Butterbird Christmas Debuts Live at the Marshall J. Gardner Center for the Arts

On December 7, 2015, we put on our first radio play, Butterbird Christmas.  This inaugural performance was given at the Marshall J. Gardner Center for the Arts to a standing room only crowd.  (Click here to view the performance on our YouTube channel.)

With scripts in hand, the players read their parts aloud into wireless mics, accompanied by the Calumet Jazz Duo and our foley artists.  The gallery was decorated with 1950’s newspaper advertisements and photographs of mid-century scenes from Northwest Indiana, in particular, the Grandfield family (the inspiration of Butterbird Christmas).

           

The Family Folklore Players took a cue from the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Senior Players and set up their stage to mirror the radio plays that these pros perform regularly at the Chicago Cultural Center. Additionally, Koni Shaughnessy (of 90.9 FM), took us under her wing and explained the whys and hows of creating sound effects, she read our play and made recommendations for sound effects.

Members of Family Folklore Foundation Inc. and the Marshall J. Gardner Center for the Arts worked together on this mutual labor of love.  The sound system was fine tuned, decorations for Christmas and Hanukah decked the hall, Addycake’s baker, Mallory Keller, brought designer cupcakes in the seasonal colors represented in our inter-faith tale, the band set the mood, and the foley artists lined up their sound gear.  

The play began on time at 4 o’clock and the whole cast and crew did a wonderful job!  The audience was friendly and seemed to enjoy the humor and mini tragedies featured in the story. Sue Ross of the Post Tribune reported and photographed the playand the article appeared December 19th.  A great time was had by all and the event was a success. We were able to raise funds to support other arts endeavors for our community and very humbled by the out-pouring of support we received in the planning/ execution of this program. Now, we’re focusing on finishing the post-production on our documentary of the making of this project.

 If you would like to listen to our fully mastered radio play mix click here.

Save the Date!!!

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.

Announcing Our Cast & Crew

We are so happy to be working with such a great cast and crew! Look for these Family Folklore Players at their first performance on Sunday, December 7, 2014 from 3-5PM at the Marshal J. Garden Center in the Miller Beach Arts & Creative District in Gary, Indiana.

                                    Introducing the Cast for “Butterbird Christmas”:

                                               The Cast of the Family Folklore Players

Narrator                                                 Shavon King

Mom                                                      Beckey Swerdon                             

Dad                                                        Clarence Knight

Katie                                                      Lilly Haddox

Maggie                                                  Jianna Harrison

Sam                                                       Ethan Elliott

Nina                                                      Sydney King                      

Miss Sespal                                          Mandi Renslow                  

Susie Zipperfield                                  Lilly Haddox

Mrs. Zipperfield                                   Janine Harrison

Announcer/ Gramps                             Ron Nichols

Gammie                                               Connie Nichols                 

Grandma                                              Darlene Martinez

Grandpa                                               Ron Nichols

Dougie                                                 Gabe Messer

Puppy                                                   Promise Joy Renslow-Wiler

Sound Effects                                       Dawn Haddox

                                                              Seth Odenthal

These awesome folks performed their parts for us in August. We had to do it ADR style. ADR is short for Audio Dialogue Rerecording. Normally radio plays are performed with a group of actors meeting up together. Each actor gets his/her own microphone and it is done in a fancy studio. However, our budget didn’t all that for us. So, instead we recorded everyone individually. This means that our sound editor, Jessica Renslow, will go into each file and manually piece it together like a giant jigsaw puzzle! (We’ll explain the ins and outs of post-production in a later update.)