Audio Archive | National Audio Theatre Festivals

The Audio Theatre Workshop Archives: The Demo

Each summer for one week at the annual Audio Theatre Workshop, participants from all over the country converge to learn, create, perform and produce Audio Theater. I am the “roving recordist”. I collect the sounds and stories of what we hope to create in a week’s time: finding out what the sound effects crew is working on, eavesdropping in on a rehearsal, recording the pieces as they become our final performance. From an empty stage and a handful of scripts to a stage baffled for sound and filled with microphones, suddenly we are performing live.

What you will hear throughout the years is many of our special guests sharing their knowledge with us. You will hear the voices of participants and find out what they’re learning. And, you will get a sense of the urgency and accomplishment (for this happens in a week’s time), and the true adventure of the week.

Hats off to my fellow producers and engineers in those early years of 2001-2003 when we worked as a team producing the Demo: Lindsay Ellison, Ben Taylor, Thom Hutchison and Janine Marr. Since then I’ve been working solo. Here then, are the Demos by year, or what I like to call “The Audio Postcards”.

Dianne Ballon
Sound Artist
Demo Producer / NATF Teaching and Production Staff

2009 Demo

Sounds from the 2009 Audio Theatre Workshop featuring Dwight Frizzell & Michael Henry’s opera “Darwin”, and Eric Somers & Meredith Ludwig’s oral history project “Over There”.

2008 Demo

The 2008 Audio Theatre Workshop features a unique mix of Shakespeare & Cowboy Poetry. The roundup includes Cowboy Poet “Buckshot Dot” & western singer Sue Harris. Sam Mowry directs Shakespeare from “Macbeth” to a unique performance with Barbara Rosenblat in “The Taming of the Shrew”. And Ellen Stewart directs Diane Cook’s Appalachian story “Where the Eagles Fly”.

2007 Demo

Sounds from the 2007 Audio Theatre Workshop include “The Umbrella Man” written by Tom Lopez and performed by Bill Dufris & Barbara Caruso, Native Radio Theater’s performance of “The Peach Seed” written by Rhiana Yazzie, and the sound art piece “Sonic Force” written and composed by Dwight Frizzell and Michael Henry.

2006 Demo

The Native Radio Theater Project joins NATF at the 2006 Audio Theatre Workshop. Native performance artist Thirza DeFoe and flute maker Jerry Fretwell usher us into the week. Performances include: “It’s Never too Late to Have a Happy Childhood” directed by Tom Lopez with performances by Jean Bruce Scott and Thirza DeFoe, and “Melba’s Medicine written by Rose-Yvonne Colletta.

2005 Demo

Sounds from the 2005 Audio Theatre Workshop featuring “Homefront” written by Patrick Bradley and directed by Marjorie Van Halteren, “Extra-Ordinary” with Bill Dufris as Walter the cat, “Hear in West Plains” a sound collage of area residents reflecting on the Ozarks recorded and edited by Tom Lopez, and Simon Jones performing his “race against sound”.