What do you do when the fate of the world is placed in your hands?   Galahad's mother has always told her she is the only one capable of bringing their world back from the brink of destruction - but when Galahad journeys out into the world, she finds the truth much more complicated. 

There's just eleven days until our new immersive play Grail Knight opens at Three Sisters Sanctuary in Goshen, MA, so reserve your tickets today!  The ticket link can be found in our bio!

Mordred of Orkney - the traitor knight, our script notes, but what secrets is he keeping? What is the tide drawing him towards the rocks of Camelot?  Reserve your Grail Knight tickets today, link in our bio!

ELAINE: How many times have I told you the story?  When I was a maid, I saw a vision.

What’s ending, and what’s beginning?  Here's a tiny sneak peak something we've been working on for Grail Knight, featuring Katie, our Elaine of Carbonek, and Wynn, our music director. 

Visit the link in our bio and reserve your tickets to explore the world of Grail Knight - in all its prophecies and strange weather

GALAHAD: I don’t have a choice. If I don’t, this world will die.

KNIGHT: Everything dies, in time, by sword or storm or sickness. Is it a thing to fear?

Grail Knight, opening July 21st in Goshen, MA, is an immersive retelling of the story of the Quest for Holy Grail.  Here Sir Galahad, the last knight of the Round Table, is reimagined as a young trans girl struggling under the weight of destiny and the task of fixing her predecessors’ Camelot. Tickets are on sale today! Find them in the link in our bio and join our quest for the Grail this July!

In a broken world, how do you face and fix the mistakes of your predecessors?

Grail Knight, opening July 21st in Goshen, MA, is an immersive retelling of the story of the Quest for Holy Grail.  Here Sir Galahad, the last knight of the Round Table, is reimagined as a young trans girl struggling under the weight of destiny and the task of fixing her predecessors’ Camelot.  Galahad is joined on her quest by Sir Mordred, the king’s bastard, whose fate is to tear down Camelot, and Lancelot, her blood father who has done the unspeakable to ensure Camelot’s survival.  To Mordred, Galahad is a mirror of his own experience; to Lancelot, Galahad is an uncomfortable echo of his past.   Together, they seek the grail and face their entangled destinies.

The play takes place throughout the Three Sisters Sanctuary, and the audience is free to explore the enclaves and secrets of the sanctuary throughout the performance.   As an audience member, it is your choice how you follow the grail quest; the threads of the story intertwine and weave, but each character’s path is unique - who will you follow?

(tickets are available through the link in our bio!)

Voyage of the August Masterpost

A tale of queer love and mutiny on the high seas! The Voyage of the August chronicles the final voyage of a merchant ship bound for England in 1717, whose crew takes their fate into their own hands. This work of historical fiction is presented as a serial audio drama.

The story centers around the August’s first mate, Robert Maddox, a well-respected officer with frustrated ambitions; Dr. Leon de Isla, a surgeon with an unhappy past who follows Maddox to sea for reasons of the heart; and Sophia Montague, the willful daughter of the shipping line’s owner.  Exploring 18th century nautical culture, queer history, and shipboard conflict, and featuring original music and a cast-recorded selection of sea shanties, the Voyage of the August is a nine-episode self-contained story.

You can listen and download the episodes on our website here, or find them by searching ‘Voyage of the August’ on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, and other podcast distributors!  Or check out the preview here!

Listened to Voyage of the August?  Listening to Voyage of the August?   We would love to hear your feedback!  You can get in touch with Electric Lite Collective via this tumblr or through our facebook page, Electric Lite Collective.

Content warning can be found beneath the cut!

Please note that the Voyage of the August is a work of historical fiction and contains instances of homophobia, violent bigotry, racism, and scenes of violence.  Individual episodes are marked with content warnings indicating what they contain.  Please take care of yourself while listening, and reach out to us with any feedback!

Interested in more sea shanty content?  You should check out Voyage of the August, a nine-episode fiction podcast about murder, mutiny, and queer love on the high seas written and produced by the electric lite collective.  The podcast chronicles the fateful voyage and mutiny aboard the merchant ship August - a trading ship bound for England in 1717 whose crew takes their fate into their own hands and turn to piracy.  It features an original soundtrack, including cast-recorded shanties!

You can find it on Spotify, Apple podcasts, and other podcast distributors by searching ‘voyage of the august’, or there’s a link to the podcast website and downloads on the electric lite collective tumblr, under ‘podcast’!

Check out two exciting new radio plays by our sibling theater, Theater Between Addresses!

Tune in and confront the apocalypse with a Theater Between Addresses radio theater double feature! In collaboration with Northampton Open Media, we are happy to present Generation of the Flood and Plague Wedding, two original radio plays written by Abigail Weaver.The Generation of the Flood: In the year 2035, with a hurricane of biblical proportions bearing down on DC, two prisoners feast in a gilded prison. But as they learn about each other's pasts, and speculate about the nature of the ceremony which they await, they begin to see the grotesque logic in why they were chosen.Plague Wedding: A centuries-old Ashkenazi folk tradition gets a doomsday reboot in 2020 North Carolina, courtesy of a smooth talking car-dealer, a wannabe jester, and a very unhappy bride and groom.You can tune in here: Live on the NOM Facebook page twitch.tv/northamptonopenmedia

Voyage of the August Episode Nine: Counsel

This week on the concluding episode of Voyage of the August, the crew talk of what has been done and what comes next.

https://voyage-of-the-august-0cbf160a.simplecast.com/episodes/episode-nine-counsel

MADDOX: Aye.  We have claimed this life, but now we must decide what it means.  It’s been on my mind, as well.  

