Noah Stratton Executive Director Logos Theatre
The Logos Theater’s production, “A Peep Behind the Scenes”, runs through April 25.
Andrew Schmidt Photo
The Logos Theatre is at the renovated Taylor Mills.
BY ANDREW SCHMIDT
The Logos Theater in Taylors provides the Upstate with a unique theatrical experience.
Executive Director Noah Stratton explained that the Logos Theater has a threefold purpose. It works with the community to produce Broadway-level productions with an uplifting Christian or moral message.
“We’re a very unique mix. I’ve never seen anywhere else that tries to mix all three of those things,” Stratton said.
One part of the theater’s threefold purpose focuses on producing Broadway-level, high-quality theater.
The theater has a young yet experienced staff that possesses skills in a variety of disciplines from graphic design to costuming to prop and set design as well as lighting, audio and other jobs. Stratton said the theater has always been able to do a lot with limited resources, but he hopes to do even more as the Logos Theater gains resources, staff and recognition.
Some of the theater’s most impressive technical accomplishments are the massive puppets the theater has used in some of its productions, including the large Aslan lion puppet featured in its “Chronicles of Narnia”series of plays.
Open auditions are held for nearly every production.
Stratton said working on plays provides practical life experience for members who join the cast of a production. “Some people have a really hard time handling pressure and stress,” Stratton said “What this does is give a safe environment to face pressure and stress head-on and learn how to deal with it.”
The final philosophy of the Theater is to emulate Christian and moral principles. “We see that God has made us to be like him in any avenue of what we do, so of course that affects what we do on stage,” Stratton said.
“God is the God of communication. He describes himself as ‘the Word,’ so he clearly has a lot to say about communication and how and why we communicate,” Stratton said. “When we’re teaching communication, we’re teaching a quality of God.”
The Logos Theater comprises one of five branches of the Academy of Arts, a Christian fine arts organization. The other branches include a Christian Conservatory that provides college degree programs in drama and related disciplines, camps and seminars hosted at schools and home school groups, summer drama teams and venture films, a small film company.
Nicky Chavers founded the Academy of Arts in 1971. He bought the historic Taylors elementary and high school building, where the Logos Theater is housed, in 1992 and opened the theater in 2006.
The Logos Theater’s “Chronicles of Narnia” series are perhaps the most renowned output of the theater since its opening. The Logos Theater production of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” and later “Prince Caspian” and “The Horse and His Boy”became the first professional theatrical productions of those stories and did much to spread the word about the Logos Theater.
The productions drew the eye of Douglas Gresham, the stepson of C.S. Lewis, writer of the “Chronicles of Narnia” books, who came from Malta to see the premiere of “Prince Caspian” and “The Horse and His Boy” at the Logos Theater.
The Logos Theater’s production, “A Peep Behind the Scenes”, runs through April 25. It is a musical based on a book written in 1877 that sold more than 2.5-million copies, more than a better-known book from the same time period, “The Scarlet Letter”.
Stratton said he believes the production is both entertaining and gripping as it deals with deep themes like loss, abuse and redemption.
About the author: Andrew Schmidt is a senior at Bob Jones University. Please enjoy other stories written by Andrew.
• BJUGrass comprised of 5 students and a president.