to see Jesus as the Messiah. And that's
now with the benefit of history and all these kinds of things, So to
understand that even they for them, it will be that much harder for them
to see it immediately. I mean, it ultimately does line up at least
that's my belief, my belief personally, but it would have been difficult for
them to see that at the time, you know. And I mean,
even to that end, I'd love to This is something I was thinking about
a lot. With all of the Jewish cultural aspect in here, I would
be so curious to hear the perspective of someone who is Jewish that listen to
this production what some of their thoughts might be on some of those facets,
you know. So I don't know if there's any Jewish listeners in the audience
of ATC that would be able to weigh in, because I'd love to hear
your thoughts on those particular things. But yeah, I fully agree with you
on that that that confusion that they would have experienced. It it comes through
really well. Yeah. And another element here is speaking of names that are
repeated, so to speak. You know, we had that with Jesus earlier,
but in this one we have this sort of similar thing with Joseph.
And of course, you know, as I've grown up in church, I've
heard the story of Joseph of Arimathea, and you know, I know about
his role in the in this story here, and of course I know that
Joseph was also Mary's husband, but it never really clicked to me in this
particular way until listening to this episode where Joseph approaches Mary and says, hey,
Pilots said, I could take the body. And I never thought about
this aspect of it too, is like she doesn't know this guy, like
why should she trust him to take the body of Jesus And he just comes
up to her out of the blue. So I never thought about that aspect
of it before, but he does explain himself and everything, and so she
agrees. But then she says, what is your name? And he says
Joseph, and she's just sort of kind of not a chuckle, but there's
just a recognition in her and she says, how fitting at least he can
be laid in the tomb of a Joseph or something like that. You know,
that was my husband's name. And I never made that connection in that
way before, because somebody's tomb in those days like that was a big thing.
And Joseph of Arimathea was a pretty well off person from what we understand,
and to give his tomb away, he didn't realize he was only gonna
be used for three days, you know, and so for him that was
a sacrifice. Yeah. And then the connection there of having the same name
as Jesus Earthly Father, it was just beautifully portrayed there in that moment,
and I loved it well. And we know that in the Bible that names
are are highly significant, you know, And even within this story we see
the effects of that with someone like Peter, not in this particular episode,
but in the overarching story with him feeling like he failed. Jesus can't be
called Peter now because I'm not a rock kind of thing, that kind of
feeling. So we see that there's a significance to two names, and yeah,
I didn't. I never made that connection before this either, but I
will definitely make that connection again in conversation. And speaking of Mary here,
she was played by Carol O'Brien, and Kara is a just an amazing actress
and a super sweet person as well, just in real life. I've gotten
to know her a little bit through Sonicon and she's just a delightful person.
And she does a fantastic job here in this particular scene, you know,
because we have the whole interaction between her and John and her and Jesus as
Jesus is dying, and we have the scene where he says, John,
behold thy mother basically, so we have all of that there and she just
does a fantastic job. But overall, this was a really solid episode.
And you know, we're not really breaking this down and like rating each episode
because they don't stand alone. I mean, you could hop in and listen
if you wanted to just to hear one perspective, but you really need to
listen to these all in order together, so we're looking at these more in
the perspective of the whole rather than the individual parts here. Yeah, and
I think we may have mentioned this already, but yeah, the nailing sound
effect and everything, just and the way that John is like, oh,
you know, don't look, don't look, you don't need to see this
kind of thing, So we kind of hear like a different auditory perspective too,
where it's a bit kind of like masked. Yeah, a bit kind
of not quite muffled, but kind of and like, I don't know if
muffles really quite accurate to say in this case, but it's it's mask it's
it's put back a bit from us, like kind of auditorily giving us the
same sense of like almost like covering your eyes where you can kind of see
what you kind of can't, like you can kind of hear, but you
kind of can't. I thought that was that was way more effective than if
we just heard it directly and kind of put us in that zone. You're
mentioning. This is kind this is a bit of a general thought, but
it kind of springboards off something you said. There, go for it.
This is kind of like regarding your saying about listening all in one stretch,
I will say one thing that this is not a necessarily got negative mark.
