So, the story? A couple moves from the city to a remote mansion in Ireland, where every spooky story cliche is abused in this hilariously ghoulish half hour. From the Crazy Dog Live collection.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast147.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 147

This Halloween, FinalRune Productions had a live radio drama… Details forthcoming, but here’s the audio!!!

Download audio file (halloween-show-2009.mp3)

Halloween Show 2009

Stories Include:

• The Ghost Behind the Black Door by Roger Gregg
  A couple from the city moves to a mansion in the countryside only to find that things are not all as they expect… a spoof on the classic horror meme.
• Leaving You is Hell by Fred Greenhalgh
  A dark retelling of the myth of Orpheus inspired by the classic jazz tune “St James Infirmary.” A man in New Orleans is doomed to keep falling in love with the same woman and seducing her to her death.
• Bone Lake by Mark LaFlamme
  The ice fishing’s going well on Bone Lake, until a man comes from the winter’s night looking for a very strange catch.
• Third Shift by Kevin Anderson
  A company will sell you very efficient workers at a bargain price. Just don’t send the living to check out their work.

The Talented Cast

Burke Brimmer and Christine Marshall from Mad Horse Theater Company, FinalRune regular Philip Hobby, Janice Gardner, Tom Power.

Live Sound Effects and Music

Live sound effects by Paul Drinan and “Goober,” computer FX by Michael Townsend, live music performed by Barb Truex.

What is PowerUp?

WMPG’s PowerUP! Campaign seeks to raise $250,000 to upgrade the signal strength of the station’s main transmitter and move it to a better location.

If you doubt this, go tune into last year’s Halloween special when we heard his tale The Estates, or maybe the anti-Christmas story Up on the Rooftops, or even the not so friendly Family Radio.

So it’s with great pleasure that today we feature a rather, ah, “chilling” tale of his from his program Listening in the Dark. The tale is “The Thing on the Ice,” a story about a man trapped against the elements, who’s going to have a hard enough time surviving the blizzard before a horrible thing that should not walk the earth shows up.

An excellent story and perfect capstone for our month of fiendish audio, and a BIG PLUG for my live radio drama show that’s coming Sat, Oct 31, 7-9PM EDT right here on Radio Drama Revival. Killer stuff!

Download audio file (rdr-podcast146.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 146

Alright, here it is, folks – three days before Halloween and the height of scary story season. My inbox has been bombarded with new stuff all this month which I’ve been dying to get out there to you, and there is just so much happening that if I had my way, I would clone off five or six of myselves to check out all of the cool Halloween events.

That not being possible, you’ll find me in Portland, Maine putting on a two-hour Halloween radio drama with 5 original plays. Yikes. But no matter where you are in country (or the world, for that matter), if you want blood-curdling audio, there’s stuff out there for you.

After putting out my feelers the audio community, digging around on my own, and just collecting all of the awesome stuff people like you have been sending my way, I’m going to share what I’ve come up with for awesome haunting horror audio.

Starting, first, with the LIVE Halloween shows – these are events where you can show, participate, and be spooked in an audience with real people! Follow-up post coming soon with recorded programming

Live Halloween Radio Shows

Portland, Maine – 7-9PM EDT on Sat, Oct 31

What is It? – My own show. I’ve talked about that already. Five plays by writers Roger Gregg, Mark LaFlamme, Kevin Anderson and yours truly.

How Do I Hear It? – Show up!!! Or, barring that, audio stream at wmpg.org and video stream at finalrune.com

Memphis, Tenneessee – 7-9PM CST on Sat, Oct 31

What is it? For the second year in a row, Chatterbox will perform a live Halloween Show over the airwaves on 91.1 WKNO-FM Memphis / 90.1 WKNP-FM Jackson.

Just to outdo me, Chatterbox is doing SEVEN short tales of horror, suspense, and the macabre. Expect to encounter the undead, creative murderers, tentacled monsters, hungry demons, unseen beasts, and other horrors that will keep you awake well into the night. A talented team of actors, musicians, sound effects artists, and producers will create these stories while you listen — just like in the Golden Age of radio.

How Do I Hear It? 91.1 WKNO-FM Memphis / 90.1 WKNP-FM Jackson. If you don’t live in the Memphis area, you can listen live through the WKNO website.

Boston, Massachusetts – 8PM on Oct 29, 30, 31, and 2PM on Oct 31

What is it? The Post-Meridian Radio Players bring us “The Big Broadcast of October 30th, 1938″ – the latest iteration of their annual Halloween tribute to the Golden Age of Radio. This year they present two plays – “The Frank Cyrano Byfar Hour” and a special production of Orson Welles’ infamous “War of the Worlds” radio play, adapted to follow events in Boston during the ”Martian invasion.”

PMRP does amazing stuff, as you can grok from my raving of their New Year’s radio show.

How Do I Hear It? Check out Somerville Theater, next to the Davis Square T Station. Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Further information about the show, ticket reservations, and PMRP in general may be found on their website at http://www.pmrp.org

Portland, Oregon – 4PM and 6PM PST on Oct 31

What is it? Over in our sister city of Portland, Oregon, the Willamette Radio Workshop presents their 7th annual Halloween audio theater extravaganza at McMenamins Kennedy School. This year’s presentation is an original compilation of stories based on “The St. James Infirmary Blues,” featuring live music and foley, and streaming in real time on the internet. “Tales from St. James Infirmary” is a cross between ER, The X Files and EC Comics, featuring stories of zombies, lost loves, murder and revenge – in other words the perfect Halloween confection. You’ll never be unsatisfied with your HMO again.

There will be two programs with eleven stories split between the two. There were even MORE stories (including my own) that filled up their full roster… my but they do a lot of shows!

How Do I Hear It? All shows are free and open to everyone (who has the guts, that is). Streaming Mix for Radio 23. Listen in at http://radio23.org/#listen

New York City – 3PM EDT on Oct 31

What is it? It’s thrilling to hear from groups you’ve never encountered before, and when I put my call to action from the community I found out about a Frankenstein Halloween Special by the appropriately named “RadioTheatre” presented by Horse Trade Theater Group (separated at birth from Mad Horse Theater Company? The world will never know).

These guys look like they’ve been around for a while and have gotten some high accolades. Here’s what they say about their show:

The critically-acclaimed, award-winning RADIOTHEATRE pulls out all the stops for this one, folks…a grand, aural spectacular! From the company that brought you KING KONG, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, THE TIME MACHINE, DRACULA and more…now comes FRANKENSTEIN!

In concert, LIVE, on stage…with a great cast of story tellers, an original symphonic score and a plethora of sound effects! Just bring your imagination!

Good to see the city that never sleeps is in the game. Go out and get spooked!

Topeka, Kansas – 8PM CST on Oct 31

What Is It? The WTCT Players are scheduled to perform Oct 30 at Topeka’s Oldfather Theatre. Admission $6. No clue what they’re doing but they usually perform three vintage half hour plays. Last year, they did one each from Suspense, Inner Sanctum and The Witch’s Tale.

Let the theatre be your radio and take you on a trip back to a simpler time. The WTCT Players perform in the newly renovated Oldfather Theatre, complete with improved air conditioning, wheelchair access, and comfortably padded seats!

How Do I Hear It? I think you have to show up, no details if a stream or podcast version will be available.

4. In Washington, The Midnight Mystery Players announced they’d be doing a version of “The Bride of Frankenstein” on Oct 31 but there have been no further details on their website:

Bellingham, Washington – Sat, Oct 31

What Is It? The Midnight Mystery Players announced they’d be doing a version of “The Bride of Frankenstein” on Oct 31 but there have been no further details on their website.

How Do I Hear It? Few details of the show published. Try contacting them!

Cayman Island – 8PM EDT (?) on Sat, Oct 31

What is it?This is fun. The Cayman Drama Society will stage three Agatha Christie radio plays on Halloween. Um, that’s about it for info, though.

How Do I Hear It? There’s no too much detail, but check out Radio Cayman’s website, also, look there for a live stream link.

Norman, Oklahoma – 7PM CST on Fri, Oct 30

What Is It? Three episodes of “Suspense” (”Zero Hour,” “The Hitchhiker” and “The House in Cypress Canyon”) performed by Second Stage Players in Norman, OK on October 30. Formed in 2005, Second Stage Players perform various types of readers’ theatre, including live radio scripts, one-act plays and interpretive readings.

