Hi! I’m Jim Pappas.
I get paid to dream! Nothing too grandiose, mind you. At least – not to begin with. Case-in-point. The Pilgrim’s Progress Audio Drama.
The dream began very smallish – Just read The Pilgrim’s Progress to a seven year old boy for a bedtime story.
No big deal, right? Right! No big deal at all. Unless you’re reading a book written in 15th century English that is discussing matters of theology couched in an allegory. Yep—no big deal—until five minutes into the story when the eager father sees a little boy’s eyes begin to glaze-over…
Hmm. It was crystal clear that the synapses in the frontal lobes of this child were not firing as hoped.
“So this is how a dream dies is it? Maybe best to just close the book, Jim. Pull out a sure winner from your collection of cannibal stories and save the day. Gotta save face, y’know.”
Then comes the idea – “You were a comm major. Why don’t you just adapt it on the fly, Dad.”
“Ah, Yes! Adapt it! Good idea! Just the thing.” And so Dad began to ham it up a little using modern English and voila!
And so the simple dream—to read a classic religious book to a little boy had been conceived, gestated and born. After reading Part I we went on to Part II: Christiana. At the end the priceless reward every father should long to hear, “Read it again, Daddy!” Aha! Mission accomplished—well… almost.
I say only almost because when one dream is born she tends to bring along her older brothers and a few cousins. So by now the dream had morphed into typing out the text of my revision in a script intended to be read by me onto cassette tape (remember those, anybody) to be shared with my children and their friends. A one-man show, as it were, to be shared with anybody who was interested. (BTW – people sometimes ask me, “Who’s your target audience?” My answer is simply “People who like what I write.)
Well, one thing let to another and soon I had a professional sounding narrator in the person of Barbara Morton who had been a professional singing evangelist. Then came a new convert to Christ named Kirk Van Buren from Canada who had been on track to an acting career. Kirk took on the lead voice of Christian and then helped me cast many of the 70+ other voices that now comprise The Pilgrim’s Progress Audio Drama.
After scrapping together borrowed money and used equipment we began recording and editing. After 2 years the series was launched in 1988 and has been heard by hundreds of thousands of people of all persuasions. Ah! Dream achieved.
Really? Is the dream over? What next? Who knows. How about the idea of returning The Pilgrim’s Progress to the #1 best seller position that it held for some 300 years. To that end we are building a totally new Pilgrim’s Progress website with the help of our friends over at Oncilla, LLC.
Or perhaps adapting my new book, The New Amplified Pilgrim’s Progress, for the big screen. Who can guess? God, the Creator of all good dreams, knows what is best, and I await His enabling in His way and in His time. Meanwhile – other dreams are front and center in my life.
Stay tuned!
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