This is my just my my thought. One thing that I kind of felt
like would have taken this just it's fantastic already, but just a little bit
forward, a little one percent better kind of thing is in terms of music,
I think we should have had music either at the beginnings or the endings
of each of these in a more pronounced way, only because I will say
the story works better in one clear listen. But I feel like because we
end on a monologue and open on a monologue, there were a couple times
we're listening to it straight through, gave maybe just a little doors oriented it
first when I end one episode and start to another about who's talking, and
I feel like that WOU wouldn't have been as much of an issue if there
was more, say of a more pronounced musical cue between that to really kind
of refresh my mind and set me in the tone of like, okay,
we're moving to something different now. A couple times, especially if we went
from like say, a disciple to a disciple, where their voices were you
know, maybe in a similar age Rain not sout with the same voice like
it overall wasn't like massively disoriented or anything, but it was a tiny little
thing that I kind of wished was there. And I say that as as
loving all of this. I'm not like trying to be critical in a negative
sense, but that was the one little thing that I was like, Ah,
I wish we had a little bit of that. Yeah, I could
see that because we have the opening theme of the Witnesses show at the top
of the first episode, but it does not come in on each of the
episodes, so there's no Yeah, there's no way to I had them all
in a playlist, you know, and they just roll right into each other.
There's no way to differentiate as you're listening when one episode ends and the
next one begins. So, yeah, you're right about that. So I
could see. I could see that for sure. To be clear, I
wouldn't have suggested putting the theme at the beginning of each one because I think
that would make them feel too sonically separate. But some kind of music cue
yep and disconnected exactly. Yeah. Well that brings us to episode seven,
The Teacher, and now we're coming We just had Joseph in the scene there
at the last episode, but now we're switching over to his perspective, and
this is one of those moments where it does jump back in the timeline.
So the first part of this seventh episode goes back to discussion between him and
Nicodemus. And this was really interesting too, hearing his perspective and kind of
filling in the blanks of when he first started to becoming interested in Jesus.
And it wasn't just suddenly he decides he's going to go seek the body of
Jesus. It was it had been growing a little a little while, and
he'd been watching how Nicodemus had been standing up for Jesus, and so it
was really interesting to hear their discussion. And Nicodemus, who is played by
Nathan Carlson, who really just does a phenomenal job. Just his performance here
was amazing. I loved hearing him in this sort of role. I did
not even recognize his voice at first, and Nathan Carlson's voice is very distinct.
I mean, I've heard him in you know, so many things in
Jungle Jam and Odyssey, and hearing him here I totally did not even pick
up on his voice at first, and so that was really cool then.
But he has a line where he's talking to Joseph and sort of explaining about
his meeting with Jesus, which we know of from the Gospels. We know
about this story of him meeting with Jesus, and he says, I went
there to question him, but I left questioning everything I knew. And I
loved that line because it really does jibe with what we know from scripture.
But he continues, he said, we've all been waiting for the Messiah for
so long. Isn't it possible that we decided who he would be, so
when he actually came, we didn't even recognize him. Oh, that was
such a great moment. And I think many of us do that in our
own lives too. You know, maybe you're praying for something, some difficult
circumstance that you're going through in your life, and you're praying, you're waiting
for God to come through in some form or fashion. It doesn't happen,
and you've been waiting, and you've been praying for so long you've got an
exact idea of what it's going to look like when God shows up in your
life and maybe it's going to be a little bit different, and I think
we can learn that from this. If I may put my preacher hat on
for a moment, Yeah, I think so. I'm gonna throw this.
This is a bit out of order, and I apologize, but I realize
I've missed my chance to put this in at the appropriate time. But so
Jacob Phillips was rufous that more main Roman guy, right, and my goodness,
he was good. He was not We've run out of episodes that he
was in, and I missed my chance to say that, But I just
wanted to say he was really good. So there you go. That's not
that profound, but yeah, definitely I would agree with that, but if
we could switch back to something a little more profound. No, I was
totally appropriate to to drop that in there, because Jake's a great guy too,
and he's a fantastic actor. So I'm glad you mentioned that because I
had I had forgotten to mention that because we don't have an episode focused on
him, but he shows up in multiple episodes and and yeah, just does
a great job. But what we also hear in this episode again, we're
having this conversation between Nick, Demus and Joseph, and these guys are you
know, they're their their priests, they're they're members of the this this body
of you know, a governing body, so to speak, and they know
the law, they know the history inside and out. And so draw upping
these little things into the conversation here was just genius from Tracy's expertise here.
