The Chatterblog

This Week in Listening: The Intergalactic Nemesis

2012-02-21T17:09:00.002-06:00

Over the weekend, my girlfriend and I traveled to Longview, Texas to enjoy a visit with her family and to catch a performance of The Intergalactic Nemesis. The show, which is touring internationally (though not yet intergalactically), has generated an impressive amount of attention in recent weeks, appearing on both Conan and NPR. Some friends saw it a few years ago and recommended it highly. When we heard that it was touring, we decided it was something we couldn't miss.

The Intergalactic Nemesis is a "live-action graphic novel" that combines voice acting, sound effects, music, and artwork. The production began in Austin, Texas as a live radio play, then expanded to include more than 1,200 illustrations penciled by Tim Doyle. As the illustrations cycle by on a large screen, three voice actors, a pianist, and one intrepid sound effects artist work together to create a fully soundscaped multimedia experience.

The story is set in 1933 and follows tough-as-nails reporter Molly Sloan and her sidekick Timmy Mendez as they investigate a mesmerizer named Mysterion the Magnificent. Their meddling brings them into contact with assassins, a heroic librarian, and a race of gooey, many-eyed aliens called Zygons. It's a two-fisted adventure serial welded to a sci-fi yarn, with plenty of action, humor, and weird creatures along the way.

Creator and producer Jason Neulander has wisely kept the show family-friendly; the performance we attended drew a large number of kids (and not all boys, either). The script and the performances are certainly tongue in cheek, but thankfully the show goes beyond self-aware camp. The Nemesis team has crafted an original and enormously entertaining theatrical experience. It's complex and fully realized, and, as all live radio shows should be, it's great fun to watch.

As a regular creator of audio productions, attending the show was especially fun for me. One of the first things that struck me was how familiar their sound effects kit looked. There was the wind machine, the crash box, the door unit, the various noisemakers and kids' toys, and many of the other mainstays of Chatterbox productions. Nemesis makes creative use of these tools, of course, and there were several effects I will happily steal for our own purposes. But in general, it was nice to see this group successfully touring the globe with the same basic materials and approach that we use.

More than that, though, it was a thrill to be part of an audience that was clearly having so much fun with the production. The three voice actors were terrifically versatile, handling the fast pace and numerous characters with great skill. (Often, one actor would play both roles in a two-character scene, and the interactions were never less than clear.) The show's sound effects artist and musician got just as much of a workout, each helping maintain a quick pace while adding the layers of sound that really brought the story to life. The energy coming off the stage was infectious, and when the lights came up for intermission, the (large) audience already seemed eager for more.

Anything that helps bring live radio back to the mainstream already has my support. But The Intergalactic Nemesis has the added perk of being slam-bang entertainment and a great time at the theater. If the show comes anywhere near your area, don't miss it. Part One is touring now, and I believe Part Two will follow suit after its debut this summer.

This Week in Listening: The Strange Case of Springheel'd Jack

2012-02-15T09:06:00.001-06:00

Followers of our Facebook page already know that I'm a fan of The Wireless Theatre Company. Headquartered in London, Wireless produces shows across a wide spectrum of genres, all with consistently high quality. In its philosophy and approach, Wireless is as similar to Chatterbox as any other group working today.

Their most recent release is the third installment of a series called The Strange Case of Springheel'd Jack. Written by Gareth Parker and Robert Valentine, Springheel'd Jack is a Gothic adventure mystery with a heavy dose of supernaturalism thrown in. Unfolding in lean 30-minute segments, the show features excellent writing, performances, sound design, and music.

Set at the dawn of the Victorian era, The Strange Case of Springheel'd Jack follows Constable Jonah Smith as he and his partner, Constable Toby Hooks, investigate a series of attacks carried out by what witnesses call a monster. The description of the creature is alarmingly similar to an apparition Smith recalls from his childhood. What's the connection? How do the attacks relate to a mysterious young woman and a wealthy lord? And who are those two odd-couple thugs who keep trying to kill our heroes?