How Do I Hear It? Tickets for the performance are available at PAS’s home in the Depot during regular business hours, 8 a.m. – 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $7 in advance and $10 at the door. All senior tickets are $7; admission for children age 12 and under is $3.

Unclear if there will be a podcast, contact the PAS at 307-9320 or see this article for more details.

Miscellania

And there are always plenty of “War of the Worlds” recreations scheduled for this time of year. Here are two:

• War of the Worlds in Athens, Alabama
• War of the Worlds in Kingston, New York

Not Quite Halloween Live Radio Shows

These are not quite on Halloween, but are spooky, so why not enjoy?

Minneapolis, Minnesota – 9:30-10:30 CST on Nov 1

Sound Affects aired an Icebox Radio Halloween Special this past Sunday night, which is available on the station archives at: http://www.kfai.org/soundaffectsaradioplayground/ for two weeks after air date.

On November 1 Sound Affects will air “The Evil At Shady Lake”, a comic suspense tale made here at KFAI by the Deadbeats on the Air players. Written by Britt Aamodt. Appropriate for the day After Halloween.

How Do I Hear It? Tune into the live stream, or available in the KFAI archives after the broadcast.

Glen Allen, Virginia – 7:30PM EDT on Nov 3 and 4

What Is It? The On the Air Radio Players are doing something called “Fright Night Double Feature: Dracula and Frankenstein,” an original old time radio show! The hour-long event will be taped and offered later for podcast and features live music and sound effects.

Offered by the County of Henrico Division of Recreation and Parks.

How Do I Hear It? Looks like you can show up in Virginia, or look for a podcast down the line. Their website: http://www.otarp.com/upcoming_shows.htm

Georgetown, Delaware – 2PM EDT on Nov 1

What Is It? The Possum Point Players’ Ad Hoc Touring Company are scheduled to perform Nov 1 at Possum Hall. For $5, you get vintage versions of “The Maltese Falcon” and the Jack the Ripper thriller, “The Lodger” according to this article in the Sussex Countian.

How Do I Hear It? Unclear if the event will be podcast. You could try calling the box office: 302-856-4560.

Thanks, People

Thanks be to emruf7 over on the Audio Drama Talk board for contributing a number of stories to this release… and of course, all of the individual artists who sent me stuff. Keep it up!

I ALWAYS have trouble finding enough time to feature all of the delightfully terrible audio tales that are out there for Halloween in the regular ‘pod, here are a few which deserve your ears:

	1 – We’re Alive: A Story of Survival Zombies!!! Take Resident Evil and mix it with the marines from Aliens and you wind up with something like the outcome of this zombie podcast. A group of foul-mouthed marines ends up locked up in an apartment building with a scattered batch of survivors after a zombie holocaust breaks loose with little notice (or explanation). This one is well-produced, action-packed, and is as much about an odd group of people trying to survive together as it is about the roving droves of hungry undead. Not to be missed.
	2 – Wormwood Wormwood made it into my previous Five Free Favourites and it makes it again. Though not strictly “horror,” this brilliantly twisted thriller serial has ample spooks to make it a priority on any horror fan’s iPod. If you haven’t been following, you have two full seasons to catch up on, tons of bonus content, and a third season coming up which is sure to send you to an early grave.
	3 – The Grist Mill Okay, the Grist Mill isn’t free but two episodes of their work are available for free download on Radio Drama Revival, so that sort of counts. The one you should under no circumstances miss is God of the Razor. AM/FM Theater rightfully won the Ogle Award for this fine adaptation of Joe Lansdale’s classic horror short. There’s a reason you should stay out of basements in the South… Also, Jeff Adams’ The Estates is an extremely awesome innovation to the spooky story meme – Stepford Wives meets The Shining. Thank you, Jeff.
	4 – The Buoy (Part 1 and Part 2) The Cape Cod Radio Mystery Theater has been at it for a while, and “The Buoy” is perhaps the crowning gem of their productions. This is a good classic New England ghost story, which packs an even stronger punch because of its eerie parallels to the classic Poe tale, “The Pit and the Pendulum.” A man “from away” winds up tied to a buoy as the tide comes in, and recounts his terrifying tale. As the water gets higher, and no escape is in site, the real terror sets in…
	5 – Halloween in July The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine aired this back in March, but it is much better fitting for Halloween. Breaking the trend from the rest on the list, this is not strictly audio drama, but hosts Rish Outfield and Big Anklevich did a splendid job bringing the text to live. Writer Kevin Anderson also has a script in the mix for my upcoming Halloween Live Radio Drama.

BONUS! ZBS Comes out With Sticks… For Fricken’ Free!

Remember Chris Dueker’s review of Karl Edward Wagner’s Sticks? It’s a gore-ious take on a short story delivered to you with the eerie splendor of binaural sound. That means it is perfect for your iPod or other mp3 player of choice.


Download audio file (Sticks-Halloween.mp3)

Karl Edward Wagner’s Sticks by ZBS
Enjoy!!!

You know it, you love it.  A bedridden neurotic woman dials a number and is accidentally connected to a call between two men who are plotting a murder. She becomes increasingly frantic as no one takes her fright seriously and time begins to run out.

Prepare to be spooked all over again!

Download audio file (rdr-podcast145.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 145

With itchy impatient hands I finally got my anxiously awaited package from Sweetwater – the Zoom Q3 video recorder…

Yes, this is the one that has bitchin’ sound and video in a really portable and easy to use format.

For an audio drama guy, it seemed a no-brainer; I live and die by my Zoom H2 but have often thought it would be fun to be able to capture a little bit of video, too… everything from behind-the-scenes footage of FinalRune shows to how-tos on various pieces of recording equipment.

I’ve yet to get my teeth into the product but thought I’d share some initial thoughts upon looking at the product, especially compared to the Zoom H2 since I use the H2 extensively.  I kind of thought the Q3 was going to be H2 + video but it isn’t, exactly.

A few observations:

• Sound quality seems to be about the same.  The H2 has a lot more options.  The Q3 has a way bigger screen and is more friendly.
• Video (to me) seems just dandy.  Obviously I have a strong bias to good audio.  The picture is as good as I’m going to need it and I’m really excited about the possibilities once I start putting this thing to work.
• The Q3 SD card door is flimsy and will eventually break off.  They clearly did not design it for people who are going to be hot-swapping SD cards in the field.  Um, hello?

The Zoom Q3 doesn’t come with a tripod, but the one from the Zoom H2 works like a charm
• Accessories for the Q3 are really basic.  I was kind of hoping for more from a $250 device.  You get a wind screen, some RCA cables, and a 2GB SD card.  No AC adapter, no tripod, no handhold (I haven’t tested handling noise but it’s terrible on the H2).  As you can see, the mic stands from the H2 work fine with the Q3.
• A really disappointing oversight is that you can’t use the Q3 as an audio or video interface.  What the heck, Samson?  One of the most powerful features of the Zoom H2 is that you can use it as a field recorder OR audio interface depending on your need.  I was really hoping to be able to use the Q3 for talking on Skype, but now it seems I will need to jerry-rig something using the RCA cables.  I hope they are able to add this feature on with a firmware update.  Just foolish

Overall I’m really excited about the recorder and, as I said, can’t wait to put it to work.  I wish it was about $50 cheaper and that I could use it for Skype, but having the capability to capture video and decent sound in such an easy format is priority #1 for me.

I’ll be taking this out to the first rehearsal of FinalRune’s upcoming Halloween live radio drama and getting you some footage to look at soon.

Note: Getting one of these right now might be tough, it took forever for them to come out and it looks like they’re already back-ordered.  However, I still highly recommend Sweetwater, they’ll get it to you fast and treat you right.

Trick or treat?  No, treat!

Today’s bonus episode is from Quicksilver Radio Theater, a tremendously great group based out of New York City who have brought us such gems as Good Friday, 1865, Lincoln’s Last Day, The Speckled Band, Julius Caesar, and, of course, this one: a true-to-the-text version of Frankenstein.

Yes, it’s the classic tale of a creature that turns against its creator after the creator realizes the horror of playing god.  Forget the movies, and give you ears a treat!

Download audio file (rdr-bonus-quicksilver-frankenstein.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Bonus Episode: Quicksilver’s Frankenstein

Credits:

Directed by JAY STERN (Independent Feature, “THE CHANGELING”), and faithfully adapted by Producer CRAIG WICHMAN from Mary Shelley’s novel, this drama explores the story’s themes of responsibility and obsession – perhaps even more relevant in our day than in the author’s.