As a writer, I loved it and it made so much sense to sort
of let us as the listener hear these little things that just helps give a
little more context for things. And so he talks about the correlation between Jesus
being lifted up on the cross and the serpent on the pole or the rod
in the wilderness, and also brings into focus of the plagues in Egypt and
the darkness that was one of the plagues which was followed by the death of
the Firstborn, and he correlates that with the darkness that covered the land when
Jesus died, and then also how significant the tearing of the curtain was in
the temple to these priests. All of that is brought out in this episode.
And as you mentioned earlier, it's not an info dump. It fits
what's happening in the scene so well, but it just adds so much more
texture to the story and I loved it. I loved it. It was
so well done. I'd love to hear a I'd love to see maybe some
churches even take some of this and listen through this around the Easter time of
the year as maybe a companion piece to some of the sermons series that they're
going through and that kind of thing. That would be really cool. I
mean, in the past, I've taken one of the Witness productions, A
Shepherd's Encounter, and with Tracy's permission, rewritten it into a just like a
one person play and perform that around Christmas time. Be interesting to see maybe
some kind of elements of that this too, or just just I know this
might sound radical, it's up to people's opinions or whatever, but like even
just sitting there listening to it just as a congregation. I'm not necessarily saying
to replace your sermon or any of those normal funk that you have, but
just to sit there as a congregation listen and use that, or as in
your small group or whatever if you're a part of a Bible study or anything
like that, not to replace scripture or anything, but to get you wanting
to dig into it further. And I think it does a great job of
that of making you want to dig into it further and discuss it. Oh
yeah, absolutely. I've mentioned this in the past before that One thing that
I also did as a Sunday school teacher was I used some of the episodes
of the Luke Reports as part of my sort of curriculum and I wrote accompanying
discussion guides and stuff around the episodes, and so I used those and we
would listen to an episode together as a class and discuss them, and so
it was a part of our what we did in class on Sundays. And
so yeah, I think it's a really cool thing. And years and years
ago, when we first did The Crossmaker, my pastor asked us to present
it as a live radio drama on our Bible Study night one one night,
and so we've we did a you know, live performance of The Crossmaker for
our church. So I think these can be used in these in these ways.
So I think it's it's really cool when you can sort of mix those
in and again not replacing the preaching of the word and that kind of thing,
but as a supplementary thing, you know, it's It's very cool.
Absolutely. Oh I forgot to mention this earlier. And one of the other
things in this episode is they also draw the correlation between the earth crying out
because of it ables blood and the earthquake when Jesus dies as well, and
I thought that was a really cool point too. M hmm. Well that
brings us to the final episode called The Witness And this is episode eight,
the final episode of this mini series, and this is Mary Magdalene's perspective.
And I have to say I was so glad when I heard Tracy because she
often just plays smaller roles in her projects. I was really happy that she
decided to play a main role because she is a really great actress and she
did a fantastic job in this episode as Mary Magdalene. Yeah. I think
I'm going to get booed in the comments for this, but hold on,
put down your pitchforks. It's not what you think. I also thought Tracy
was fantastic, so put the pitchforks down. But this was my first time
hearing Tracy acting and realizing it it was Tracy, and I say that I'm
gonna get booed because everybody's like, what, you've never heard Iliot House.
No, I've not heard Iliot House yet. I'll get around to it.
But I didn't realize it until afterward that this was Tracy, And yeah,
she did a fantastic job. And hopeful to hear more acting from Tracy.
Now. I don't know if you know the answer to this question, JD,
or if in your knowing this answer to this question, if you were
allowed to answer this question. So I'll just pose it to you. This
is the final episode of this mini series? Is this the final episode of
Witnesses? Do you know? Because we've been witnessing Jesus and now we've come
to his death and resurrection. I could see that. I'm not saying that
it needs to be, but I could see that being the natural conclusion for
Witnesses. And I know that Tracy has some new projects, new exciting projects
that I'm stoked to hear on the horizon. So I don't know if that's
if that's signaling sort of an end of an era or I don't know if
you can speak to that or not, but I can I can see how
you might think that, and I hadn't thought about that until you just just
mentioned it, and that would make sense because the whole point of this show
is these are people who had direct interactions with Jesus while he was here on
Earth, and so you know, with this being the sort of the end
of his time here on Earth in human form, can see how that might
signal the end, but it is not. The show is continuing on.