The listener will probably guess at the solution to the mystery before Smith does, but the story is a great ride nonetheless. The increasing wildness of the proceedings are grounded by Christopher Finney's lead performance as Constable Smith. Mr. Finney leads an excellent cast in creating realistic, relatable characters. When the thrills come, then, they're even more thrilling, because we honestly care about what happens to these people.

The third episode of Springheel'd Jack ends with the promise of more, and if more materialize, I'll happily take them. But the three shows that have been released stand together as a single, satisying tale.

Wireless shows are free to download and just require a simple registration. Check out The Strange Case of Springheel'd Jack, and take some time to dig into the group's back catalog. If you like what we do, you'll like what they do.

First Look: Prison Stories

2012-01-26T23:00:00.000-06:00

This week we recorded an adaptation of the amazing Voices of the South project Prison Stories, in which the writings of incarcerated women are translated into a performance piece. Very powerful, moving stuff. You'll be able to hear it in a few months! For now, here are some preview images from Monday's rehearsal.

More Meridian

2012-01-24T15:41:00.000-06:00

Original shadow box artwork by Karen Strachan.

This week we released Meridian 7-1212, the second of two Old Time Radio recreations we recorded for The Sonic Society. Along with the show, we released a bonus scene that's about four minutes long. It adds another short story to the vignette-based piece, further expanding the web of people who call in to the titular phone number.

In the scene, two sailors have overstayed their shore leave. Pete, the younger and more naive of the two, has fallen head over heels for a woman he just met. Joe, more cynical and worldly, is immediately skeptical, having seen his friends taken in by similarly alluring women who turn out to be con artists. The scene ends on a clever and wryly poignant note, bringing us back to Dot Day and the telephone time service while resonating perfectly with the bleak, pessimistic world of the show.

If you listen to the most widely available version of the original broadcast, you won't hear this scene. So where did it come from?

When we re-recorded Meridian, we used a transcribed script made available through the Generic Radio Workshop. It wasn't until after we finished recording that I discovered the original script for Meridian 7-1212 had been published in 1939, along with 13 other scripts from The Columbia Workshop. I started looking around for libraries that might have a copy, and eventually found it in the collection of the Paul Barret Jr. Library at Rhodes College—my alma mater, a regular host to Chatterbox productions, and the domain of Chatterbox Board member Bill Short. In other words, right under our noses.

Reading the original script was interesting for several reasons. It cleared up some of the spelling errors in the transcription, which, among other things, credits the author as Irving Reese rather than Irving Reis. It revealed some character names that are not included in the dialog, like the surnames of the two reporters in the opening scene. It also clued me in to a few words and lines that we flat-out got wrong: e.g., the second drunk is actually named "Stuff," not Scott.

But mainly, it allowed me to find this additional scene, which I knew about from Leonard Maltin's brief description of the show but had never heard nor read. As Eric worked through the show's post-production, we decided it would be great fun to include this scene with our release. Lee, our Dot Day, left town at the end of last summer, so we recorded her calling the appropriate times and added her voice to the great work done later by actors Stephen Garrett and Ross Williams.

Chronologically, the scene takes place between the London scene and the final scene at the courthouse. Now that I've read it, I definitely feel its absence from the larger show. As I said above, it further expands the story's world—and this is a world I want to explore as much as possible. Plus it balances out the heaviness of some of the other stories with a tale that, while not exactly happy, is at least darkly amusing.

So, the mystery remains: Why isn't this scene in the recording that has been passed down to us? Was it cut for time prior to the show's 1939 broadcast, and never actually performed? (That would be strange, as the recording clocks in at a brief 25 minutes, compared to 28 - 29 minutes for other Columbia Workshop shows.) Was it cut out of the recording for some unknown reason during the past 71 years? Or (and I'm just speculating here) is the version we have one that was recorded for rebroadcast to the Armed Forces? This was a pretty common practice, so that those stationed in other parts of the world could still hear their favorite shows, and at a reasonable hour. In that case, I can see the scene being excluded for its depiction of disobedient naval officers. If anyone can shed any light on the subject, I'd be grateful.

