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\u201cIt was in a tiny town and the local radio station had two microphones and that was it,\u201d Jo said.<\/p>\n
But she loved it and her spark for audio had been ignited.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so popular for a long time because it fulfils our love of storytelling, creating and listening, and on top of that it makes stories accessible to a larger audience who may not be able to attend live theatre,\u201d Jo said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think my mission with it is to make audio productions appeal to a modern audience by creating high quality, immersive worlds and explore the stories within them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went on and studied acting in Armidale, NSW and then came down to Victoria.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jo moved to Geelong for its budding arts scene, where she met Gracie Rodgers and Ryan O\u2019Conner, and the three co-founded Someone New Theatre company.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all studied and trained in theatre, and we wanted to start giving actors more paid opportunities. So, we founded Someone New Theatre Company as a way to start paying actors properly.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was when Jo met Louise Watson.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was originally her idea to bring back that sort of War of the Worlds radio play style,\u201d Jo said.<\/p>\n
Louise had been working on bringing back radio plays to Geelong\u2019s arts scene for years, even founding the Theatia Podsie radio theatre festival in 2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Louise brought Jo and the Someone New company on board to direct the audio plays for the Theatia Podsie and learn the ropes last year, but with so much on her creative plate already, she passed on the dream to revive radio play to Someone New Theatre Company.<\/p>\n Now, it has become Jo\u2019s ambition to see audio theatre revived.<\/p>\n \u201cI think my mission with it is to make audio productions appeal to a modern audience by creating high quality, immersive worlds and explore the stories within them.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of radio stations now don\u2019t have the capacity to record those things live like they used to. Like wobbling a piece of tin for thunder sound effect and all that. But in the modern day we have all this technology, so we can pretty much record it and give it to radio stations and bring back that radio drama that we haven\u2019t really had for 50 years.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like a podcast, it\u2019s a story podcast, you actually get immersed into the world. There are sound effects. If someone drops a glass, you hear it. If someone slams a door, you hear it.<\/p>\n \u201cI think immersion into a story is really important. Especially when you can\u2019t see the actors and you can\u2019t see the setting you have to make the imagination do the work and that\u2019s the really beautiful thing about radio plays.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the past few years, Someone New has helped direct numerous radio plays through COVID lockdowns, including a few sci-fi radio plays, a fantasy, an Australian drama and the first 12 stories in the Sherlock Holmes series.<\/p>\n Jo, Gracie and Ryan directed the Sherlock Holmes series during lockdowns with around 50 actors from across Australia creating the play from a distance.<\/p>\n \u201cThe actors would all send in their lines and we would mash it together with the sound effects and actor\u2019s lines. That was a huge project.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought it was going to be some small undiscovered project, but it was really well received; people really liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month the series received 50,000 listens on Spotify alone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This year, Jo directed two plays for the radio play festival Theatia Podsie, produced by Someone New Theatre Company. The project received an arts, heritage and cultural grant from the City of Greater Geelong.<\/p>\n The festival featured the reading of two works by Victorian playwrights: Like Me by Glenn Saunders and Turbulence by Megan J. Reidl.<\/p>\n Both radio dramas are set in rural Victoria, exploring the common themes of death, love, truth, subjectivity and friendship.<\/p>\n \u201cThe live reading part of the performance was the first time we\u2019ve ever tried this sort of thing as a company,\u201d Jo said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt went really well. It was mellow, happy and I think people we just overjoyed to be back and able to watch something live and something different, with new stories and get a little sneak peek into what it\u2019s like to have a play with no movement and no costumes, it\u2019s just a different experience. I think people were curious but they left happy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s always stressful setting up, you do get those nerves thinking \u2018how\u2019s it going to go\u2019, but a bit like that, and I think the nerves are good though, it means you care about it.\u201d<\/p>\n One week after the live performance, Jo directed the studio recording of the radio plays at Pivot City Music in Geelong.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/All-images-16-600x320.png?_t=1657781468\")
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