JOSEPH FRANCHINI is Victor Frankenstein and MR. WICHMAN (”TWILIGHT ZONE” radio dramas) is his Monster, with (in alphabetical order), CLYDE BALDO, JODI BOTELHO, ROBERT HESS, VITO LaBELLA, SUSAN MUIR, and JOHN PRAVE.

Sound by DAVID NOLAN, with effects by MR. BALDO. Music is by TONY AWARD-Winner MARK HOLLMANN.

Today we have two new tales that are new to the podcast world.  ”The Nephews” is a new adaptation of a story by Rick Hautala, telling about a group of sea salts in coastal Maine who get mighty curious about the fate of a man from away who goes to investigate a derelict light house.

In “Hollywood Ending,” we welcome The Vaultkeeper, a sinister and ghoulish narrator for a tale of love that doesn’t go as plan… This is ghoulishly good, listen on!

Download audio file (rdr-podcast144.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 144

Credits, “The Nephews”

Adapted and Produced by William Dufris at Mind’s Eye Productions
Based on short story The Nephews by Rick Hautala

CAST

• Dave Marshall
• Thomas Power
• Jennywren Sanders
• JP Guimont
• William Dufris

Credits, “Hollywood Ending” from TALES FROM THE CRYPT

CAST

• Dan Bernard
• Kymberly Dakin
• William Dufris
• Christopher Price

In a remote, aging manorhouse in England, Edgar, the disaffected manor-keeper takes out his frustrations on the sickly owner of the mansion.  But blood shed is hard to take back, and soon Edgar is forced to take more and more drastic measures to hid his evil deeds, and finds the escalating madness impossible to escape.

A gore-iously great tribute to Edgar Allan Poe that both lampoons and celebrates gothic fiction.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast143.mp3)

Written By: Stuart Price
Starring: Knight Mantell, David Beck, Jessica Dennis, Leonie Hill, Josh Cass and Andrew Glenn. Foley by Jack Bowman, Dean Elliott and Reuben Anderson.
Edited By: Scott Wiber
Directed By: Stuart Price
Music By: Michael Bruce

Our October scary story month starts off with a stylish and slick (with blood) tribute to Italian Ghiallo thrillers by 19 Nocturne Boulevard.

A woman troubled with mental problems moves into an apartment with several hot girls, who she starts to see brutally murdered in dreams, all of which she confesses to a psychiatrist who is a tad too excited about it all.   Lewd scenes, ultraviolence, and a few good “WTF” moments.

Happy birthday, 19 Nocturne Boulevard!  We featured them a year’ish ago with their brutal Making Book, and now they’ve won the Mark Time Award and regularly producing some of the best speculative audio drama around.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast142.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 142

It’s Halloween all October on Radio Drama Revival! The third annual scary stories month has tales from both coasts of America and far abroad, culminating in a spooktacular live Halloween radio drama that will be aired live from the University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine.

The month comes quick and fast… Don’t miss any of the gore-ious audio treats.

October 1 – “When Yellow Casts a Crimson Shadow” by 19 Nocturne Boulevard
What starts as a bizarre and troubling dream soon leads to a high body count in this homage to Giallo thrillers. Leather-gloved killers, bad dubbing, and hot chicks in danger.

October 8 – “The Grim of Stoddesden Hall” by The Wireless Theater Company
The body count adds up fast in this haunting and hilarious tribute to Edgar Allan Poe.   In a remote and crumbling gothic mansion in the country, the slighted caretaker takes out his misgivings with a very sharp shovel.  Sadly, the police are not so sharp.

October 15 – Nightmares on Congress Street by Bill Dufris
Well known and acclaimed audiobook narrator Bill Dufris is also a hell of an audio producer and a fan of the macabre.  His already has two excellent collections out there – Nightmares 4 and 5, and we’ll be hearing two stories rarely heard before: “The Nephews,” by Rick Hautala, and a haunting Tale from the Crypt.

October 22 – “Sorry, Wrong Number” by FinalRune Productions
FinalRune Productions and The Mad Horse Theater Company team up for their second collaboration tale, a production of the radio classic by Lucille Fletcher. A woman overhears two men plotting a murder over the telephone, and very quickly her whole world starts to unravel.

October 29 – “Listening in the Dark” by the Icebox Radio Theater
Three tales from Northern Minnesota to chill you to the bone. A writer’s notes from a haunted house turn against. A man gets haunted in his fishing shack. Santa Claus may not be who you thought he was.  Jeff Adams shows off his incredible skill in the darker arts in this haunting hour-long special.

Halloween Night – Live radio drama special! 7-9PM EST in Portland, Maine
FinalRune Productions puts on an evening of audio horror with stories near and far afield – tales of haunted houses, undead lovers, ghosts on a Maine lake, and, oh yeah, zombies! A benefit for WMPG, and yes, you can stream it!!! - see the FinalRune website for more details.

The play today is “The Most Dangerous Game,” by Richard Connell, which was broadcast originally on Escape! and Suspense. A huge tip of the hat goes to SFFAudio, which first turned me onto this tale through their coverage of The Most Dangerous meme.

Coming up next week – Spooky Stories!

Download audio file (rdr-podcast141.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 141

Following the conclusion of this production is an interview with Emily Agnew, director of both the stage and radio version of the show, with Mokita Grit productions.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast140.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 140

But now there’s more – Audiofile Magazine, to celebrate Agatha’s birthday, is giving out a free audiobook of the Agatha Chrystie story “The Case of the Missing Will,” through a partnership with Audible and BBC Audiobooks America.

You do need to sign up for a form with Audiofile, but heck, if you aren’t already getting the magazine and their newsletters, what kind of audio fan are you? You’ll also need an Audible account, and the same rules apply.

Audiofile Magazine and Audible are both very audio drama friendly. While their emphasis is obviously on audiobooks, you’ll routinely find reviews for audio plays in Audiofile and there are great audio dramas to download on Audible (the Rocky Coast Radio Theatre, for example, and the 2000x series).

So check it out, while there’s time! The offer is only good until September 20.

Check out their landing page stuffed with great Agatha Chrystie material, or go straight to the download for the free audiobook.

Promising Productions looks to the result of efforts from two talented journalism, marketing, and multimedia professionals who have turned their efforts to radio drama in order to get some new, original plays out there. Pluto is an indication of great things to come.

On a mountaintop in Chile, a dying scientist, his daughter, ex-wife, and a boyfriend find themselves looking to the skies, and themselves, for answers about mysteries near and far to the far. Part 1 of 2 today.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast139.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 139

To kick off the excitement for their upcoming Halloween show (more on that in a moment), they’ve launched a YouTube channel with clips from the January show:

For more clips, see their new YouTube channel. In short: they played staggeringly well before a packed house at the Orpheum Theater, and now they’re back for their annual Halloween show, which is bigger than ever. In fact, they’re calling it “The Big Broadcast of October 30th, 1938.”

The show will consist of four performances at the historic Somerville Theatre, and you can bet I’ll at one of them. Here is some more info about the show:

THE FRANK CYRANO BYFAR HOUR – A lost classic from Boston’s radio history!

Travel back to the Golden Age of Radio, to the Rooftop Gardens Auditorium of the old Putnam-Moore Department Store in downtown Boston, and join Frank, Amelia Adams, Charley Kendall, Jenny Brennan, Lex Concord and the Minutemen and the Chowderhouse Gang for some great music, lots of Halloween fun, and a very special guest star!

Sponsored by Byfar Coffee Syrup: “You’ll be a star when you serve Byfar!”

and

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS – The Mob vs. the Martians & the Fall of Boston!

We all know about the horrific events which began on the night of October 30th, 1938. An invasion force from the planet Mars landed their rocket-cylinders around the world, starting in New Jersey. But what happened in Boston during the so-called “War of the Worlds?”
Now we are able to bring you the true story of the Martian Invasion of Boston, using news bulletins and field reports – as given by the actual announcers, historical figures and military personnel at the time, and dramatic recreations to depict the amazing story of how a North End mobster, an MIT scientist, and the Massachusetts National Guard allied themselves to carry out one final strike against the Martians and drive them from the city!

Original music by Michael J. Veloso, performed by the popular Somerville troupe, Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band

Like I said… It oughta be a good time. See you in Boston?