Doppelgangers and Alternate Versions

2012-01-08T20:39:00.000-06:00

Ebenezer Singh. Tongues, 2008. 15ft X 9ft. Fiberglass, resin, pigments and sequins.

I talked a few weeks ago about some artistic choices we made for Chatterbox's adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Markheim." Thanks to the blog post, I remembered that, in the process of creating the show, I had come across several other audio interpretations of the story.

Chatterbox adapts a lot of classic stories that have been around for dozens (or, in some cases, hundreds) of years. It's fun to see what other audio drama producers, both contemporary and OTR, have done with the same material. Today I thought I'd point out some alternate versions of shows in the Chatterbox catalogue.

The OTR Shows Weird Circle, Hall of Fantasy, and Theatre Royal all took on "Markheim" back in radio's Golden Age. The Weird Circle version updates the story to (then) modern day and gives Markheim's uncle a prominent role. Similarly, Hall of Fantasy makes a character out of Markheim's betrothed. The Theatre Royal version stars Sir Lawrence Olivier. In the 1970s, the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre gave another spin on the tale, calling it "Markheim: Man or Monster?"

One of our first shows was an adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper." The classic OTR series Suspense also produced the story, in a version starring the immortal Agnes Moorehead.

Speaking of our early shows, "Bartleby the Scrivener" also appeared on the OTR show Favorite Story in a version titled "The Strange Mr. Bartleby."

Remakes of existing shows are, of course, a different beast than two shows that share a common ancestor. But if you've heard, say, Chatterbox's production of "The Thing on the Fourble Board" and haven't heard the original Quiet, Please broadcast, you should definitely check it out. I'm confident other contemporary groups have remade this story, by the way, though I haven't come across any links.

Likewise for our recent production of "The Shadow: The Little Man Who Wasn't There." The original 1945 broadcast is still a great deal of fun. To hear another contemporary group's take on The Shadow (albeit different adventures), check out Pendant Audio's double feature of "The Blind Beggar Dies" and "The Poisoned Death."

So, while it's true that we do our best to steer clear of stories that have been adapted too often, it's certainly fun to hear what others have created using the same source material! More links as I run across them.

Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men?

2011-12-14T20:30:00.000-06:00

Original artwork by Dean Zachary

This week we’re releasing our recreation of The Shadow: The Little Man Who Wasn’t There, which gives me the opportunity to geek out a bit about this coolest of vigilante heroes.

I’ve loved the character of The Shadow since grade school. I was introduced to him through comic books, where he matched my fondness for heroes who didn’t possess fantastical powers. From there, I discovered the radio shows, mainly through cassette tapes bought in blister packs from the aisles of Wal-Mart or the Cracker Barrel gift store. (These tapes were a large part of the inspiration behind Chatterbox.) I was first in line for the lame1994 movie starring Alec Baldwin. More recently, I’ve enjoyed delving into the original pulp novels in beautiful reprint editions from Nostalgia Ventures.

Along the way, I’ve learned a bit more about Walter B. Gibson, the man behind The Shadow. Gibson was an unbelievably prolific writer, and is credited with writing 282 of the 325 Shadow pulp novels released under the pen name Maxwell Grant. (At times, he was writing two complete novels a month.) Not only that, but Gibson was an accomplished magician, and I was amazed to discover that he was ghost-writer and friend to another of my early-20th-century obsessions, Harry Houdini.

Gibson did not create The Shadow. The character was originally introduced in 1930 as a narrator for the radio show Detective Story Hour, back when radio shows mainly existed to help sell pulps. When people at the newsstands started clamoring for “The Shadow” magazine, publishers Street & Smith knew they’d better act fast. Walter B. Gibson was brought on to flesh out the character, and he did so in a big way. He created The Shadow’s iconic appearance, along with his battery of secret agents and his identity as Lamont Cranston (which was later overturned in the pulps, by the way).

