Interview with a Radio Player Part 3 - Aaron Talbot on inspiration and getting grants

Interested in the processes and means of making art? Check out this ongiong interview with a dude who’s been through it.
Part 2 of the interview is here.
Part 1 is here.

And the newest installment of the Pre- Fringe Podcast Radio Play we’re talking about is here!

> sooo Aaron.. what inspired Super Hero Live!?

John, Shaun and I go back years, since we were in high
school (actually, I’ve known Shaun since we were in
Gr.5). We’ve hung out and have dug all things
comic-book and superhero inspired for years. In 2004,
John and Shaun were beginning to play and rehearse
together — the beginning stages of putting together
their band Drunk By Noon (check out:
myspace.com/drunkbynoon7)

John had written a guitar riff he called “Superhero”
and played it for me and Shaun. I got very excited.
I proposed a challenge to them both: I would write and
produce a comic-book inspired play if they would write
and perform the music for it. They agreed and the
project took off from there.

Shaun once told me that all he wishes he could do in
this life is to wander the world and spread
righteousness. That was, and continues to be, an
inspiration to the story and the project in general.

> how did you get the grant that made it possible?

The project so far has received two grants to support
its development over the last three years. In 2005 I
received a grant from the Alberta Foundation for the
Arts to produce a workshop of the piece to order to
develop the script and score. I produced a 2-week
workshop in September 2005 at Azimuth Theatre in
Edmonton that culminated in a live performance in
front of an invited audience. The purpose of the
workshop was specifically to investigate and
experiment with techniques of incorporating the music
into the play so that both text and score were viable
story-telling elements.

In 2006 I received a grant from the Lee Fund for the
Arts, which is administered through the Edmonton Arts
Council, to record and produce the Podcast serial and
website www.superherolive.com.

How did I get the grants? I wrote grant proposals and
sent them in before the deadline was up. I’ve written
several more grant proposals for the project — some
of them were denied, some of them I haven’t heard back
from yet.