Butterbird Christmas Debuts on 12/7/14 at the Marshall J. Gardner Center

Butterbird Christmas Debuts on 12/7/14 at the Marshall J. Gardner Center

We are soooo stoked about our debut performance and hope that you will bring in the holidays with the Family Folklore Players! We will perform our original radio play, Butterbird Christmas, at 4:00pm at the Marshall J. Garner Center for the Arts in the Miller Beach Arts & Creative District of Gary, Indiana. Doors open at 3:30 PM, tickets are $8 for adults and $4 for children, a variety of baked sale goods will be available, and the Calumet Ridge Jazz Ensemble will be accompanying the project. 

Butterbird Christmas, is a hilarious romp for the whole family. Inspired by the era of classic broadcasting, the cast and crew banded together to create a timeless piece about growing up in Chicagoland.

Butterbird Christmas, is a hilarious romp for the whole family. Inspired by the era of classic broadcasting, the cast and crew banded together to create a timeless piece about growing up in Chicagoland.

Some very important characteristics differentiate Butterbird Christmas from many other radio plays out on the market today:

1.      It is an all-volunteer run production.

2.      Proceeds go to a multitude of projects dedicated to promoting literacy & arts education in Northwest Indiana.

3.      It is an intergenerational, multicultural radio play written about Da Region by a homegrown writer  

The Family Folklore Foundation’s mission is to offer educational opportunities to intergenerational community members using literacy and problem-solving strategies to make the world a better place. Over the course of the project, our players enjoyed communicating and communing with the wide range of volunteers and supporters. We have had the privilege of sharing in many special holiday moments with the cast and crew, and especially liked knowing all the goodwill this project will spread across the community. There is even a documentary being produced about the making of “Butterbird Christmas” that will be available in the spring.

Casting Callout

Now it was time to market the idea and buy some much needed equipment.  Along with doing an email blast of the flyer to many community websites, the Family Folklore group went door to door plastering the community with the flyers.  A two week contract for advertising on the Miller Marquee helped bring in local voice actors!   

To learn more about making a radio play our Executive Director had lunch with a producer from the SAG-AFTRA Senior Radio Players who explained how to set up, practice and present a radio play. Then On Tuesday July 22nd at 7 p.m. two of our board members took the South Shore train to Chicago to the Chicago Cultural Center and enjoyed a radio play, entitled “Radio as You May Remember It!” 

Inspired and recharged we were ready to start our auditions. Family Folklore held them in late July. Several people came and auditioned. They also consented to being interviewed for our documentary. After filling out permission slips, they were videotaped being interviewed with our freshly purchased light kit brightening the room. 

Cultivating Local Lore

Family Folklore Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit organization located in Northwest Indiana (USA). We are seeking to educate people of all ages about the world via multimedia and experiential learning. Our goal is to cultivate global citizenship while promoting creativity and community development. We have done a variety of projects over the years, mostly based on local history and oral tradition.

After Limberlost, Gene Stratton-Porter's life in California, 2013 (10 minute documentary) 

Film's Trailer

 

Full Film

 

The One Man Dog, 2012 (4 minute oral history piece)