A plug for our podcasts
Several years ago, a colleague often mentioned podcasts, with the intention of making some to document the process of a project we were working on. In those days, I would nod my head sagely, not letting on that I didn’t know what a podcast was (or is).
It was from a motivational speaker’s public gathering that I came away with a clear understanding of the term. I had already listened to several podcasts without knowing what they were.
When I started visualising a process for the development of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba – the music theatre piece that I presented recently at Theatre Peckham, with support from the Arts Council of England, I knew that I wanted to include podcasts as part of the project. Fortuitously, I have been involved in some training at the BBC Academy this year, I learnt a great deal from tuning in regularly to podcasts made by some effective communicators, and I work with a colleague who is experienced at making radio programmes. I was lucky to have these factors working in my favour.
When we made the podcasts for the Solomon/Sheba project, I wasn’t conscious of the fact that they could serve as means of evaluating our work as we went along. Listening back to each episode was useful in drawing attention to aspects of our journey as artists that could be steered in directions that were not planned for initially. I like to think that the discussions we had as collaborators helped each singer to delve more deeply into aspects of the story we were telling and the inner lives of our characters.
The series of podcasts can now serve as a legacy to the work we did as a team. I hope that many listeners who missed out on opportunities to hear or see the work in real time will now get a chance to listen in.
Originally published on www.juwonogungbe.com on the 19th of November 2019
