This month the Amigos get back together and chat about one of their favourite series- the long-running Suspense with a classic in psychological horror “Dark Journey”! Host Lothar Tuppan takes Jeffrey Billard and Jack Ward through the maze that is this iconic series!
Recently, I was catching up on the Audio Drama Production Podcast and I listened to Steve Schneider’s excellent discussion with Sarah Golding about the importance of having a powerful beginning. Steve is a deft writer/producer, and always has some key insights in what makes excellent audio drama. And this made me consider what struck me most in the many, many, listening hours I’ve enjoyed over the years. First, I thought about what the ultimate goals are to producing all art, and in particular audio drama.
Sir Philip Sidney once said that poetry should “Teach and Delight.” Building on that idea, I felt maybe there were a couple more goals (or unintended consequences) as well. Here’s my list of four goals for audio drama development:
You’ll notice in the four goals that there is a natural progression from influence beginning with a larger group to a very personalized experience. Certainly, not all audio dramas fulfill all four goals, nor need they. The author’s purpose in telling the story often makes the decision as to the intent of their their impact. Since all four goals is a personal voyage, let me share with you some (certainly not an exhaustive list) audio dramas that have made me think and inspired me to be a better audio playwright.
Crazy Dog Audio: Gerry in the Dark Passage– Originally aired on Sonic Society episode #13, Roger Gregg uses this tale to demonstrate how powerful inner monologue can truly intensify story, tension, while still infusing meaning with a deep social commentary.
Suspense: Sorry, Wrong Number– This classic OTR originally starred Agnes Moorehead and was written by Lucille Fletcher. One of the most recreated scripts in audio drama history, Fletcher’s expert use of the telephone demonstrates how terrifyingly realistic stories can be told through the medium of sound. This suspenseful epic inspired two of my earlies shows Right Number, Wrong Party and Messages using the same conceit.
Red Panda: Tis the Season– The most knowledgeable pulp writer in modern audio dramatic history, Gregg Taylor masterfully delivers a festive story previously only found on the pages of a Will Eisner comic book. This feature brought insight into the relationship between how “closure” and vivid artwork is translated between the paintbrush of the comic book, into the paintbrush of the audio world.
Colonial Radio Theatre: Barrymore– Originating from the award-winning William Luce play, this Theatre of the Mind adaptation, dispels any doubt that a small one-man show couldn’t hold a listening audience spellbound for hours. While many audio enthusiasts today insist on smaller, bite-sized episodes, Jerry Robbin’s “Barrymore” performance brazenly stands in the face of such declarations.
Best Plays: On Borrowed Time– This “Best Plays” classic tale adapted for radio, highlights how a small cast is key in telling engaging audio stories. Large casts confuse audiences and dilutes character connection. More than six actors can begin a cascade of diminishing returns.
The Truth: The Dark End of the Mall– Casper Kelly’s modern-day classic from Jonathan Mitchell’s “The Truth” podcast highlights two key elements in great writing- expectation and reward. The author clues and intrigues the audience throughout the feature by feeding expectation and changing the result. This short feature has three main turning points- none of which occur in the early part of the play. The audience deepens their wide-range of emotional connection beginning with amusement, morphing to concern, and finally, realization brings abject horror.
Midnight Radio Theater: The Woman in the Basement– Through one of the greatest series most people have never heard, writer/producer Billy Senese revolutionized dialogue in the modern audio drama play. While many writers rely on two modal attitudes in their characters- those being Whedonesque sarcastic quips or “tell-all” rage expositions, Senese mastered the art of silence. Exposing that what is most important in a scene isn’t what the characters tell you, but what is revealed by what is not being said. Less talk and more meaningful dialogue creates complex characterization and requires the audience to lean in and engage fully with the drama. Vocal ticks may clue us into elements of a character’s personality. Nuanced dialogue informs the audience what the character values.
This is in no way my complete list of favourite audio dramas. Such an exercise would rival the manifest of Noah’s ark. Your list could well be equally as long, and perhaps it’s a better question to ask- What audio dramas have changed the way I listen, think, and write?
If you consider which audio dramas profoundly inpact life and your art, you’ll have a much more meaningful and personal list to cite.
Recently, our Sonic Echo team have been talking about the classic Nightfall horror suspense series from CBC Radio in the eighties. Bill Howell, the senior producer had a fascinating take on the challenge of getting an audience in Radio Drama. From the Theatre Research in Canada Journal. 1990’s article Bill Howell from Canadian Radio Drama in English: Prick Up Your Ears:
According to CBC producer Bill Howell, however, such numbers do not really constitute an audience (even though, of course, the word ‘audience’ derives form the Latin verb audire, ‘to hear’).
They represent individual listeners, simply because there can be no interaction between them and the performers. The experience necessarily is subjective and internalized.
The play is created in the imagination of the listener. This is both the weakness and the strength of radio drama. It precludes the communal experience, the interaction of stage event and audience response so vital to live theatre; but it creates a condition of intimacy, a personal voice in the ear, which live theatre cannot replicate.
Bill Howell considers radio theatre a kind of paradox: ‘It comes out of a sense of community, but finally radio drama is a community of two’ – the radio whistling into the listener’s ear. Most importantly, it develops the art of listening – listening as active and participatory. And in this age of visual stimulation, listening has become almost a lost art.
Rarely is the whole concentration focused on sound. The general assumption in our hurried society is that listening is secondary and passive; it fills in the background during more important activities such as ironing and washing the dishes. The result is that most of us hear very little. We tend to hear what we want to hear, what we think we hear.
We become closed to new perceptions. Only the strident and shocking sounds cut through – what television announcers now call ‘sound bites.’ Radio drama, however, is foreground listening.
It works only if it commands the whole attention of the audience, and this is a difficult thing to do.
Almost forty years later and the challenge is still real, Mr. Howell. Thank you.
From St. Catherine University online:
The St. Catherine University Department of Music and Theater, in cooperation with the University of St. Thomas, presents “On Air: A Return to Radio.” This limited engagement runs Wednesday, April 27 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, April 30 at 2 p.m. in the Frey Theater (building #10 on the map).
Step back in time to the 1940’s, the heyday of radio drama. The voices, action, advertisements, and sound effects of classics such as My Friend Irma and Suspense Theater: Sorry Wrong Number come life before your eyes.
General admission tickets are $10; St. Kate’s and ACTC students, faculty and staff are free with valid campus ID. Due to limited seating, any tickets not claimed 30 minutes before performance will be released. Reserve tickets at the O’Shaughnessy box office or purchase online.
Check it out while you can!
John Alsedek from the SUSPENSE! team completes their two part Sonic Summerstock features with “The Devil’s Saint” for tonight’s gala finale performance of season four of the Sonic Summerstock Playhouse! 
John Alsedek from the SUSPENSE! team brings us the first of their two Sonic Summerstock features with “Wet Saturday”for tonight’s gala performance of Sonic Summerstock Playhouse!
Jack and David still straddle the worlds of We Are not Alone and Suspense! this time with “The Bodysnatchers” and then “Cool Air”. Great audio!
John Alsedek brings us a brand new SUSPENSE! and Jack and David use the promise of “The Pipes of Tcho Ktlan” to escape We Are Not Alone‘s “The Thingamajig from Another World”!
This week the Ward Boys host as we proudly present the amazing Icebox Theater’s recreation of the Louise Fletcher classic “The Hitchhiker”! Summertime rocks!
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