Darker Projects, Brokensea, and Pendant Productions all come to mind as groups who regularly or occasionally use this method. And if you know what you’re doing, it can come out very well!

Of crouse, if you’re just starting out, there are a lot of beginner’s errors you can make that result in uneven, or unusable, results. Which it was why it was so great to come across this presentation by Richard Elen, who presented this talk at OpenTech 2009 in London on producing “Radio Drama At A Distance” using Skype:

Thanks, Richard, for this fantastic presentation. This really sums up just about everything the basic audio drama technician needs to know to get started. We’ll be corresponding with Richard via email and featuring his feedback here in a couple more weeks.

I previously reviewed this piece in my column, Fred’s Fuze, so I need not laden this entry with more praise.  Enjoy this awesome re-envisioning of the Greek tale of Medusa.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast138.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 138

My Two Cents: Wow oh wow. Kevin Anderson gets a low and reverential bow for me for turning me on to the Drabblecast, and for that matter the whole universe of audio fiction podcasts — EscapePod, PodCastle, SteamPod, Dunesteef, Psuedopod, etc. This is the kind of stuff that I wish I were doing.   Well, on top of running Radio Drama Revival. It’s what I originally had in mind for FinalRune. Sorta.

I’m going to review each of the other audio fiction podcasts in their own time, but I want to give a special bow to what Norm Sherman is doing with the Drabblecast. As someone who is lacking completely to an ounce any talent producing music, I was blown away by him throwing in absolutely stunning song about a mutant turtle in a recent episode. Presuming he does the music for the actual stories he reads, too, well that’s just damn good.

Norm’s show isn’t strictly audio drama but if you’re a fan of stories in sound you’ll like it. It’s the shortest of the audio fiction ‘casts — it rarely runs more than 15 minutes — so if you’re like me, and find brevity the heart of audio, then you’ll dig it. There’s never a dull moment on this podcast.

Some other time I might comment on specific episodes which I love – there are a bunch.  For now I encourage you just to mosey over to the Drabblecast and start listening.

For the time being, Great Northern is being so kind as to allow an MP3 of the show to go out to the ether. So lest you continue to wonder why did the 2nd orc fall off the Tower of Isengard or be stuck, dissastisfied, with a dead tribble, let’s here some “Jokes In Space”!

Download audio file (Jokes_In_Space_MT2009.mp3)

Download the MP3 at Great Northern Audio Theater’s Website. Also check out my interview with them live from CONvergence 2009 (#CVG2009).

Radio Drama Revival is now being syndicated on Red House Art Radio.

Red Radio bills itself as “an innovative project of the Red House Art Center and is Central New York’s first listener-generated arts and ideas Internet radio station. Red House Art Radio [Red Radio] explores audio as an art-form and communication platform.”

Sounds good. And they are into radio drama, too! It goes on:

Red Radio is not conventional broadcast radio nor is it like any other Internet radio station. Instead, Red Radio is a cutting-edge communication medium that unites local and global artists, musicians, philosophers, leaders and commentators on one stage.

For the moment, it seems you’ll just be able to get the Radio Drama Revival podcast on their website in addition, of course, to this main feed. However, in the future it looks like they are going to be offering a streaming online radio station with a whole slew of interesting content.

As broadcast models continue to evolve and change, this is an exciting model to follow, and of course RDR is excited to draw in more listeners from wherever they come.

The third episode just gets us to the action as it’s heating up, but head over to Spoken Network to hear more.

Following up the episode is an exclusive interview with Colonial Radio’s Jerry Robbins… Stay tuned!

Download audio file (rdr-podcast137.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 137

Those shows aired last week (August 15) on WNIN, and wow, what a doozy it was.

It kicked off with the previously unpublished “Butter in a Lordly Dish,” a tale of sweet revenge of Biblical scope, and easily my favorite play of the batch (and, unsurprisingly, the darkest). The show continued with “Three Blind Mice,” a tale of deception and murder that inspired the long-running theater production “The Mousetrap,” then “Personal Call,” of a wife ready to honeymoon with a husband who is not all that he seems, and finally concludes with “Yellow Iris,” an enchanting Hercule Poirot tale set in a London night club.

All the tales were excellent, in no short part due to the exceedingly talented cast and crew, with such names as Phil Proctor, Gary Sandy, and Orson Ossman along with performers from across the country.  Melinda Peterson gets special recognition for her marvelous portrayal of Christie herself – who was used as the narrator/MC of the evening – a delightful way to gain insights about the writer and to give continuity to the stories.  Sound effects were by master Tony Brewer and Preston Ossman.

David Ossman directed the show, which again makes it no surprise that the performance was so exceedingly awesome. Finally, no short praise goes to Zev Buffman and Judith Walcutt for producing the show.

It’s not clear when a CD or digital version of this tale will be out, but keep checking out the International Mystery Writers’ Festival website. Also, WNIN also ran a summer mystery audio drama series, and you can hear several pieces from the previous years’ festival online: http://www.wnin.org/radio/summer-mystery-series.html.

This was the third year of the mystery writers festival, and it seems like they just keep upping the ante. Seeing such an audio drama emphasis at a non-audio specific conference is extremely exciting, and leads me to start researching fares to Kentucky for next summer…

With two guards of a mysterious golden sphinx found dead, and the sphinx itself found missing, the crew of the Yankee Clipper finds themselves with unknown dangers and major mysteries to deal with.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast136.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 136

The story today puts us into 19th century Egypt, where lost crypts of ancient pharoahs were still being unearthed and secrets revealed… In episode 1, the courageous crew of the Yankee Clipper takes on new cargo that is more than they bargained for.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast135.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 135

As you recall, we talked to Tom Lopez a few weeks ago about his radio drama/web video hybrid 4 Minute Film Noir.  Several more fun videos have come out, including “The Little Man with the Big Roscoe,” “When Sully Became Sally,” and “Galloway’s.”

Let’s see if I can get one to embed here:

What other fun stuff? There are great pictures of 4 Minute Film Noir behind the scenes, and the fantabulous new show, Ruby 8.  I just picked up the MP3… you’ll find this covered in the “Fred’s Fuze” column soon!

Erik started in the early days of KPFA with the Black Mass series, which is now widely circulated on the ‘net. However, that was only the roughest start of his career – he went on to produce for many more years with a variety of groups, including the founding of Bay Area Radio Drama, and the Horspiel-America project.

Chris Dueker has covered him in the Malleus series, talking about the Horspiel-America project and reviewing a work of Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

I had the opportunity to talk to Erik about four decades of radio drama in the San Francisco Bay Area, including early field recording pieces with Randy Thom and many more works produced with sound designed Jim McKee, who also joined us on the phone.

With no further ado, let’s get into the work of Erik Bauersfeld.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast134.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 134

But before we get to all that, we spook you again with the dramatization of Joe’s story “God of the Razor” by our friends at The Grist Mill.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast133.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 133

Download audio file (rdr-bonus-joe-lansdale.mp3)

Bonus: Standalone Interview, Joe R. Lansdale

P.S. The phrase “Halloween in July” is snagged from a killer short story by Kevin Anderson. Kevin’s work frequently appears on two of my favorite podcasts, the Drabblecast and the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine. He also has his own blog and runs the audio market list for writers seeking audio publication.

My Two Cents: Yuri Rasovsky is one of the finest audio dramatists alive, and in my humblest of opinions, this is the finest work he’s produced to date. A true love of hard boiled fiction is apparent from the first hammering piano notes that introduce this tale of betrayal heaped on betrayal with a good bit of greed, murder and a priceless statue thrown in.

The blend of sizzling performances, sordid sound effects and a haunting score is as fine as a single malt scotch paired with a Cuban cigar. The cast is all star. Michael Madsen’s Sam Spade is as grizzled as they come, eclipsing the old time radio star, and accompanied by seductive Sandra Oh as femme fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy. You’ll not find a single soft moment in the entire story. It comes on strong, hits hard, and will have you breathless until the shockingly perfect conclusion.

Man, oh man this is good. Wait, you tell me there was a movie? Forget about the movie, listen to this instead.

Check this out on Blackstone Audiobooks

Wait, does that play sound familiar? It should, because we featured the show last year and interviewed writer Pat Fenton and producer Sue Zizza.

