On the drive to Chincoteague the kids wanted to listen to Adventures in Odyssey.
They love Adventures in Odyssey.
When they were in kindergarten I played Adventures in Odyssey for them to instill an appreciation for radio theater and aid their auditory skills.
It worked like a charm!
My kids voices are on an Adventures in Odyssey CD
A few years ago we taped a CD of Adventures in Odyssey, where my kids portrayed the voice talent while I did the foley work (sound effects).
That grand experience occurred at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs.
My daughter had recently told me that one of the episodes mentioned acting in Williamsburg.
Really? Let’s bring that one!
We were laughing and laughing at this rendition of learning how to be an actor interpreter at our favorite historical site, Colonial Williamsburg!
Adventures in Odyssey version of training CW employees
Odyssey, a fictional town in Ohio, has recently discovered that one of the local houses is 200 years old.
Now used as an old barn, it is being refurbished to its historical splendor from 200 years ago.
As the town coordinates the hiring of professional actor-interpreters and a trainer for them, the family in the historic home rebuts.
They insist they will be the actor interpreters for their own historic home, themselves.
After getting their act together, this family gives their first historic tour of the home while in costume.
Everyone who comes for the tours happily leaves, so the family deems their efforts quite successful.
However an especially critical guest arrives, asking them questions that the family doesn’t know how to answer.
The critic then points out every fault in the cabin and with their costumes that is historically inaccurate.
Turns out this critic is the professional trainer who has just arrived after training a group of actor interpreters in Williamsburg.
(That’s the only mention of Williamsburg.)
He puts the mother to work resewing the costumes BY HAND!
(Uh oh! I like hand sewing but my sewing machine is a life saver! Can you imagine anyone today sewing clothes only by hand?)
The dad reads tons of books to read to brush up on history from the latter 1700’s to early 1800’s.
(Now, I read all of my kids history books each week, averaging 100 pages, on top of their literature, etc, etc, etc, and I thought I read a lot!)
Various historical homework tasks keep the kids busy to improve their junior personas.
And they have THREE days to get into historical acting interpreting shape!
(I’ve heard that CW employees study for weeks to learn to interpret history.)
I’ll leave you to find this adventure to get the rest of the story!
We were laughing!
Meanwhile, this link will helps us all learn 18th century deportment, essential to period accurate portrayals in Colonial Williamsburg.
Epilogue 2024
And now for the rest of the story…
The tailors of Colonial Williamsburg taught me how to sew historically accurate clothing, at the request of my kids.
Before long I was sewing all of our historical attire completely by hand, in the manner of the 18th century.
I no longer like my sewing machine…much. 😉
Stay tuned for more of that journey.
