It took close to a year to develop, but the latest release from Chatham’s Voices in the Wind Audio Theatre went public at the perfect time locally.
Just in time for Crowfest.
David Farquhar, executive producer of Voices in the Wind Audio Theatre, said “Lily, The Crow and The Emporium Of Lost Objects,” an original children’s audio story inspired by the Crowfest, was released Sept. 15, just prior to Chatham’s annual festival.
Farquhar said last November was when the mental wheels began churning over what project to do next for an audio children’s story.
“One way was to do another classic, an audio adaptation of a children’s classic, or do something original,” he said. “We went the original route.”
He said he chanced across the Crowfest website, and began thinking there could be a story in there revolving around a crow.
Farquhar approach Crowfest organizers and he “pitched the idea with having a crow central to the story. They were very open to that.”
From there, he contacted his trusted writer, Diane Vanden Hoven from London.
“She’s done pretty much all our audio adaptations. We started working on the storyline,” Farquhar said.
Seven rewrites later, they were happy with what they had developed.
“Originally, we were writing it more for younger kids. Now, it’s a much richer production when it comes to the storyline. The target ages is more nine, ten, 11 and 12,” he said.
The cast of Voices in the Wind’s productions are generally an international affair, with voice actors from around Chatham-Kent teaming up with other Canadians and Americans to contribute.
In this full-cast dramatization listeners meet Lily, her mom, and her younger sister, Katie, as they attend Crowfest. Farquhar said Lily thinks crows are “ugly and dirty, and they don’t even sing a song.”
But a crow takes a precious heirloom Lily’s grandmother had given her. Lily follows the crow through a magical portal to a parallel land, the forest of Nanpara.
Georgia Lee Schultz plays the role of Lily, while Chatham’s Clara Weins is Katie.
“She did a fantastic job. This was her first audio drama,” Farquhar said of Weins.
The audio book has worldwide distribution, courtesy of Blackstone Publishing. Locally, Farquhar said it’s available wherever audio books are sold, and at voicesinthewind.ca.
