In our last hooray for Pepper Pickle Pennsylvania (for the present) we pontification on pomegranate punch with Martha Manning, star of “The Many Men of Martha Manning,” the outstanding radio comedy we’ve been listening to for the past few weeks.
Plus we get the pleasure of speaking with David Witz, the “man behind the curtain” for this show, and tickle our ears with a special, pre-release copy of the first episode of the upcoming Martha and Dotty: Microwave Mambo.
I’m behind the curve on this, but I’d be dreadfully remiss if I didn’t put a shout-out for the National Audio Theater Festivals‘ week long summer audio drama workshop. I won’t be there this year, but my god, and I’m kinda wishing I was.
For example, listen to this juicy bit from their website:
Workshops lead by Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill, known throughout the world as Brother Blue. He is called by many the worlds’ greatest storyteller. He says he wants his stories “…to be bread for the mind, the imagination, the heart, the soul….” He says, “I speak my stories from the middle of the middle of me to the middle of the middle of you.”
I would LOVE to become a better storyteller — you know, the kind of yarn you can just start spinning without any pre-scripting — and so meeting Dr. Hill sounds like one killer opportunity.
I would ALSO love to meet (face-to-face) Sam Mowry of the Willamette Radio Workshop — he, and Cynthia McGean, who runs the “Writers on the Air” workshop and blog — will be at NATF to run workshops in their respective areas of strength.
Gosh, and that’s only the beginning… There’s Cowboy Poetry, Shakespeare, and hey, did I mention the fact that you get to be personally involved in the production of a live feature-length audio play put together in less than a week’s time?
If you’re serious about this audio drama thing, and you haven’t made it out to West Plains yet, now’s the time. Check out the NATF website to make it happen!
‘The Youth Of Old Age’ is the latest production from the Wireless Theatre Company. A gloriously offensive drama from controversial writer Stuart Price, which stars Prunella Scales (of Fawlty Tower fame) as Plutocrat Elizabeth Willem Gracie - possibly the most brutish, wicked, racist, sexist, ageist, lying, violent and loveable character she has played in recent years.
‘The Youth Of Old Age’ focuses on James (Edward Harrison), a trainee surgeon from an extremely wealthy background who returns home to ask his grandmothers permission to marry. His grandmother Elizabeth (Prunella Scales) is instantly suspicious as to why he has not brought the young lady with him. The ever-suffering man of the manor, Butler Edward (Knight Mantell) tries to sooth the situation but Elizabeth’s increasing attempts to meet the girl who will inherit her fortune lead her to go further than she even thought she dared…
Dangerous at best, wicked at all other times, ‘The Youth Of Old Age’ shows Prunella Scales at her acid-tongued best, bringing radio drama to today’s MP3 generation.
Sounds like really good stuff! And, stay tuned to the show, because we’ll be airing work from the Wireless Theatre Company starting Mid-May, after we conclude our ZBS-fest to commence this week.
For those who aren’t familiar with LATW’s work, they feature top-notch, serious theater productions which are distributed about as far and wide as any are in today’s market — this includes XM and public radio stations, and plenty to purchase online, though I’m pretty sure they don’t run a podcast or other taster/free content.
Anyways, their collection is huge, and the nature of the $250k grant seems to be archival in nature — creating a searchable database so that academics can pick out scenes and selections of plays that interest them. It also sounds like some new plays will be created with the money, which should be of stunning calibe, though I’m not sure what the article means by “new recordings aimed at the scholarly community.”
Congrats LATW, and I look forward to seeing where this one goes!
Welcome to Malleus: Vibrations from the Middle Ear, a weekly review column of English and German language audio drama, audio books, and other spoken word recordings. Malleus came about for two reasons: 1) to provide critical reviews of spoken arts recordings that rarely receive them and 2) to introduce English-speakers to the remarkable German phenomenon colloquially termed the “Hörspiel-Boom”. To that end this English language column will cover both English (U.S.A., Canada, Britain, and Australia) and German productions. Malleus will tend to focus on science fiction, fantasy, and horror, three fantastical genres that have enjoyed considerable success over radio’s phantom airwaves. However, from time to time other genres will be featured. Readers can expect to see reviews of both old and new productions, from Old Time Radio and obscure LPs to cutting edge MP3 downloads. Most recordings discussed will be in print; a few will require scouring ebay or making a trip to your local library.
Aside perhaps from a willingness to bring the hammer down hard on inferior work, what distinguishes Malleus most from other review columns is its bi-lingual emphasis. There are a few decent review sites focusing on English-language audio drama and more devoted to German productions, but as far as I know this is the first Internet column to address both. Why do it? Honestly, audio drama has been my favorite pastime for twenty-five years, and English and German are the languages I know. That said, Germany’s hörspiel (audio play) industry really is something special. You might think every country would have its own vibrant audio drama scene: not so. France for example, whose native tongue is admired the world over, strangely lacks a significant audio drama tradition. Germany not only has one, it bucks the contemporary trend of declining production common to English-speaking countries. On the contrary, Germany has been enjoying a true “audio drama boom” for the past ten years that exceeds anything in the country’s history. That’s right, folks: not only are professional German audio drama companies thriving, new ones are entering the market every year. It’s gotten to the point that German companies are now licensing more major American properties for audio drama than their American counterparts are (Star Wars, Hellboy, TSR’s Forgotten Realms, to name a few). Today Germany is producing work on a scale and level of sophistication that rivals the best of what even the BBC has to offer. This column will open that world up to you.