She's just going to jump around, you know, tell other stories from the
New Testament. So there are more stories to come from the show, and
she says she's really really excited about some of the ones she's working on these
days, and so yeah, there is more witnesses to come. You heard
of herst here on atc guys breaking news, not in the news segment,
but it's still breaking news. So that's exciting. I'm excited for that too,
And I told her too, I said, I am thrilled to hear
that you are really excited about the show because I've been a fan of this
project since it first started, and I'm really really glad to see that it's
going to be continuing. Yeah, so it's really cool. And speaking of
a great performance, you know, she did a fantastic job here. There
were a few other characters that we didn't have like a main there wasn't an
episode dedicated to them, but they were also really great. And Glenn Haskell
as Annas, and then we had again I mentioned Kara earlier, but Kara
O'Brien as Mary the Mother of Jesus. You mentioned Jacob as Rufus, and
Sean Condy, we mentioned him as Simon and Judas. But Jonathan Cook played
a bunch of different characters. He played Thomas the Disciple, he played one
of the soldiers, one of the servants, he plays the angel here at
the end of this episode when Mary goes to the tomb, and some other
smaller parts. But Jonathan is just a fantastic actor in every character. He
always just puts everything into the role and he always does a fantastic job.
Yeah. No, it was definitely looking through the credits going like, oh,
yeah, okay, Jonathan, I mean, that's that's a given.
You know, it wouldn't be a wouldn't be an audio drama in this space
without Jonathan at this point, but with good reason. You know. I
like to make fun of Jonathan for being in everything, but it's really because
he's such a fantastic actor with a shocking range of voice. I have to
say yeah, because there's certainly times, I mean, you might think this
is silly, but it took me the entire first season of Pirateers to realize
Jonathan played both characters. And now I feel silly for not noticing it,
but like, but I was immersed in the story and that he has because
the thing voice acting is not just and being able to play a lot of
different characters is not just about being able to put on a different sonic quality
to your voice. You know, I think a lot of people might think
that, oh, voice acting is easy. I can do like ten different
cartoony voices when I'm messing around with my friends. So therefore, you know,
I'm going to have great range and I'm going to be the next Jonathan
Cook. And I'm not saying you won't be. Keep practicing, keep it
up, keep playing with those voices. But there's more to it than the
sort of sonic distinction between those voices. But it's getting yourself in the headspace
of that. You know, it is voice, but it's also acting.
It's a voice acting, and so it's not just about having a great wacky
voice or something like that, and Jonathan's not leaning into any wacky voices here,
but like he's learned how to control the different parts of his voice and
his acting so that the performance lends to it. So you might even have
if you were to do if you were to really scientifically analyze it, there
might be occasions where you're like, actually, sonically, these two voices are
fairly similar, but the personality, the attitude, the performance of it takes
it that much further. And so what you're hearing and what you're even beyond
what you're hearing, what you're experiencing as an audience member is much more than
just the timber Tombray timber whatever. You know what I'm saying, and the
sonic quality of the actual voice and the placement in the head and the throat
and diaphragm and all this kind of thing. But it's also that acting part
that pushes this this separation further kind of thing. So if you're going to
take notes on Jonathan, that's one of the things you should take notes on.
Yeah, absolutely. And another one is Daniel Cross, who, in
addition to playing Barabbas in you know, the lead in that one episode,
he also does Andrew James and a few other small parts, and also plays
Caiaphas. And so yeah, we got some really great talented actors in these
in these episodes. But and he has a very appropriate name for this production.
Yeah, that's funny. I didn't even think about that. Leave it
to you to point something like that out. Well, you know, that's
that's that's what I'm here for. It's not any any interesting insights. It's
some irrelevant detail that Yeah. Oh goodness, well you know what. I
went and listened to all eight of these episodes back to back today in preparation
for this review, and oh my goodness, I just I was thoroughly pulled
in into this, into this story, and just enthralled. Towards the end
of this episode, I totally got chills when Jesus appears to Mary. Yes,
just that's a scene Mark just oh. I started to say, he
nailed it, but that's probably the wrong terminology to use it. Oh no,
Yes, it was so so good. Yes, and this is what
I was alluding to much earlier in the in the conversation. But the bookends
monologues for this episode, I love what happens here because as Mary is doing
her monologue, moments before it happened, I started to realize this was going
to happen, but it's still had this the right impact for me where I
was like, wait a minute, we're not going to end on a monologue.
