{"id":28935,"date":"2020-08-08T05:30:29","date_gmt":"2020-08-08T10:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=28935"},"modified":"2020-08-07T14:37:26","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T19:37:26","slug":"austin-peay-state-university-professor-john-ray-writes-two-youtube-mini-musicals-during-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2020\/08\/08\/austin-peay-state-university-professor-john-ray-writes-two-youtube-mini-musicals-during-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Peay State University professor John Ray writes two YouTube mini-musicals during pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – An Austin Peay State University (APSU) musical theatre voice professor wrote two \u201cmini-musicals\u201d during the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. Both musicals are available on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Dr. John Ray \u2013 who recently joined APSU as assistant professor in musical theatre voice after serving as visiting professor last year \u2013 said he wrote the mini-musicals \u201cas the pandemic worsened and performance opportunities dwindled.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>

Screen capture of “La Quarantena.” (APSU)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the idea to create a couple of virtual mini-musicals to offer actors a creative outlet,\u201d Ray said.<\/p>\n

The musicals were \u201cmy way of trying to contribute artistically and put a much-needed positive spin on being socially distanced from one another,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Ray wrote one of the mini-musicals for adults and the other for children. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt took a couple of weeks to create the children\u2019s musical, including writing the dialogue, the songs and the orchestrations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The children\u2019s musical is named \u201cThelonia Thorn and the Thunderous Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSimultaneously, with a great comedy idea from an old friend, Susan Hurst Pruitt, about four Americans quarantined in a rundown hotel in Rome, Italy, I created \u2018La Quarantena,\u201d Ray said.<\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/a>

Austin Peay State University assistant professor Dr. John Ray. (APSU)<\/p><\/div>\n

All actors for both shows auditioned by submitting recordings. Once cast, the cast and crew had Zoom rehearsals two or three times a week for about five weeks. <\/p>\n

They then recorded three takes on all the non-singing scenes via Zoom and recorded each song while listening to a music track on earbuds, Ray said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the entire rehearsal process, I was teaching myself how to use film editing software,\u201d he added. \u201cFor \u2018Thelonia,\u2019 I also had to learn to create some magical effects.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ray said he spent more than 250 hours creating, rehearsing, directing and producing the final mini-musicals. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[470center]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The cast on \u201cLa Quarantena\u201d included APSU associate professor Talon Beeson, well known Tennessee actor Brian Best, Ray\u2019s wife Katharine Boettcher and the up-and-coming Danielle Threet.<\/p>\n

The child actors on \u201cThelonia Thorn\u201d included Ava and Aubrey Baker, Claire Billingsley, Margarita Kryshtal, Evan Lisic, Gaines Odom and Morgan Solomon. Brian Best made a guest appearance as bumbling wizard Cracklebottom. <\/p>\n

\u201cThelonia Thorn\u201d premiered online on July 31st. You can watch it at https:\/\/youtu.be\/5iwUmj9m3LE<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cLa Quarantena\u201d will premiere online on August 7th. You can watch it at https:\/\/youtu.be\/cYWwZZVX68A<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For more information about the APSU Department of Theatre and Dance, go to https:\/\/www.apsu.edu\/theatre-dance\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – An Austin Peay State University (APSU) musical theatre voice professor wrote two \u201cmini-musicals\u201d during the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. Both musicals are available on YouTube. Dr. John Ray \u2013 who recently joined APSU as assistant professor in musical theatre voice after serving as visiting professor last year \u2013 said he wrote the mini-musicals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[23,34845,262,32465,512,825,34581,34634,34844,34642],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-7wH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28935"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28936,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28935\/revisions\/28936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}