CECIL: It will be on everyone’s on the morrow, once this holiday mood has passed.

Thanks for sailing with us!

Leon, having a moment of quiet before the voyage.

MADDOX: Does it not also weigh on you? The things you have seen? The things you have done? I cannot ask you to--to try and bear my burdens, also.

LEON: Of course it does. And it is never something you would ask of me, Maddox. It is not an effort, it is not a burden..it is not an inconsequential weight, but the joy of carrying it makes my feet as light as the wind.

Check the links in our bio to listen to Voyage of the August!

Voyage of the August Episode Eight: Independence

This week on the August, Sylvia reckons with her relationship with her daughter and her place aboard the changed ship.

https://voyage-of-the-august-0cbf160a.simplecast.com/episodes/episode-eight-independence

SYLVIA: I know what kind of man you are.  

MADDOX: Excuse me? 

SYLVIA: I feel a certain duty to be honest, since no one else on the ship is willing.  Perhaps they do not see it yet.  

Voyage of the August Episode Seven: Weight

This week aboard the August, a belated funeral is done and a course is laid.

https://voyage-of-the-august-0cbf160a.simplecast.com/episodes/episode-seven-weight

MADDOX: We therefore commit their bodies to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, (when the Sea shall give up her dead,) and the life of the world to come,

Voyage of the August Episode Six: Mutiny

This week on the August, tensions erupt and important decisions are made.

https://voyage-of-the-august-0cbf160a.simplecast.com/episodes/episode-six-mutiny

MADDOX: But I would not lie to you, even about this. 

LEON: I know you to be honest with me. It is your honesty with yourself I am more concerned with. 

Tune into the Voyage of the August, a tale of queer love and mutiny on the high seas, a nine-episode serial radio drama chronicling the final voyage of a merchant ship bound for England in 1717, whose crew takes their fate into their own hands. 

Voyage of the August Episode Five: Riot

This week, unease pervades the decks of the August...

https://voyage-of-the-august-0cbf160a.simplecast.com/episodes/episode-five-riot

DOUGLAS: Crew’s sullen tonight.  Helmsman says we’re making good headway, though.

LAWRENCE: Between you and me, the quicker we reach England the better, with the captain or the… lack of him.

Content warning for violence.

SYLVIA: Can’t you feel it, the way the ship moves with every little wave?  And that man at the helm… the slightest shiver of his hands could send us tumbling over.

Voyage of the August- Episode 1-4 Covers, by Wynn MacKenzie

Check out our links for episodes!

Voyage of the August Episode Four: Murder

Blood is spilled on the boards of the August!

https://voyage-of-the-august-0cbf160a.simplecast.com/episodes/episode-four-murder

SYLVIA: Better?  Adrift.  On this big, black water.  I never understood how you could abide the ocean.  

SOPHIA: I’ve been crossing the ocean for half a decade.  We all learn to bear what we must, don’t we?

Sophia and Douglas's newfound friendship is interrupted by a run-in with the captain.  Sophia overhears an argument between Maddox and Blackwall and is called upon to keep a secret.

Content warning for racism and violence.

Ship’s wheel

The ship wheel was one of the most significant mechanical improvements to ship design during the 18th century, and a great advance on the whip staff that preceded it. The whip staff was connected to the tiller, and that with the rudder, that moved the rudder when the whip was moved by the coxswain.

A whipstaff is a device used in 16th/17th century Europe to control the movement of a large sailing ship, Illustration from Ship & Ways of Other Days by Edward Keble Chatterton, 1913

The invention of the ship’s wheel is credited to the Royal Navy but there is no hard evidence to support this. What is clear is that the ship’s wheel did not become commonplace until around 1715. Early wheels were placed behind the mizzenmast, which obstucted the coxswain’s (helmsman) view. They were designed to have two men operating them during heavy weather, although the small amount of space around the wheel caused the sailors to get in each other’s way.

Wheel of HMS Surprise, by David Valenzuela 2011

It wasn’t until 1740 that ships were fitted with two wheels on a single spindle at either end of a drum winch, which allowed four men to steer when conditions were bad. These first wheel systems suffered from a lack of equal amounts of tension when the ropes were at their extremity, making steering something of an imprecise art. This flaw remained for 70 years until a man named Pollard, master shipwright at the Portmouth Dockyard, introduced sweeps and rowles into the system. This new system was tested by Captain Bentinck in 1771 and proved such a success that it became the standard on all Royal Navy ships by 1775.

The Operation of a wheel, by shipmodelersassociation

A ship’s wheel is composed of eight cylindrical wooden spokes shaped like balusters, each joined with a barrel, which houses the axle, so the tiller rope or chain (sometimes called the steering rope or chain) was wrapped in five or six loops arround it and led below deck and from there to a pair of pulleys before coming back together and connecting to the rudder. As the wheels moved, the rudder swung in the desired direction. This means that if the coxswain turned the wheel to the left (port),the tiller would go to the right (starboard) but the rudder would also turn to the left and steer the ship in that direction.