Taking the leap from speakers to stage, it has been adapted into a live stage show that comes to Australia in February. Co-creator and producer, Joseph Finks describes ‘Welcome To Night Vale as: “a scripted, fictional podcast that takes the form of community radio in a small, desert town where every conspiracy theory is true; ghosts, angels and aliens are just commonplace parts of day-to-day life and everyone just gets on with their lives”.
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Since being adapted for the stage, the live show has played 160-plus times in 11 countries, and Joseph says it has evolved to become its own evening of entertainment. “In the 160 or so times we’ve done it, the live show really turned into its own thing.
“It’s designed to be something that both someone who’s never heard of ‘Night Vale’, who’s just walked in without any idea of what they’re about to see, and someone who’s listened to every episode three times. Both will enjoy; the super-fan will get all sorts of little bits of information and in-jokes, and then the person who has no idea will hopefully get a really satisfying story.”
For Joseph, and his team, the art of storytelling is the driving force behind both the podcast and the stage show, eschewing the visual spectacular for a more organic form of theatre that emphasises the relationship between performer and audience. “We come from a place of storytelling, so we don’t have costumes or sets, anything like that.
“It’s microphones on a stage and our actors stand in front of the microphones holding scripts, so it’s done in a kind of radio-theatre style. We have our composer Disparition, he comes along and he does the music live behind the actors; he’s there playing the audio score of the show live in front of you.
“It’s done in a way that emphasises the performer’s ability to tell you a story and your connection to the performer.”
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For the Australian tour, ‘Welcome To Night Vale’ will present a never-before-seen-or-heard episode entitled ‘The Investigators’. “It’s a murder-mystery and it involves a certain amount of audience participation,” Joseph explains, “but it’s a ‘Night Vale’ episode so weird things happen, there’s a number of guest stars, there’s lovely music and then maybe we find out who committed the murder.”
In addition to the live show, ‘Welcome To Night Vale’ has also been adapted into a novel that has recently been released in Australia, adding another spooky dimension to the mysterious desert town. “Since I was a child I’ve loved conspiracy theories,” Joseph says.
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“I don’t really believe them but I think they’re really fantastic storytelling, so I would get books out of the library on UFO sightings, men in black and stuff and read that. Now I’ll go through Wikipedia entries of various conspiracy theories and out of place artefacts, and a lot of that ends up in the show.
“I think my favourite theory is number stations. I love those because they’re undeniably true; we don’t 100 per cent know what they are but they undeniably exist, so there’s something fascinating about them, for the fact they are a real thing.”
Welcome To Night Vale Live Dates
Mon 8 Feb - QPAC Concert Hall (Brisbane)Tue 9 Feb - City Recital Hall (Sydney)
Wed 10 Feb - Her Majesty's Theatre (Adelaide)
Thu 11 Feb - Octagon Theatre (Perth)
Sat 13 Feb - Athenaeum (Melbourne)