Malleus will strive for 50 / 50 coverage of English and German language productions, so even if you’re not interested in the German scene there should be something to catch your eye. Variety will be emphasized: upcoming reviews consider English language productions Jack Flanders: Midnight at the Casa Luna by ZBS, The Buoy by Cape Cod Radio Mystery Theater, Deathlands #73: Labyrinth by Graphic Audio, and German language productions John Sinclair by Wortart, Drizzt - Die Saga vom Dunkelelf #1 - Der Dritte Sohn by Lausch, and Chronik der Unsterblichen: Blutkrieg by ZYX Music, among others. All reviews will run approximately 2-4 typed pages and feature a 1 to 10 star rating.
So again, welcome. I hope you’ll find Malleus interesting, provocative, and illuminating to the dark passageways of your ears. And I’d like to express my sincere thanks to Fred Greenhalgh of Radio Drama Revival for hosting this column.
Chris Dueker
March 13, 2008
For the curious: The malleus of the column title is one of three ossicles in the middle ear, named for its shape (Latin for “hammer”.) Along with the incus and stapes, the malleus transmits vibrations from the eardrum into waves of fluid in the inner ear.
Legal Nonsense: The title Malleus: Vibrations from the Middle Ear and all reviews posted in this column are copyright 2008 Chris Dueker. Reviews may not be reprinted or otherwise redistributed without permission. All opinions expressed in Malleus are my own, and do not reflect those of Radio Drama Revival.
Alright, so hats off to the Sonic Society for first airing the news of great new Crazy Dog Audio Theater videos up on YouTube. I’ve only started to scratch the surface of this great new resource Roger’s put up for us all to enjoy, such as a sound effects tutorial and a video of musicians rocking out for the production Marsyas, the Hippest Satyr (part of the Audio Gothic collection which I hope to air on the show soon… as in tomorrow).
I’ve long been a proponent of greater community in the audio drama world, and my prayers were finally answered with the recent launch of audiodramatalk.com, to my knowledge the first audio drama forum. While I half-expected to see a gigantic empty emptiness with one or two lone moderator comments, I was delighted to see that EVERYONE is on this board — plenty of past producers, plenty of people I WANT to get on the show, and oh, my favorite… you listeners!
If you’re not already on the radio drama listserv or otherwise in the loop, then give audiodramatalk.com a try. It is absolutely the best place to find out about exciting new works, talk about stuff you love, and ask audio-related questions, and I think this is just the start!
390 Days, 134 posts, 52 episodes, and nearly 30 hours of audio later, Radio Drama Revival! is proud to announce some sort of anniversary… either this week, last week, or some time in between. It doesn’t really matter. All I know is that what started out as a dream quickly became a reality, and even more quickly grew to become something way beyond what I imagined.
I don’t think I’ve ever told the story, but basically I got the idea of starting this show because I wanted to get a definite place to air my own work. The folks at WMPG were very generous with getting me good air times when I was just starting out, but I still wanted a definite time to carve out for audio theater, and at the same time, figured there was probably plenty of good stuff out there I could air when I didn’t have any of my own work. And wow, have I found some!
In one short year, in only one short half hour, a lot’s happened on the show:
Something like 7000 visitors, about that many downloads, and almost 200 weekly listeners. Thanks y’all!
Now, despite what’s at least in my opinion a pretty decent track record, by all accounts 2008 looks to totally eclipse what’s happened so far. Great new audio theater’s coming out every day, and I’m just as excited to air brilliant new work by Roger Gregg as to showcase lesser known /up and coming audio dramatists. And maybe even produce some more of our content!
The biggest objective, both on this website and www.finalrune.com, is to help cultivate community and discussion for radio drama… encompassing both the craft as well as the fun part — stories! To that end, I hope to recruit some good guest writers to help me get our rather anemic reviews area rolling as well as provide more coverage on news of interest to audio fiends. Interested? Send me an email and we can talk!
Mostly, to 2009 and beyond, I want to keep spreading the word about this amazing format which is reaching new listeners and exploring new territory thanks to the digital technology and the internet. THANK YOU for listening, and I hope you keep doing it… and if you’re out there, hearing the podcasts, and you like the show… why not comment on an episode?
For now and forever, as I like to say, keep your mind and your ears open.
This past week we heard Central Audio Theatre’s take on Fall of the Hero, and shortly afterwards I had the chance to chat with them first about CAT and also about how they interpreted a tale that had already been produced. Hear a little bit about Central Audio Theatre and the student-run organization that is taking audio theater to the Web 2.0 world and fostering a whole new generation of audio enthusiasts.
Well a few weeks back I mentioned live “Dracula” in Kenosha, Wisconson, and for those of you lucky enough to be in the area tonight you can go check out RG Productions‘ “Retro Radio Holiday Revue.” This show features favorite comedies from the Old Time Radio era: Jack Benny, Burns & Allen, Fibber McGee & Molly, and Bob Hope. Starts just a few hours from now, 1 p.m. at the Kenosha Public Museum.
Now for all of us our here in cyber-land, they promise to have the show archived on the website within a week, and you can now check out their haunting take on Dracula to tide you over!
In our last hooray for Pepper Pickle Pennsylvania (for the present) we pontification on pomegranate punch with Martha Manning, star of “The Many Men of Martha Manning,” the outstanding radio comedy we’ve been listening to for the past few weeks.
I’m behind the curve on this, but I’d be dreadfully remiss if I didn’t put a shout-out for the 