For those who missed the series (it only ran on the podcast for 2 weeks), here’s the synopsis:

It’s the end of summer in 1964. A major cultural shift is starting to happen in the US, and on Jack’s last night in Northport, the America he saw through a rear view mirror, riding, along side his road buddy, Neal Cassady, is slowly replaying in his mind.

Long after a small going away party that he has thrown for himself is over, Jack keeps on drinking as he prepares to move to Florida with his mother. He reflects back on his fame, his youth as a football star, and the worry that his time has come and gone. As he sums up parts of his life in this bittersweet narrative he receives a series of soul-searching phone calls from his daughter Jan.

This production of the play is being directed by Huntington’s Ed Dennehy, and tickets are only $10. Plus, you get the opportunity to meet the artists following the performance.

For more information call (516) 658-0423 or e-mail: jackslastcall [@] gmail.com. To hear the audio version, check out the website, Jack’s Last Call

Download audio file (rdr-podcast132.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 132

My Two Cents: If you’re a loyal listener to the show, you’ve heard me rave about the Chatterbox Audio Theater, a Memphis-based audio theater group who have brought us excellent adaptations (Kafka’s In the Penal Colony) as well as stunning originals (The Dead Girl, anyone?). Their latest, “Dead and Gone,” does not disappoint.

“Dead and Gone” is a Southern retelling of the James Joyce tale, “The Dead.” Yes, you heard me right.

Not only does Chatterbox have the guts to take on James Joyce, but they transpose wintry and gloomy Dublin with Memphis. F–in brilliant! The adaptation is right-on, from the transposition of an ill-fated love from Galway to New Orleans, to the accusation of misplaced loyalties from “West Briton” to “Scallywag.”

Good, good, good.

My hat also goes off to the great cast of Chatterboxers, who put umph and vitality into every ounce of their performances. The production is serious drama, and while the sound effects and music are understated, they fit this terse and introspective story well.

As far as listening to this fabulous production? It’s not available for public consumption from Chatterbox’s website just yet. I caught one of their notices to hear it live on WKNO in Memphis. The next opportunity is Sunday, August 16 on KUNM-FM, 6PM MDT (8PM for us in the East). Here’s the live listen link: http://kunm.org/listen/. If you miss the live event, you’ll be able to hear it from Chatterbox’s website, eventually.

Serious drama in audio is about as hard as it gets. But Chatterbox pulls it off with the hardest artist there is, and in spades. Bravo!

This month it’s Peter Benchley’s Jaws, a novel I read back in middle school and remember more for its lewd scenes than the vicious shark that seems to freak people out to this day. The kick-off discussion is “do you prefer the book or the movie?” which so far seems to be going for Spielberg.

I’m interested to see where this thing goes. It already has a bit of a following (around 50 members last I checked) and a conversation you should join, full force. With so many different existing communities, I’m curious to see how well the BBC can foster one, but with a good built-in audience, and some great titles, things should start to happen.

Give it a look, and of course, you can’t miss the handy link to buy the respective audiobook from the BBC!

Join the BBC Audiobooks America Facebook Audiobook Discussion Group.

In “The Outpost,” a woman from a matriarchal space-roving society finds herself on a distant space station with… *gasp* … men! What happens is an exploration of differing cultures, world views, and a little bit of good ol’ humanism.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast131.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 131

My Two Cents: Hats off to Chris Dueker for getting me a copy of this classic series released by NPR. Listening to this is tragic not just because of the story (which is a powerful testament to the screwiness of our species and the solipsism of our world), but because this kind of work isn’t being produced anymore. NPR captures a remarkable and distant sound here that isn’t BBC or OTR or anything resembling MAD. It’s its own vibe which sadly only captured by this remarkable drama.

If you’ve never read the novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of the earliest post-apocalyptic stories set in a nuclear future where monks preserve the last bastion of knowledge for when humans will be fit enough to appreciate it again. Imagine Fallout if instead of ultra-violence the protagonists were pacifists. Like, if Mad Max had gone into the priesthood instead of grabbing a dune buggy.

The whole “sound” of Leibowitz is much different than many productions today — the whole audio portrait is subdued, quiet, understated. Compare than to the flash-bang of Hollywood and even most audio drama today. The simple, sparse sound effects and pervasive but muted music underscore a simple time, of simple people, where the truth of the story is allow to bubble up rather than smash you in the face with a mallet. I’m in love with Carol Colin’s narrator. She has transformed the entire idea of the narrator in audio drama.

I’m not sure where you can legitimately get this nowadays, but I recommend you do. It’s an epic journey (7.5 hrs) but well worth the trip.

That show has now gone on to win a listener’s award from The Sonic Society… well, let them speak for themselves:

Based on the book by Regina Doman, The Shadow of the Bear audio drama has won the Sonic Society’s 2009 Uni Award for Best Audio Drama Show … At the end of May 2009, the Sonic Society invited its 50,000 listeners world wide to nominate their favorite show for its 2nd Annual Uni Awards.

The finalists in seven different categories were chosen by popular vote and announced on the Sonic Society’s blog on June 9. The listeners then voted on the finalists. After all thevotes were in, Jack Ward of the Sonic Society said, “The Shadow of the Bear won by a clear majority the ”Best Audio Drama Show”.

Congrats, Andrew and Regina, “Bear” was a great production.  If you want to hear more, check out our original podcast on it, download the award show from Sonic Society, or maybe just listen to the interview with Andrew and Regina.  Finally, check out Regina’s website and Chesterton Productions.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast130b.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 130, Part 2 of 2

Want more Great Northern? Downloads available on:

• Audible
• Spoken Network
• Echo Fiction
• ZBS

Then, well, me! For the first time ever, I get grilled in an interview by my radio buddy Jeff Adams of Icebox Radio Theater. Special thanks to Jeff for giving me the interview that originally aired on Icebox Live Radio Drama Net Radio.

This is a part 1 of 2 of a mega-episode – the second installment will feature the Mark Time Radio Awards show for 2008, to give you a taste of Great Northern’s excellent audio work.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast130a.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 130, Part 1 of 2

My Two Cents: I don’t want to give too much away on work that’s going to appear on the show, but I have to say something about Lance Dann’s The Flickerman. There’s nothing like it in audio. There might never be again. It’s worth listening to both as a unique audio event and for the intriguing story it tells.

On the surface, the story of The Flickerman seems pretty vanilla – a young man finds himself in a series of increasingly stranger random encounters and soon gets in over his head as things go weird. What makes this story eff’ing brilliant is that the narrative is hooked into Flickr, and the story calls upon you to explore photos through Flickr as the narrator’s life begins to unravel around him. Postmodernism pulled off exceedingly well.

Lance tells me… well, Lance tells me that this comes from tapes recorded by Cornelius himself, so I’m not sure what to tell you. The story bleeds the edge between reality, fantasy, text and subtext. The show does pick up at a slow pace, but if you’re along for the self-reflective ride, you’ll find yourself hooked on this thing.

The Flickerman will be featured on Radio Drama Revival later this month.

If you’re a big fan of audio drama I hope your passion extends to audio fiction. I’ll elaborate on this more as I start to spend time on different podcasts I’ve fallen in love with, but the podcastophere is rich with well told audio right now.

Podcasts like EscapePod, which produces killer short stories and compensates the authors properly, are doing more for storytelling than the publishing industry has in the last decade. As much as I can love audiobooks (your mileage may vary), I think the short fiction podcast form is an even closer match to the tastes of us short-fiction craving audio drama enthusiasts.

So, congrats Escape Pod, 200 freakin’ episodes! Radio Drama Revival has over a year to go. I hope that by the time we get there the show is even a tenth as kick-ass as your weekly sci-fi injection.

Go Listen to Heinlein’s “All You Zombies”

Hat tip to SFF Audio which turned me on to this very exciting episode.

But not only did I get to pick up a rad award, but I got to hang out my radio buddies Brian Price and Jerry Stearns and finally meet Chris Markman, Great Northern Audio Theater’s producer, and Jeff Adams of Icebox Radio Theater, who we’ve featured on the show previously and who runs the Icebox Radio streaming radio drama station. Oh, and I got to see really kick-ass sci-fi and fantasy costumes.

I have a bunch of great photos from the live event, which you can check out on FinalRune’s Facebook page. Since I’m about to do my first live show in Halloween, it was a great primer for the calm in the midst of chaos a director needs to have while doing a live show, not to mention a really fun time.

