We were lucky to catch up with Royce Pentaghast recently and have shared our conversation below.
Royce, so great to have you on the platform and excited to have you share your wisdom with our community today. Communication skills often play a powerful role in our ability to be effective and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your communication skills.
It’s very much a work in progress. With directing, it can be hard to decide how much context people need for a character or scene. Others bring their own interpretations, and being open to that collaboration can be really beneficial. A lot of these productions have been completely voluntary, with friends, family and strangers from across the world taking the time to help me with these productions, and I hope I can effectively communicate how thankful I am for their work to help these projects come together.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’ve been volunteering and working at City Park Radio in Launceston, Tasmania since 2017, producing my own and other people’s radio productions. My main project, The Misadventures of Agnetha Deveaux (An-yetta De-vo) is an original fantasy mystery series following the titular elf detective. The easiest way to describe the setting would be Lord of the Rings crossed with Sherlock Holmes; a world of magic, with humans, elves, dwarves and orks, but in a more Victorian London-like setting, with factories, steam trains, and changing attitudes. I also infused a bit of Australian flavour into the story and characters.
It’s a bit naughty at times, a bit tongue in cheek, with Agnetha saying and doing things many people wish they could get away with. The series tackles stories like murder mysteries, hauntings, monsters, with a blend of comedy and drama.
The cast is made up of local Tasmanian actors and has since expanded to include actors from across Australia, as well as Britain, America, Norway, and the Czech Republic. New edits of the first three seasons are being uploaded to my YouTube channel, and hopefully streaming with all new artworks and animations by myself, and a fourth season, expanding to focus on other characters in this world, is airing in early 2025.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
There’s technical skills of course, using recording equipment and later going into the edit, stitching together different takes, sometimes made over a year apart, to tell a cohesive story. Communication of ideas and directing has improved from the early years. Some actors want more guidance in direction and others just want a sense of what they should be feeling. Some need someone to bounce off, others can read in isolation and be bang on the money. The communication of ideas goes towards storytelling too, as a radio play you’re an entirely audio based production, you can use narration, dialogue or sound effects to communicate a setting or action.
I also think working to make the performers comfortable is something I’ve improved on. One actor who initially had smaller, quieter parts went on to be more confident and play a loud, gregarious villain role. I had to get to that loud level myself, to play into the silly character and he then felt comfortable enough to take it beyond, and it’s the same for quieter, more sensitive moments with other actors too.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
Juggling the responsibilities of writer, director, editor, and promoter, wrangling a cast of dozens of actors, many in totally different time zones, it’s a lot to take on. And I think putting it aside for a bit to focus on some other project, whether drawing, crafting, or planning can free my mind a bit to come back later with a fresh perspective.
I’m also very visual and designing the characters or concepts helps me to better communicate or picture an idea I might be stuck on.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pentaghast_royce/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agnethadeveaux
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@roycepentaghast
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/roycepentaghast
Image Credits
All images illustrated by Royce Pentaghast.
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.