Her monologue is going to be interrupted by Jesus in it almost almost but
not quite fourth wall break kind of way, so to speak, where where
we've been set up with this convention after each episode, Hey, we're going
to start with this character sort of narrating and they're talking to you and it's
kind of just between you and them moment at the beginning and the ending,
but then that gets subverted with Jesus talking to her, and I just love
how that happened. It just feels like a such a great payoff. I
don't know if that's something that Tracy knew she wanted to do from the beginning
of this whole thing, or something that she kind of that just kind of
fell into as she got there. I mean, Tracy's a fantastic writer,
so you know, I don't want to take credit away from her and say,
oh, it was just happenstance, but I know that when you're writing,
some of these things do to just kind of fall into place, and
some of them are are big planned and I don't know how what kind of
approach she uses to that, but regardless, it landed so well for me
that kind of quote unquote not quite fourth wall breaking, but for lack of
a better description, sort of subversion, you know, yeah, yeah,
that moment just it packs an emotional punch right there, and it was just
everything about it was so good. And then the final moment we have with
Peter and Mary that just got me all teered up. Man. I was
just like, oh, oh my goodness. I had to just sit there
for a little while after that episode finishes up, and I just had to
sit there like wow, try to collect myself because it's so so powerful towards
the end there just beautiful. That's always a good sign when you just want
to sit with a story and you're just like I had this experience. I
believe it was with the audio essay. You know, I know you're not
trying to be self promoting, so I'll self promote you, JD. But
the audio essay that you put out recently about loss and all that kind of
thing. When I first heard that, when I finished it up, like
I was driving at the time and listening to it, and you know,
the normal habit would be, Okay, I'm done, I'm not quite home
yet, just gonna, you know, next thing on the playlist or whatever.
But I just like, I just turned the sound off as soon as
it finished, and I was just like, I just want to sit with
my thoughts and my feelings about this and just think about it. And that's
the feeling I had with that, And it's a similar feeling with this where
it's just like I just want to take that in for a moment, I
want to rush on to the next thing. And I think that's the feeling
that we want to have after the weight and the impact of hearing about Jesus
and his sacrifice for us and everything and think it through. And so I
think this really helped that happen. And I like how it ends with this
idea of him asking her to be a witness now, which is more than
just kind of like, hey, they said the thing. It's more than
that. It's like he's speaking to us in that moment too, saying for
us to be a witness now of his sacrifice and now everything that we've just
heard, you know. So yeah, no, it was fantastic. Well,
first of all, thank you for the kind words about my essay,
but I'm glad that it had that effect. I mean, that's sort of
what I was going for. Yeah, yeah, that is kind of like
the the goal with something like that. And obviously, my little, my
little fumblings with words don't compare to this story here. You know, this
is the greatest story ever told. You know that that that's a term for
a reason, and the way that she ties it all up just beautiful.
That we do have the ending theme that rolls and we do have some credits.
One thing I did want to point out real quickly, just because I
thought it was interesting. We don't hear this very often. It's not something
it's never done, but it's not something you hear often is having the actors
say their own name, and that was kind of a cool touch. I
kind of liked that as the credits rolled. But a few final thoughts here
overall, there were there were a couple of moments of spatial ambiguity. I'm
gonna call it. I was a little bit unsure of where the listener is
supposed to be, just a couple of points at one point, you know,
where it sounds like we're right up on the cross with Jesus and then
seconds later we're right down with John and Mary. There were just a couple
of moments like that. Nothing huge, but if I'm gonna be a nitpicky,
that was a little a little ambiguous on where where's the listener here in
this scene? And that just happened a couple of times throughout the eight episodes.
Again, nothing huge, but I did pick up on that. The
other thing was there were a couple of smaller bit part characters that were using
sort of British accents, and that felt a little bit odd to me.
I think I don't know if that was the actor's choice or if that was
a direction trying to differentiate characters, because this is, I mean, this
is a huge cast. When we talked about some of these actors who are
playing you know, three, four or five characters, so I understand you
have to differentiate because you're not going to hire an actor to play one bit
part and then go get somebody else to play another bit part, you know,
so you have to do some of these kind of things. But that
just felt a little bit odd to me. I mentioned the Luke reports earlier.