I’ll be talking with Brian and Jerry later today about their work with Mark Time/CONVergence and next week we’ll feature a live show from one of their previous years… But for now, enjoy “Waiting for a Window!”

Download audio file (rdr-podcast129.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 129

My Two Cents: Jerry Robbins and The Colonial Radio Theater have had the incredibly awesome pleasure of working with Ray Bradbury and their treatment of his work doesn’t disappoint. The Halloween Tree is Bradbury at his imaginative best, and Colonial does a fine job as realizing that imagination in a fantastic audio adventure. This is a worthy listen that won the Silver Ogle Award this year.

If you would, imagine A Nightmare Before Christmas and its richly realized caricature of a Hallowen world, and you’ll have an idea of the kind of job Colonial has done in The Halloween Tree. A group of young kids, dressed in their Halloween best, go searching around a haunted house and find themselves chasing after one of their lost number into a series of more outrageous underworldly locations. The music and sound effects are completely over the top, which is befitting this high-adventure story.

If audio had CGI, this would be it. Luckily, we can do in sound what it takes millions of dollars for computers to do, and have our imaginations tickled more than the movies ever can. Bravo.

As I mentioned a couple weeks back, I had the amazingly well-timed opportunity to talk to Rich Fish who happens to feature prominently in the new documentary by Georgia Southern University, Theater of the Mind.

Oh and yes, we talked to James Kicklighter who was kind enough to chat on the phone about a month ago. Thereafter, James was so kind as to send me a screening version of the DVD to check out.

The documentary is far from comprehensive, but a refreshing primer and a worthy tribute to OTR. It highlights a group of modern college students — painted as a tad spoiled by non-linear digital editing — as they to learn the art of creating live radio plays, interspersed with experts talking about the magic and challenge of live radio as well as interviews with voice actors of the era (including Edith Ivey and Rosemary Rice).

As the new generation learns more about the art form they soon realize that it was real work to make this happen, and the historians highlight the professional qualities needed to succeed in the Golden Age of Radio. Both Ms. Ivey and Ms. Rice have some great anecdotes to share about working on the air, and how the get into broadcasting to begin with.

Running at just over 20 minutes and created in just a few months, it’s again only a flavor, not a full meal. One feature I felt was sorely overlooked was the creation of live sound effects — what an opportunity to show visually what can be created in audio! I would’ve love to have seen a sound effects demo with a professional, either from the day or a modern equivalent.

I do hope “Theater of the Mind” gets wide circulation, and even more, I hope it sparks a more in-depth series that deeply examines the terrain that this merely skips across. This could easily be a multi-part PBS style documentary, and radio is well worth. Georgia Southern, I hope you’ve started that effort!

Read more on James Kicklighter’s Blog.

Lance Axt, man of many hats, introduces us to several personalities at NATF and gives us flavor of the workshop. We look into the #NATF feed that’s going out on Twitter. And hey! If you’re reading this on June 26, 2009, you can catch the live NATF show on their live stream. Click here to tune in at 8:30 EDT.

Following that up is Roger Gregg’s “The Return of the Bogman Mummy,” produced in tandem with the Gaiety School of Acting. It won the Silver Mark Time Award this year, and as far as I know, Radio Drama Revival is the only place to find it right now!

Download audio file (rdr-podcast128.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 128

Next week: an encore presentation of Waiting for a Window and then my interviews with Great Northern Audio Theater guys, Brian Price and Jerry Stearns.

Why Fuze? Because I do not own an iPod. There, I said it. I also never read Harry Potter or watched Titanic. Once I see where the crowd is going, I go the other way. So it was with the iPod, and let me say, I’m pretty happy with my Sansa Fuze.

So, lest this turn into a product review let’s get into the first installment of Fred’s Fuze – Medusa on the Beach.

***

Title: Medusa on the Beach
Author: Marty Ross
Producer: Wireless Theater Company
Type: Audio Drama
Genre: Modern Retelling of a Classic
Availability: Free Download

My Two Cents: I’ve been listening to the Wireless Theater Company’s work since they kicked off in 2007. Several things have impressed me — one, how deftly they jump from comedy to drama and back again, and two, how much the quality of their work has increased. Not that the first works weren’t good — they’re all solid listens — but they’ve obviously been studying their craft and learning from everywhere they can the last two years. They also seem to be getting access to more resources, which certainly doesn’t hurt!

Medusa on the Beach, I’m happy to say, is really quite a strong statement in audio. I’m a sucker for retellings of Greek myths (a retelling of Orpheus, after all, is what got me into audio drama to begin with) so I couldn’t click the download button fast enough when I heard about Medusa on the Beach.

I wasn’t disappointed. Medusa is a refreshingly original story. The plot has only so many twists — a disparaged small-town woman goes on a killing spree upon discovering Medusa’s head washed ashored — but man is this thing funny and a joy to listen to. Funny? A Greek tragedy? Well, you have to hear it to believe it. As I said, Wireless jumps back from comedy to drama with deft, even cheeky, precision.

Since it’s a free download, do feel free to check it out, just don’t be surprised if you hear it on the show sometime down the line!

Hot off the presses from Ireland I’ve gotten word that Roger Gregg’s shockingly original adaptation of Gerry Murphy’s poetry will be returning the stage in Cork, Ireland. Here’s what the jacket has to say:

All the colourful personas that infamously stalk through Murphy’s satirical writing: from his vicious portraits of demented despots and torturers, to his passionate erotic encounters, to his highly personal confessions on love and loss, will come to life in an evening of riotous musical entertainment!

It may be a bit of a swim for most of us to get there, but if you happen to be across the pond already, don’t miss the show, running June 23-June 27, 2009 at the Everyman Palace Theatre in Cork, Ireland. Shows kick off at 8pm.

Possibly more exciting, at least for us distant audio listeners, is a fresh CD that Roger’s pressed from the last time the show was performed… Including some great bonus tracks. I had the pleasure to listen to the pre-release copy and the material’s taken on an even greater sheen since then.

Here’s a taste of it, with a song that may sound oh-so-vaguely familiar:

Download audio file (gerry-murphy-poetry-if.mp3)

I assume that the CD will be available on ZBS, as have previous Crazy Dog CDs. I’ll also may an effort to continue posting excerpts, as this is excellent stuff not to be missed.

Just in case you thought poetry was the realm of dust-covered English professors, think again. And don’t miss the clips of the Gerry Murphy Poetry show available on YouTube.

“Really first rate…a terrific job, both in adapting and performing…wonderful work!”- Leonard Maltin, author of “The Great American Broadcast.”

In this audio docudrama (recipient of the National Audio Theatre’s “Best Script” award), the character of a country, and its President, are revealed — as a traumatic war winds down, and eerie events presage Abraham Lincoln’s own end…

Live on stage with a full cast, live sound effects, and original music composed by Tony-Award winner MARK HOLLMANN, and performed by members of the New York Repertory Orchestra.

Quicksilver Radio Theater, founded by actor CRAIG WICHMAN in 1995, is a group of seasoned New York performing artists that has taken the National Federation of Community Broadcasters’ “Gold Reel” award, and is nationally syndicated by the Public Radio Exchange. This production is directed by JAY STERN, and the cast includes BERNADETTE FIORELLA, RAMONA FLOYD, JOSEPH FRANCHINI, DEREK LIVELY, JOHN PRAVE, and MICKEY RYAN.

New York Repertory Orchestra, founded by DAVID LEIBOWITZ in 1991, is New York’s leading community-based, all-volunteer orchestra and is made up of talented professional and amateur musicians who present a series of free concerts each season.

The show is being held, Thursday, July 9, 8PM at:

galapagos art space
16 Main Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201
718-222-8500

Tickets are available for $12 online of $15 at the door.

Can’t make it to NYC? Check out Lincoln’s Last Day when it last appeared on RDR.

We also pick his brain about the experiences at the National Audio Theater Festivals and the joy of recording the natural environment and using it in audio productions.

Download audio file (rdr-podcast127.mp3)

Radio Drama Revival – Episode 127

Also, BIG NEWS!!!

I’m proud to announce that one of my own audio drama works, Waiting for a Window, has won the Gold Ogle award. Hooray!

Knowing that this is the same stage that Roger Gregg has won on multiple occasions, I can’t say how honored and awesome it feels to have won the award. Awards aren’t everything, sure, but it’s nice to know that someone other than me actually thinks my stories are worth listening to.

