It’s been part of our inspirational programming line-up for decades, and we are so excited to share Adventures in Odyssey recently aired its 1,000th episode! The radio drama is beloved by so many families in Southern Manitoba, and we had the opportunity to connect with voice actress Katie Leigh who has played Connie Kendall since the show's start in 1987. She shared her coming into the role was "a total God thing."
"After I really dedicated my life to the Lord, I was just praying I could do something in ministry, or just to spread the gospel or just be part of something faith-based," she reflected. "I was driving to a one-off sort of medical appointment, which happened to be in Arcadia, California where I'd never been before. As I was listening to Focus on the Family on the radio, Family Portraits came on and I heard my colleagues in the cast, people I knew, so I knew they were using professional actors in this audio drama. Their offices were in Arcadia at the time, and I did my appointment and went to a phone booth, found their address, drove over there and knocked on the door. They introduced me to Phil Lawler and Steve Harris. I gave him my demo, and I said I would really like to work with you guys, and that's what started it."
Adventures in Odyssey is a ministry of Focus on the Family, and takes your family into the world of the fictional small town of Odyssey where its various characters experience their walk with Jesus from different vantage points. The program airs Saturday evenings at 630pm on CFAM Radio 950. You can find the entire program guide, here.
Approaching the character Connie Kendall
Leigh feels how Connie has ultimately been presented has been organic over the years.
"The situation kind of dictates your emotional life in your character," she shared. "I brought my own kind of speech pattern to her. Sometimes things would be written, and I thought, 'Nah, I don't think that sounds natural for me.' So I'd change it a little bit. It's like a dance between the actors and the writers as we got to know each other better. I think it might have been a Paul McCusker script, we went through it and I thought there's not a word I would change here.... It was beautiful. It's like, oh, my goodness, we all know who this character is. That was the beauty of the team of Phil Lawler and Paul McCusker as writers."
Has the character changed over the years?
"I think, just like everybody, we're kind of the same as we were when we were in high school or college, we're just in different roles, and so there's different expressions of ourselves," said Leigh when reflecting on that question. "I think we can all relate to that because, people say I don't feel any different than I did when I was in fifth grade, except we know a lot more and we've experienced a lot more. In this case her character (Connie Kendall) hasn't changed, but her situations have changed."
"It means that God answered my prayer"
After 1,000 episodes and decades of being connected to Connie Kendall, it all means a lot of Leigh.
"It means that God has really blessed the idea of the show, and the listeners and Focus on the Family to keep doing this," she said. "None of this would happen without the Lord's blessing, because none of us could see into the future, and say, 'hey, let's do a show that we're going to write 1,000 episodes,' Who even has 1,000 ideas? But, you know, they keep coming up with them and it's just amazing."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Katie Leigh, below.