Queen Bee, The

I’ve had so much fun with the folks associated with Chatterbox. So many people with so many talents and ideas. That’s one of my favorite things… meeting and working with smart and talented people. Chatterbox could be called a ‘sandbox’, too, in a way. We all just jump in, play, and see what works.

That’s basically what we’ve been doing at Chatterbox, and the collaborative environment works! Everyone works and plays well together, and the products reflect that comfort zone, I think.

Bob Arnold, who had directed me in a couple of shows, had begun an adaptation of the “Queen Bee” faerie tale by the Brothers Grimm, and threw it to me to write the other half. I really hadn’t done any writing in quite a while, but decided to give it a whirl. He also offered me the director’s chair, and I jumped at the chance. For The Queen Bee, my first directorial effort for Chatterbox, I wanted to be able to re-create that formula that directors I’d worked with had done a perfect job in establishing. I was so very lucky with the team I got for Queen Bee. All very talented and — the key word — collaborative. I did a wise thing in casting Bob as the lead; he played a great Simpleton, but he was also great at guiding me through uncharted territory in my first director’s gig.

The one big ‘unknown’ for this show was that we were going to be performing live at the Memphis Children’s Theatre Festival at Rhodes College. One of Chatterbox’s new groups called Sight Gag had recently performed live for the first time, and it had gone wonderfully! I was lucky to be a part of that experience. Performing — and recording — live is one thing, but doing it in front of a crowd of excited children? Well… that’s a daunting prospect. And guess what? For my first directorial effort, I’d decided that we should incorporate the kids into the action of the story! Yes! They were going to play parts in our live recording! Bees, ants, and ducks! This ‘unknown’ had to be made less so. To solve that, we got Marques Brown and his wife Ashley. Marques heads up ShoWagon at Theatre Memphis, so has tons of experience with the youngsters. I’d heard nothing but good things about his magical skill in keeping kids focused, so I contacted him. He and Ashley graciously accepted and became even more involved in the sound effects and character voices for the show.

The closer we got to the performance day, though, the more nervous we got. We tried to think of everything to keep the kids focused and entertained and involved. For a first try at this sort of thing, I think in the end we did a pretty good job. Please take a listen, and enjoy. Hopefully we’ll be able to do more of these kinds of recordings, combining our live recording talents with our live theatrical talents, as well. It’s a joy to bring kids into this wonderful kind of audio theater, and once it’s completed, they can download and listen to their own creations at any time! Chatterbox is excited about future endeavors with live children’s recordings such as these, so stay tuned!

—Greg Krosnes