THE STORY OF VIRTUALLYAUDIO
MADE HERE, BROADCAST ACROSS THE WORLD
Seven years ago David Renegar a former vice president
of marketing of Seagram's Canada had a dream. His vision was to
create an entity that offered streaming audio programming to the
World Wide Web community.. He started his search for like-minded
individuals who shared his vision. He found it in Jeff Pearson
and Ellen Humphrey, two residents of London Ontario who also happened
to be web designers and sound engineers. Together over the next
ten months they assembled the pieces needed to bring to life the
creative platform that David initially envisioned and VirtuallyAudio.com
was born.At the same time across the city a local theatre company
was coming to an end after a fourteen year run. Artistic Director
Johnathon Hoskins a good friend and colleague of David's was looking
for something new to sink his creative teeth into. He found VirtuallyAudio
With the additional resources. David decided to
test the creative waters with productions of his own. Together
he and Johnathon set out to assemble a unique acting company several
members who came from Johnathon's former theatre company. They
then threw out the net to bring in some writers who had diverse
and interesting stories to tell. Starting with Argentina writer
Mariana Lieimontas " The Plot " a story written about an important
historic event in her country, VirtuallyAudio.com forged ahead
in building the infrastructure to be able to produce it's own brand
of exciting and innovative audio entertainment.
This new artistic venture took three forms. Virtually
Novels, which showcased audio books. Virtually Vinyl, which focused
on independent musical artists and finally the flagship of the
site Virtually Theatre that it hoped to push the boundaries of
what, has come to be known as radio theatre. At the same time the
company developed a profit sharing system to ensure that composers,
actors and writers would share in the proceeds of any of the projects
they contributed to, started to show financial returns. All of
this was combined under a new name Virtually Audio which better
reflected the new international direction the website was taking.
Over the next five years VirtuallyAudio.com added
a number of original productions to it's creative roster.
New shows like the science fiction series Sectarian
Wave, The Adventures of Jake Danger and Jeff Macgraws Washington
Crime fighter series Metro Heat were breaking new ground in the
area of audio theatre. Local artists as DJ Krafty and Alan Lee
had been given exposure through Virtually Vinyl and finally noted
Californian author Chester Aaron has had four of his novels showcased
through Virtually Novels.
In the future. VirtuallyAudio.com listeners can
look forward to enjoying our expanded Audio Comic Book Series.
Which will feature " Darwin 's Law " a X-Files Styled Western And "Emily" a
futuristic adaptation of Charles Dicken's, Oliver Twist. As well
we will be unleashing "The Irrelevant Rock and Roll and Music Show. " A
must for all music and vinyl aficionados out there. And of course
our free listening library which features hours of some of the
best in classic and newly produced radio theatre, is still completely
free to access.
Not bad for a little Toronto idea that grew. VirtuallyAudio.com " What
Have You Been Listening To Lately.
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