Founded in 1971, the Academy of Arts exists to train and inspire the next generation of servant leaders to properly use the universal gift of communication for others’ good and God’s glory.
1971
In 1971, Dr. and Mrs. Chavers stepped out in faith to start The Academy of Arts. With just a few volunteers and some simple stage equipment, they began traveling to churches that summer performing original biblical stage productions. The public was amazed and continually told the Chavers, “The play just made the Bible come alive.” And so, the motto of the Academy was born – “making the Bible come alive in minds and hearts through the power of storytelling”.
1973
In 1973, Dramatic Word Seminars were started to teach elementary and high school students to do a full scale production in just one week! These evangelistic drama seminars met a tremendous need for Christian young people to receive incredible, hands-on training in the performing arts where they were challenged to fall in love with the Gift Giver, and not the gift. Our Seminar teams continue to travel every year to more than 20 schools and homeschool groups giving young people a one-of-a-kind opportunity to learn and grow in their walk with the Lord as they understand how to use their God-given communication skills for His glory.
1973
Also in 1973, a traveling college program was begun to give students further training in all the aspects of sacred dramatic production where they could hone their skills under the direction of the Chavers and the Academy staff who traveled with the Dramatic Word Seminars. College students received “college on wheels” training as they learned on the road, and then immediately invested what they had learned into training the elementary and high school students in the Seminars. The Academy of Arts Christian Conservatory continues to this day where college students can receive excellent training through classes, training, and invaluable hands-on experiences. Associate’s, Bachelor’s, or Master’s Degree are available, as well as our one-year GAP (Gain A Perspective) Program.
1989
In 1989, Dr. Chavers was able to purchase the old Taylors School and began the renovations to turn it into the new theatre and homebase for the ministry. After many years of intense trials and innumerable obstacles, the Logos Theatre was able to open its doors. Through stunning theatrical performances, the theatre was a bastion for excellence and integrity to God’s truth, and today, audiences are still called to “Look. Learn. Live.” through every production they experience.
2006
In 2006, Nicole Chavers Stratton (Dr. and Mrs. Chavers 3rd daughter) began Venture Films, a film production company dedicated to calling our culture to new way, a new venture towards truth through excellent storytelling for the screen. Venture has been an invaluable arm of promotional content for The Logos Theatre and other facets of the Academy of Arts, and has more recently been able to step more directly into the world of filmmaking. To date, Venture Films has produced several award-winning short films, several documentaries, and is currently in pre-production for its first feature film.
Founded in 1971, the Academy of Arts exists to train and inspire the next generation of servant leaders to properly use the universal gift of communication for others’ good and God’s glory.
The Academy of Arts
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to