B Y A N D A S P R O D U C T I O N S THE PROJECT TEMUJIN: AN AUDIO DRAMA is an audio-only historical drama, and an adaptation of the Central Asian epic The Secret History of the Mongols. THE STORY Fallen aristocrat Jamukha is surrendered to the hostile camp of his rival, Genghis Khan. Desperate to survive the night, Jamukha appeals to the days of their youth: when he took a certain exile under his wing… S Y N O P S I S After two decades of warfare, Jamukha has finally been surrendered to Genghis Khan’s camp, where he is held by a Night Guard who despises him. Desperate to survive, Jamukha regales the Guard with stories from when his revered Khan was just an exiled boy named Temujin. From their first chance meeting in a forest, to Temujin accepting a role at Jamukha’s right hand, Jamukha asserts that he shaped Temujin into the deified leader he would become. However, the truth behind Jamukha’s stories are put to the test when he is summoned for the final judgment of Genghis Khan. Told from Jamukha’s perspective on what might be the last night of his life, TEMUJIN: AN AUDIO DRAMA tells the story of two young warlords caught between empire-building and tender brotherhood. R E C O G N I T I O N Since launch on January 30, 2020, TEMUIJN has found an audience “This is a gorgeous work of art, adapted with love and care by in over 75 countries and has been recognised by Roshan Singh, vivaciously performed by a talented cast, and internationally-celebrated awards bodies, including: designed so fluidly you will feel the tension of telling a story with a Night Guard’s arrow aimed at your head.” The 25th Annual Webby Awards Elena Fernández Collins (@ShoMarq), Nominee for Best Podcast - Limited Series The A.V. Club, The Bello Collective and Radio Drama Revival (Scripted Fiction) “I've never listened to an audio drama quite like TEMUJIN, and I AudioUK’s Audio Production Awards 2020 mean that in the best possible way… Best Drama Producer (Bronze) … the writing starts intimate, expands out and adds layers and layers Asian Podcast Awards 2020 of conflict and obstacle and growth, and then brings you back to Best Fiction (Gold) where you started, where you always knew you'd end up: with these Best Narrative (Bronze) two men who shaped each other’s lives for better and worse, in a Podcast of the Year (Bronze) perfectly built confrontation that was destined to happen but is uniquely surprising, rich with subtext, and holding deep, lived-in, Audio Verse Awards 2020 personal stakes.” Best Vocal Direction Best Instrumental Composition Lauren Grace Thompson (@lauren_grace_t), Best Cover Art Actor, Podcaster, Producer, and Director, The Vanishing Act W H Y A N A U D I O D R A M A ? TEMUJIN was written as a stage play, and piloted with a live performed reading: just our actors, their scripts, and a packed audience. Relying solely on voice acting was a daunting creative challenge, but the results stunned even us. With the audience’s full attention on every breath and syllable, minute details in the actors’ performance were amplified. When friends embraced, the silence glowed. When a character issued a life-threatening command, the air choked. Nothing was missing: the room was full. We found that oral storytelling amplified the rhythm, intimacy, and towering emotion of the drama. This was the foundation for TEMUJIN: AN AUDIO DRAMA. The audio drama retains the strength of character-driven performances, coupled with the immersion of a carefully-designed soundscape. Whether at their desk or on the train home, each listener is rewarded with a uniquely visceral experience — all within their earpiece. D I R E C T O R ’ S S T A T E M E N T I have my best friend and Executive Producer Amarbold to blame for all this. We had just heard someone suggest that the world had run out of epic histories, and I saw steam come out of Amarbold’s ears. Later, he sent me a reading list on Genghis Khan, and said: “He’s more dramatically compelling than Hamlet.” I read The Secret History of the Mongols expecting endless battle scenes, but what I got instead was everything before and after — it was world conquest as seen from quiet conversations by the bedside. It is a story full of intimacies and intense relationships, as the best stories are. Why adapt the story of Temujin and Jamukha? First: because I’m a fan of the source material. I wanted to share the awe I felt reading it for the first time with others. I also couldn’t believe I had never heard any of these stories before. The only thing