The Ogle is one of the most prestigious (okay, one of the only!) radio drama awards available and has been won by the likes of Crazy Dog Audio Theater, The Willamette Radio Workshop, AM/FM Theater (The Grist Mill), and the Colonial Radio Theater.

I’m actually be headed out to Minneapolis, Minnesota to collect the award on July 2, and that same day you’ll be hearing an encore presentation of “Waiting for a Window” on the show. Rumor has it I’ll also be helping Great Northern Audio Theater put on their annual Mark Time Award live radio show. Details to come.

Part 2 of my interview with Magic Bullet producer / writer / audio dramatist Alan Stevens picks up where we left off and hits the following topics: knowing when to end stories, the creative potential and individual fulfillment to be had in writing with licensed properties, why Avon and Iago are psychopathic bastards (or are they the same psychopathic bastard?), and of course, Faustian bargains. As in part 1 of this interview, audio clips from Kaldor City are embedded throughout. Additional sound clips from Magic Bullet’s The True History of Faction Paradox audio serial can be found in my overview of that series here.  To go directly to Magic Bullet’s website, click their logo above.

Stevens is a unique voice in the field, and whether you agree with his positions or not, you can’t fault the dedication, quality, or intelligence behind his work. Whether you consider yourself a “genre fan” or “above such things”, if you value good audio drama then you need to read this interview.

CD: So at this point you don’t know what’s up next for Magic Bullet after Faction Paradox concludes?

AS: No idea at all. There might be something else, but, then again, there might not. There might be a huge gap and then something. You get that with my stuff – we did Coming to Dust and The Ship of a Billion Years, followed by this huge gap, and then suddenly we appeared again with Body Politic, Words from Nine Divinities and Ozymandias. Part of the reason for this was that I wasn’t sure how well Faction Paradox was going to sell, and the amount of sales affects the amount of money you have to spend on the series. Faction didn’t sell as well as Kaldor City initially, but then it picked up a lot, and it now sells very well. Sales are good and people like it. However, I still don’t believe you should carry on with a series beyond its natural life, just because the sales are good. I just don’t see the point of going through the motions and carrying on with something, if you think the story’s been told. Does that make sense?

CD: It makes perfect sense. I’ve often had the same feeling, that it’s a shame when stories are exhausted and carried on for pure profit beyond their natural lifespan. So it’s refreshing to hear you say that.

AS: Good. There are TV shows out there that should have ended three years ago, but are still going because the profit margins are good.

CD: I did want to ask about that – in terms of commercial audio drama production (outside of the BBC) Britain’s evolved a peculiar culture distinct from the United States and Germany. In the US, there’s original work, original serials, adaptations of novels and things like that, in Germany there’s a lot of children’s drama and work based on older pulp novels and some original serials, whereas in Britain commercial audio drama seems to be largely defined mostly by spin-offs from mostly defunct British television science fiction. I was wondering, since you’re one of the forces that has put that forward, why do you think the British market has evolved with that emphasis?

AS: In Britain the last drama to have an audience bigger than television on radio was Journey into Space in 1955. When television came along, basically, and audience stopped listening to audio drama and started watching television. I think the reason why Big Finish appeared was because Doctor Who had been off the air for seventeen years and people missed it, and probably many of them had, like me, tape-recorded Doctor Who stories off the television when they were kids, so they were primed for audio. Of course, I’m sure you know that various Doctor Who stories were stupidly wiped by the BBC, and only exist as audios now because they were tape-recorded on first broadcast by fans. And so this culture within fandom for audio developed.

Personally, I wouldn’t produce anything that isn’t in some way connected to an established series, because without a huge advertising budget, I can’t make a big enough impact on people to buy it.  Shall I buy something l know, like Doctor Who or Blake’s 7, or shall I buy something I’ve never heard of before? The fact is that the audio market is mainly aimed at fandoms, as it’s mainly fandoms who are buying audio stuff. And there’s not a lot of ‘original drama,’ if, indeed, there is such a thing, being made because people just won’t buy it. I know people who have produced their own stand alone dramas, and they have generally failed to sell any more than two hundred copies. You might take a chance on buying a film you’ve never seen before, but with audio drama, there’s this barrier now, because people think in TV terms and not radio terms. As for mainstream America, there appears to be virtually no market at all for radio plays.

CD: It’s a small market.

AS: We have a history of radio plays in Britain, but perhaps there wasn’t one in America. Germany, perhaps there was a strong history – I don’t know how well stuff in Germany sells -

CD: It sells pretty well, apparently.

AS: If it’s successful as a new series in its own right, then perhaps there’s a stronger bias toward radio than there is in Britain and certainly in America.

CD: Well, there’s a different audio drama pop culture history to all three countries. In the USA it’s currently mostly original stuff, but it’s probably mostly original stuff that doesn’t sell very well, as you were saying. It’s mostly just the hard-core audio drama fans -

AS: I’ve had people approach me saying I’ve got this great idea for a series – in fact, there’s a friend of mine who I worked with on a series called The Unworthy about a motorcycle gang who were actually the original Knights of the Round Table. It was this black, anarchic comedy, and we even wrote a script. But I’d never produce it as a direct-to-CD product, because I just don’t think it would sell. Not that I think it isn’t any good; I think it’s brilliant. But it hasn’t got that connection there. There are certain stories and characters within Doctor Who and Blake’s 7 that are highly regarded, that people are willing to buy into. But an audio series of Star Cops – would that sell? I don’t know. It hasn’t been on British TV for about twenty years. You have to be very careful choosing what you do, because it can really cost you if it fails, because audio drama is so very expensive.

CD: Especially, I think, to do it on the level that you do.

AS: If you’re going to do something, you’ve got to do it to the best of your ability. I’ve known some producers who have said, I want this out by Christmas, and they’ve rushed to hit that deadline. I think that’s just crazy. At the end of the day, I want to be proud of what I’ve done and not feel we compromised it because we had to get it out for Christmas.

CD: I think that standard is apparent in your productions.

AS: Thank you.

Download audio file (13_Kaldor_City_Clip_8.mp3)

(Robot V23 “talks” to the Chief Fixer in this surreal clip from Kaldor City Story Six: Storm Mine.)

CD: Absolutely. You wrapped up Kaldor City on a metaphysical note. Storm Mine was almost dreamlike, and seemed to appeal to an almost subconscious understanding of the characters rather than the more linear story prior to it. Faction Paradox is teeming with ideas, most of them about time. And yet, in terms of narrative structure the series is actually pretty linear. It mainly follows these two heroines who jump around in time, but once they’re set in their new time zone, they basically progress from start to finish. If there’s one disappointment I would have with the series thus far, it’s that it would be fascinating to hear what a “weapon that can rewrite history” sounds like. Narratively, sonically – these are things Lawrence Miles could surely write, and Alistair Lock could surely realize in sound – they have the skills to do that. There’s a way in which the more advanced ideas about time are never incorporated into the narrative structure – they’re more like trappings or context for the more straightforward drama that plays out.

AS: I can’t really comment, because a lot of the things you’re pointing out here are addressed in the last two episodes.

CD: I’m looking forward to them.

Do you personally have any ambitions to do your own original work in any medium, or do you feel soul-satisfied in pushing these established properties further, I think, than they’ve ever been? This is something I’ve been thinking about over the years, because more and more I’ve come to recognize that a lot of the people who work on established properties are genuine talents. It certainly seems that there are a lot of people feeling very fulfilled doing great work within pre-established universes. Is that the case for you, or do you have the urge to birth a completely original Alan Stevens world?

AS: Kaldor City has the surface elements of The Robots of Death and Blake’s 7, but there’s a lot of other stuff going on in there. New characters, new takes on older characters as they face different situations. Kaldor City was something more than a pastiche of old glories, it was trying to do something different. It was a Magic Bullet – it had a surface coating of Blake’s 7 and The Robots of Death, but the core of it was something else. If I had just done a series without the Blake’s 7 and Doctor Who trappings, then no-one would have bought it. But working within that coating allowed me to say a lot of things and do a lot of things that I wanted to say and do.

You have to sell some CDs or you’re not going to be able to fund the project. If you’re going to do a six-part series, you effectively have to ensure it sells, because it costs thousands and thousands of pounds to produce. If Coming to Dust had just sold two hundred copies there wouldn’t have been any more Faction Paradox CDs after that one, because the finance wouldn’t have been there to do it. So it has to sell.

