A theatre director has started ‘Soundworlds’, a podcast to replace live theatre during the pandemic. Patrick Eakin Young considers the platform an “audio stage” where artists can create “immersive sound worlds”.
“A lot of industries are facing an existential crisis,” he told the Hackney Post, but theatres find themselves at the bottom of many people’s lists when it comes to industries to save.
“But countries need culture,” Young said.
He released the podcast version of his opera Remnants on September 17 and followed this up with audio stories throughout October. He plans to continue producing them indefinitely.
The project was funded by a £29,000 grant given by Arts Council England in April.
He says that podcasts are similar to theatre as both are “incomplete” and rely on the viewer to “imagine” in order to complete the image: “When you’re at the theatre, there’s a suspension of disbelief that doesn’t exist in film. In that sense, it is like radio.”