I knew about Genghis Khan was the bloodthirsty, orientalist caricature. I had never really considered that he was capable of tenderness or intimacy, even if popular culture had trained me to afford Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar or, yes, Hamlet, that sympathy. So here we are, three years later. We've put together a team full of highly-skilled and driven creatives, and I’m excited for our listeners to hear what they’re capable of. Especially since our format allows just about anyone to tune into our story — from anywhere in the world, at no added cost. I’m grateful for the time we spent working on TEMUJIN: AN AUDIO DRAMA. It is a story about friendship, told amidst the company of some of the greatest friends I’ve known in my personal and professional life. C H A R A C T E R S Jamukha Jamukha is a prodigious aristocrat who is proud of his lineage to a Temujin fault. He takes Temujin under his wing but becomes increasingly The young Genghis Khan was a poor exile with a violent desire for concerned that Temujin’s revolutionary ideals threaten his own — a justice. Under Jamukha’s tutelage, he proposes an idea: a society concern that turns their brotherhood into rivalry and Jamukha into where bloodline doesn’t matter. When Jamukha spits on his vision, the enemy of the nation. Played by Aditya Karkera. Temujin abandons his sworn brother, upends the empire, and contemplates whether all of it is worth it. Played by Ziyad Bagharib. Borte Savvy and sharp, Temujin’s childhood sweetheart can sense a threat Hoelun from miles away, and she senses that Jamukha is seducing Temujin Tired from a life of loss and submission, Temujin’s mother gladly into a compromising bargain. The more Jamukha shapes Temujin follows her son as he secures their family’s position as an extension of into his right hand man, the more desperately Borte wants out. Jamukha’s own. But as they become implicated in unexpected affairs, Played by Evannia C. Handoyo. she sees Temujin and Borte strive for better, when all she demands of them is to survive. Played by Betina K. Choa. Jamukha’s Slaves Amused by their fallen ruler’s misguided sense of self-grandeur, The Guard Jamukha’s remaining two slaves are all fun and games until he acts up The ever perfect soldier on Genghis Khan’s night shift is the fitting in a murderous fit. They surrender him to Genghis Khan and wait for recipient of a surprise gift: Jamukha — evil personified — delivered acceptance into the promised kingdom with bated breath. Played by by his own slaves. Enduring his stories until the final judgement, the Andrew Kwan and Kevin Low. Guard is caught unprepared in a battle between ethics and emotion: did evil make his ruler the Khan that he is? Played by Vivek Ganesh. A N I N T E R V I E W W I T H R O S H A N S I N G H The protagonist of 13th Century Mongolian history is point-of-view character? This frame created a fascinating almost always Genghis Khan, or Temujin. Why did you push-and-pull dynamic, and a sense of looming dread over frame TEMUJIN: AN AUDIO DRAMA from Jamukha’s proceedings. Best of all: it keenly focused the entire story on the perspective? relationship and pained love that I had found so enthralling to begin with. The earliest drafts actually were framed from Temujin’s perspective. But then I ran into a problem that I suspect other How did you adapt the source material into a script for adaptations of his life have: it became a story about a plucky English-speaking audiences? Were there any challenges exile who wins a lot of battles, and does quite well at this that you faced? warfare business in spite of all obstacles. The emotional core that I had fallen for was totally missing. We wanted to respect the source material, above all else. That meant preserving the lines of this history, and being extremely So I went back to the drawing board, where I realized it had careful about reading between them. In addition, and rather been the relationships that fascinated me — none more so than crucially, it meant preserving the characters, personalities and that between him and Jamukha. Theirs were the scenes I relationships found within The Secret History. enjoyed writing (and reading about) the most, because it framed Temujin’s successes in a really interesting light. The colloquial English of our final product was the end-result of finding a way to keep our characterizations as immediately We know that Temujin “wins”, but what happens dramatically accessible to the listener as possible.