CD: Between that statement and the work that you’ve done you’ve provided the most compelling argument I’m aware of in the audio drama field for the vitality of working creatively within that coating, as you describe it. On the other hand, I think you would agree that what you do is quite different from taking the safest route: producing work as close as possible to what came before. To really emulate the original shows and their plot lines to the point where you could slot them into a preceding TV season. I’ve never watched Blake’s 7 so I can’t speak to that. But my impression of what you do is that you always push these concepts and characters into new territory, and you inject a literate, intellectual component that isn’t always there in the original source material.

AS: I’m not sure how true that is. Chris Boucher once told me that anyone who tells you they’ve come up with a completely original idea is either a liar, or insane, and probably both. If you look at an episode of anything, you can crack it back to something else. And if you forensically take most stories apart, you can often find some interesting ideas within them. They may not have been consciously put in by the author, but they’re there, and part of the process of analyzing a story is to find those elements and bring them out.

Also, it’s a case of seeing what a writer’s done, how the audience reacted to it, and working with that. For example, one of the things that annoyed the hell out of me concerning Blake’s 7 was the treatment of Avon by certain fans. Yes, there was this setup within the series where the audience frequently didn’t know whether he was doing something for selfish, or for altruistic reasons, but generally, and Paul Darrow, the guy who played him, says this, Avon was a bastard. In fact such a bastard, he shot and killed Blake, the show’s title character. Even the programme’s producers have described Avon as a psycho. And yet, often you’d find articles by people trying to justify his more extreme acts. “Oh well, he may have killed Blake, but Blake should have explained himself more clearly.” So when Iago appeared, also played by Paul Darrow, I didn’t want to fall into the same trap, and so really tried to push the character as far as I could, to make his actions appear shocking. There’s a scene in Hidden Persuaders where Iago tells Blayes that he can get her out of this dangerous situation, but first the hostages will have to be dealt with, as they can identify who she is. He then goes over and shoots them. And they are terrified, and he’s clearly getting a kick out of it.

Download audio file (Kaldor_Clip_9.mp3)

Now, you can understand that sort of behaviour, but you can’t excuse it. Some people say, “I don’t believe Iago is Avon, because Avon wouldn’t do things like that.” Well, I don’t care whether you believe he’s Avon or not, but what I certainly don’t want you doing is looking for excuses to justify murderous and sociopathic behaviour. So when you’re writing, you’re thinking “What did the writers/producers originally intend, where, if at all, did it go wrong, what was the audience reaction, and, if it did go wrong, how can I avoid falling into a similar pit?”

Another idea I like very much is having an authority figure come along and say, “this and that has happened”, where, in fact, no such thing has happened at all. In Occam’s Razor, Carnell comes up with a self serving motivation to explain the Firstmaster killings, but in reality, nobody really knows why Iago went off and killed all those people. And it’s the same for the Shakespearean Iago, why the hell did he behave that way? There are a number of motivations assigned to him in Othello, and he even assigns some to himself, but we don’t really know why he did what he did. Maybe the character didn’t even know himself.

Download audio file (Kaldor_City_Clip_10.mp3)

(Iago tests the limits of Landerchild’s grasp of reality in this philosophical clip from The Prisoner, a short Kaldor City play included on MJTV’s The Actor Speaks 4: Paul Darrow.)

People are very susceptible to being told what to think by authority figures, and that such and such is the current state of affairs, where in fact the real situation is most probably completely different. For instance, I’ve read a number of reviews of Taren Capel, where it’s been stated that, “in this episode Iago discovered that the Tarenists were trying to get hold of a special trigger phrase to activate the killer robots”. But in actual fact, Iago made that up. The trigger phrase existed, but the Tarenists didn’t know anything about it. Iago’s primary intention was to discredit Carnell and get him killed, and he was willing to say anything to achieve that. And yet, because Iago is an ‘authority figure,’ and he has a deep voice and he says all of this, and Uvanov, another ‘authority figure,’ believes him, people think, “well, then it must be true”. But I don’t think it’s true. In fact, I know it isn’t true. I bloody wrote it!

So in Kaldor City there are competing narratives and everything is subverted. A lot of the things you are told are completely wrong. Some of the things Carnell said were lies. And Iago by definition is a liar. Paullus was deluded, and Uvanov was a paranoid, who had various ideas and conspiracies in his mind that were just plain fantasy. They were the architects of their own destruction, because they failed to comprehend what was going on around them, preferring instead to just carry on fighting their own personal and petty little wars. So as with the real world, in Kaldor City we have people who are deluded, people who are fantasists, people who are just plain liars, and people who, for their own various reasons, want to believe them.

CD: Oh, absolutely. The need to believe invented premises, I feel, has been the American story under Bush.

AS: There was an unfortunate coincidence, when Occam’s Razor came out; it had been recorded in 2000, but was released in early September 2001, and the first review I read of it tied 9/11 to a scene where a flyer crashed into a building. There was no way I knew that was going to happen – it was written perhaps seventeen or eighteen months before those events took place. And yet, because I was fishing in the same pool, because we were dealing with terrorism and fanaticism, the story strangely started to mirror things that were happening in real life. It’s weird that, isn’t it? If you think like a terrorist … I think Alan Moore was exploring this in V for Vendetta, when he had this guy, who was trying to get into the mindset of V, taking the same drugs V had been forced to take, and wandering around the same camp where V had been experimented on, so he would start to think like him, and would perhaps know what he was going to do next. It was quite shocking when I realized, “Good grief, we are fishing in the same pool as Bin Laden.”

As for George Bush, there are again parallels with Kaldor City in that people have plans, but these plans usually go horribly wrong. I’m sure in Bush’s head there were a number of very good reasons for invading Iraq, but he’s never going to tell us what they were and the result was a terrible disaster. In Kaldor City, Uvanov would have a plan, and Carnell would have a plan, and Landerchild would have a plan, and in fact everyone would have a plan, and you don’t even know what all the plans were, and then they’d all go horribly wrong. So what you ended up with was a mass of mistakes and errors caused through stupidity and misunderstanding, with no one knowing what the hell was going to happen next. And that’s what life is. Life’s frequently like that for me. I think: “What the hell was that about? Why did I do that?”

Download audio file (Kaldor_City_Clip_11.mp3)

(Uvanov watches his plans, power, and understanding go up in smoke as the ineluctably calm Carnell pursues a cryptic game of chess in this clip from Kaldor City Story Four: Taren Capel.)

CD: (Laughs) That sounds like a sane approach to life… Are there other audio dramatists working today that you particularly admire?

AS: I think Rob Shearman is a very good writer. I think he’s an excellent writer.

CD: I would agree with that.

AS: And Daniel O’Mahony of course, and Jim Smith, and there are also several others I could name. Paul Dale Smith is a very clever chap, and Lawrence Miles is an excellent writer as well. I don’t often agree with Lawrence Miles, I’ve had several arguments with him, but never over his scripts.

CD: You’ve touched on this in your comments already, but could you sum up the state of your business?

AS: I’ve been told by other audio producers that there is a limited shelf life to their products. They produce a story, it comes out, and then after a few months it stops selling and they never sell any more. But I’ve never had that with Kaldor City, or Faction Paradox. They’ve sold solidly. Occam’s Razor came out in 2001 and I’m still selling it.

CD: Is that due to advertising or word of mouth?

AS: It must be word of mouth. Since Doctor Who’s come back it’s very difficult to get advertising anywhere in the Doctor Who media. They’re too busy reviewing the latest Cyberman-Voice-Changer-Helmet to find room for anything else. But it doesn’t seem to make any difference. I think the CDs sells because they’re good, and people recognize that. I’ve certainly been sent some lovely emails over the years, which is all very encouraging. I was expecting a drop in sales when Doctor Who came back on TV, but as Kaldor City and Faction Paradox are clearly spin-offs, then I suppose you have to be in a spin-off frame of mind anyway to buy them, so the return of Doctor Who hasn’t knocked our sales at all. They’ve all sold very well. In fact sales have gone up. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s my Faustian pact. I have this pact with Satan. He’s the one working on my sales promotion at the moment.

CD: I hope you made your Faustian pact in the tradition of Goethe rather than Marlowe. You know he gets off the hook in Goethe’s version?

AS: That’s right. He gets off the hook through the love of a good woman. I prefer bad women, myself. That’s probably why I’m doing Faction Paradox.

CD: Alan, thanks for talking with me today.

AS: A pleasure.