Athan
Plays Matt
Athan is a multi-talented artist involved in music, content creation, and immersive experiences. Specializing in singing, songwriting, and music production, he shares the creative process and gaming adventures through Twitch streams.
Beyond the digital realm, he excels in escape room design, with a focus on technical props that elevate the immersive experience. Otherwise, he doesn’t really have hobbies, and spends his free time picking up new projects.
Recently getting into podcasts, Athan is obsessed with WOE.BEGONE, and even got to voice Troy, and he’s looking forward to more voice acting roles! With a genuine and multifaceted approach, Athan continues to explore and expand creative boundaries, providing audiences with distinct and memorable experiences.
Lyssa Jay
Plays Emily
Lyssa Jay (she/they) is a self proclaimed mega nerd, which includes the ability to recite the entire Adventure Time timeline and have almost encyclopedic knowledge about the podcasts she loves. As a former theater kid who exclusively hung out with the crew and never got a lead role, she’s got a flair for the dramatic and a love for tabletop role-playing games.
A long-time fan of audio dramas, she decided she wanted to try out creating one herself! Now, she co-produces 400 Words A Horror, a horror-themed anthology podcast made by audio drama enthusiasts hoping to get started as creators. A writer, voice actor, artist, and full time grad student – she’s never bored and constantly working on projects. What even is time? She doesn’t know. Lys is incredibly excited to join the amazing cast and crew of Forged Bonds as Persephone! You can also hear her as the voice of Charlie in WOE.BEGONE, and Sister-to-All in Breathing Spaces.
Taylor Michaels
Plays David
From singing opera and belting Broadway showtunes, to acting on every stage he could find his way onto, to traveling and recording with a semi-professional acapella group, Taylor Michaels’ life has been one filled with music and performance.
An avid consumer of fiction podcasts, in his free time Taylor enjoys playing board and video games with his friends, taking long walks through Boston (a podcast blaring in his headphones, of course), and listening to the same songs over and over until he can’t stand them anymore.
Outside of The Grotto, Taylor’s voice can be heard most notably as Chance in WOE.BEGONE. He has also appeared in a multitude of other shows including Wake of Corrosion, Nowhere On Air, Tales from the Fringes of Reality, Among the Stacks, and The Department of Variance of Somewhere, Ohio.
Natalie Light
Plays Lillian
Ever since she was little, Natalie has always loved making music and art. She grew up in Destination Imagination (iykyk), where her team even won a couple Global Final challenges.
In high school, she was the lead singer/songwriter of an okay garage band. After years of unfocus while pursuing other projects and countless voice memos on her phone, she’s finally getting back into making music, and now apparently into voice acting in podcasts.
After college where she graduated with focuses in communication, biology, music, history, and French, she stumbled into a career designing and building escape rooms, where she found her niche. In addition to making escape rooms, you can find her streaming impressionistic painting on Twitch, playing tennis, obsessing over interior design, or cuddling with her cats.
Derek
Plays Ambrose
Amidst a long list of random life encounters, Derek’s creative work has involved filmmaking on both sides of the camera, and eventually Escape Room design and management with Athan. Now working in corporate America, he is excited to also be working as co-writer and cast member of The Grotto.
Outside of work, you can find Derek enjoying tabletop RPGs with friends, video gaming, reading books of all genres, and otherwise enjoying life with his girlfriend and kids.