They sort of made sense there because they're all British actors, you know,
and they're not trying they're not trying to do Middle Eastern accents, so
as our main characters are in this version. So again not a yes,
I do I appreciate that the main cast is going for more of a Jewish
thing. It kind of annoys me when unless, like you say, you
know, it's it's a British production company or something or all like British actors
that kind of thing. But like, if you are an American, you
know, production company kind of thing, which Tracy is not go Canada anyways,
we share that in common. But uh, if your state side,
if you're in Canada, this is a personal preference. But if you're going
to do a Bible production, either use natural accents to your region or use
something kind of from the region it's supposed to be in. I find for
some reason in film and in audio drama when they're doing Bible stories, they
seem to revert to British accents. And I don't know if it's because historically
there were a lot of productions that were British and so we're emulating that,
or if it's sort of like hearkening to the King James Bible or something like
that. I'm not sure what it is, but it really seems to be
let's go British and it doesn't make any sense to me. It's more distracting
than either your natural accent or trying to do some sort of Hebrew or accent
or whatever kind of thing. Yeah, again, not a huge thing,
but it's just something that jumped out at me, so I thought it was
worth mentioning. But overall, I absolutely love this show in general, and
this mini series specifically. Because I've said this earlier. It makes these people
feel so real, and that's a good thing because they were They were real
people and understanding these events and this, as I said a moment ago,
the greatest story ever told from these different perspectives, and in turn applying that
to our daily lives, it's just wonderful. Now, Yes, you mentioned
minimal music, which is it can be a strong suit or it could be
something that you would count as a bit of a con but the transitions are
primarily quick fades. There are a couple of moments where there's some underscoring music
that Tracy does do in a couple of really key moments, and I think
it works when she does have it, and so I think that was done
really well. But as I said earlier, with the historical context and the
cultural context sprinkled in, you know, the traditions, and yeah, of
course there's a healthy amount of artistic license to fill in the blanks, but
overall beautifully done. The script is wonderful and the acting sound design just really
high quality stuff. Absolutely, So any final thoughts on this eight part mini
series before we wrap this up, No, I just want to act you.
Yeah, just what you said. I think Tracy does a fantastic job
with this. I've always thought Tracy has done a great job. And there's
an emotional weight without feeling sappy or anything like that, but there's an emotional
weight that Tracy brings to these stories that connects so well. And I've had
the pleasure of watching people listen to one of these stories and just watch their
face as they kind of like get drawn into the story and the characters.
And I think that personal angle that you're talking about and then all comes back
right to the name and Tracy has not forgotten her premise, her or anything
like that. Is that are these are witnesses, and that's what we're really
hearing, and that these are witnesses, just like when we listen to a
witness of an event or in the court of law or whatever. We want
to hear their perspective, how it affected them, all that kind of thing,
and then it moves us. I guess I'm kind of repeating myself at
this point, but I just think she's done a fantastic job at doing that.
I think there's something here for everyone in the sense that if you are
if you are a Christian and you are familiar with these stories, I think
that there is still something for you. There's a richness that you're going to
get. We both mention, I mean both JD and I have been Christians
for many, many years, and we both mentioned things during this that we're
like, oh, I never saw that before. I didn't know that.
Oh wow, you know, I never thought of it that from that angle
before. But if you're not a believer and you want to engage in this
or or hear this perspective, I think that this is a this is a
way that is going to again not replace the Bible itself, but encourage you
to want to go to the Bible and read, read more, and learn
more after you listen. So I think it's a great, great companion piece
there. Yeah, and I'm I was really as I said moment ago,
I was really excited to hear that we've got more coming from this series.
And I have talked in the past about when I hear about another another Bible
story in audio, I'm like, okay, okay, but this is one
of the ones that I really really do enjoy and I look forward to hearing
because, at the risk of just repeating myself over and over again, it's
so well done that I do appreciate it because it's not just another narrative of
a Bible story that I've heard, you know, a thousand times before,
and so there's a there's a little difference. There's there's something about the way
that these stories come together that I just really appreciate. And it's one of
the few Biblical audio dramas that I really really love, and so I'm looking
forward to hearing more. And of course, if you would like to hear
these episodes, they are linked in the show notes of this episode, and
on the Witnesses website. You can stream all these episodes for free. She
doesn't charge for these, which I mean that is very very generous of her.
Kus. I know she's pouring time, money and investing herself in this
project and allowing the world to hear them for free. Now, if you
do enjoy them, there is a place where on the website where you can
donate to support the show and help make future episodes, So be sure to
check that out, but of course linked in the show notes to go ahead
and hear these episodes and the previous ones as well. The Lamb from Witnesses.
Kudos to Tracy and everybody involved in these episodes, just some fantastic audio
drama and Christopher, thank you so much for coming on the show to review
these episodes with me. I had a lot of fun just kind of dissecting
these with you. Oh, thanks for having me. I mean, I've
told JD that it's my goal to be name dropped in some way, shape
or form on every episode of ATC now, and so you know this is
one up from a name drop for sure. So well, speaking of a
name drop, you just recently launched a project that's really fun and I thought
it would be fun. It'll tell the listener about it. I mentioned earlier
Shadows in Daylight, an audio drama project that you've been working on for years,
and of course you're my co star on Greenhorn Tales. Feels kind of
weird to say that, but yes, Christopher and I, if you don't
know, we make Greenhorn Tales. We play the main characters, and Christopher
is the main writer and wrote I think over half of all of the episodes
so far. So you are an experienced writer yourself, but you've started doing
something a little bit different outside of audio drama. So tell the listener about
your story circle. Yeah, so, you know, recently, just as
a challenge to myself, I've been thinking of getting into more short stories again,
something I used to do a lot of just for fun, writing short
stories and that sort of thing, as well as like chapter stories and that
kind of thing. And I always find that as a writer for audio drama,
for anything else, it's good to delve outside of one medium every once
in a while, as it sharpens your skills. You know, an audio
drama you can be very dialogue heavy, you can fall into that trap of
just being dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, whereas a lot of other mediums force
you to be a bit more descriptive in other ways, and so it's a
benefit even to my audio drama writing. But yeah, I recently started something
because I have a coffee habit, like coffee, and so I've started this
thing, this story corner, the story circle from me where I am posting
up stories at buy me a Coffee dot com slash Chris Nogreen. I'm guessing
we're going to be in the show notes, so I don't spell it all
out for you, but where I'm posting up short stories and chapters in chapter
stories one a month, and it's just a couple of bucks to feed that
coffee, have it and feed you stories. I got a short story up
there already as well as a prologue to a chapter story called The Scroll of
the Last Empire, as well as the first chapter that's gone up as well.
And another neat thing about that is if you're really interested in writing yourself
as well, I'm also putting out these little audio clips of me talking about
some of the inspiration or some of the struggles of telling the story, or
some things I changed in different drafts, and that kind of thing check kind
of like give you that author's perspective on the story. Is, which I
think there's some valuable stuff there for people who like writing or even just like
reading and like to hear about an author's thought processes. So yeah, yeah,
and I've been really enjoying and reading your stories and the behind the scenes
little clips or tidbits, whatever you want to call them. It's always interesting
to me to hear a creative person's process and how they came up with ideas
and what inspired them and things like that. So you know, that's that's
basically what Audio Theater's intertrol is. It's just me getting all nerdy about story
and so I like all that kind of stuff. And so if you're interested,
there is of course a link in the show notes to check this out.
If you've never heard of buying me a coffee dot com, it's similar
to patreon it it functions in a similar way, but I think the interface
is a little bit easier. It's a little simpler and cleaner. And so
that's just the platform that Chris's using as a vehicle to get these stories out.
And if you enjoy reading good stories, then head over there and check
it out. But again, thank you so much for coming on ATC and
this has been a lot of fun. Yes, thanks for having me.
Hope to be on again soon. Well. Thank you again to Christopher Green
for joining me for that review. Had a great time chatting with him about
Witnesses. The song at the top of the review segment is Rise Again by
Ivan Parker from the two thousand and eight album titled The Best of Ivan Parker.
We'll be sure to join the ATC insiders. It's our email newsletter where
we'll send you updates in between episodes when we have something urgent that we wanted
to get out to you. So that's a free way to keep in touch
with us, and if you would like to reach out to us, head
over to Audio Theatercentral dot com slash contact. All the ways to reach out
are there the show notes for this episode with links to everything we talked about,
all of the news items, all of the links from the review segment
Audiotheatercentral dot com, Slash one nine to seven. Thank you so much for
listening. I hope you have a wonderful Easter time. We'll see you next
time. Audio Theater Central is a production of porch Light Family Media. Our
theme music was composed by Sam Avandanium. The show is produced and edited by
Yours Truly Jdsutter, with assistance on this episode by Austin Peache. Our website
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