The classic radio version of The Shadow, who first appeared in 1937, was a considerably different character. In an effort to tone down the violence of the pulps, he was stripped of his twin .45s, most of his agents, and his ties to the underworld dwellers of Chinatown. The radio Shadow was more of a gentleman detective in the vein of The Thin Man. But this version wasn’t a total loss. Radio gave us Margo Lane, who was so popular she began appearing in the pulp stories as well. The Shadow was granted “the hypnotic power to cloud men’s minds, so they cannot see him.” And of course, radio gave us indelible performances by Orson Welles, Bill Johnstone, Brett Morrison, and others as the man of mystery himself.

Running for 17 years, the radio show had its share of highs and lows. (Later seasons seemingly featured Margo being abducted by a different mad scientist each week.) But “The Little Man Who Wasn’t There,” written by science fiction author Alfred Bester, always stood out to me as a show that features all the best parts of The Shadow: A clever mystery, a cast of colorful characters, and one of those thrilling climaxes in which The Shadow reveals -- to the criminals and to us -- that he does, in fact, have the upper hand.

We recorded the show (along with Meridian 7-1212) in response to a request from Jack Ward of The Sonic Society, who was looking for a contribution to his “Summerstock Playhouse,” where contemporary audio theater companies recreate some of their favorite OTR shows. Recording the show was great fun, and it gave me, at age 31, the chance to reconnect with a character I had loved at 13. What a thrill to work with such a great cast and crew on this production, and to have the opportunity to read those iconic opening and closing lines:

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"

"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!"

A Closer Listen: Markheim

2011-12-06T18:02:00.000-06:00

Original artwork by Alla Bartoshchuk

When I stumbled upon the short stories of Robert Louis Stevenson, I knew I'd found a gold mine. Dismissed in his day -- and all too often nowadays as well -- as a boy's adventure writer, Stevenson crafted potent little stories that are slick, mystifying, chilling, clever, and ahead of their time. They struck me as perfect for audio, where their imaginative plots and brisk pacing would keep listeners engaged. (There's a reason why so many of the original Mercury Theatre productions were adapted from adventure tales like Stevenson's Treasure Island.)

In Stevenson's "Markheim," a career criminal finally makes the leap into murder. As he ransacks his victim's antique shop, he is approached by a mysterious man who claims to know him "to the soul." The two then engage in a lengthy, sometimes cryptic debate, in which the future of that very soul hangs in the balance.

After the antiques dealer is killed, Stephenson launches into a long, rapturous, gorgeous, paranoid bit of prose that has Markheim seeing images of himself repeated throughout the shop:

He began to bestir himself, going to and fro with the candle, beleaguered by moving shadows, and startled to the soul by chance reflections. In many rich mirrors, some of home design, some from Venice or Amsterdam, he saw his face repeated and repeated, as it were an army of spies; his own eyes met and detected him; and the sound of his own steps, lightly as they fell, vexed the surrounding quiet. And still, as he continued to fill his pockets, his mind accused him with a sickening iteration, of the thousand faults of his design. He should have chosen a more quiet hour; he should have prepared an alibi; he should not have used a knife; he should have been more cautious, and only bound and gagged the dealer, and not killed him; he should have been more bold, and killed the servant also; he should have done all things otherwise. Poignant regrets, weary, incessant toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was now useless, to be the architect of the irrevocable past. Meanwhile, and behind all this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot; the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the dock, the prison, the gallows, and the black coffin.

Amazing. The story goes on like this for a while, delving deep into the new murderer's psyche.

But how to recreate this in audio? We could have opted to have Markheim narrate the scene, but his presence as narrator wasn't needed anywhere else in the story, and injecting it here felt awkward. (Unlike, say, Dead and Gone, where I think the final scene's shift into narration works beautifully.) A third-person narrator would have been even worse.

While struggling with this question, I realized that Stevenson was giving us a virtuoso performance as only a prose writer can: with his words. So, I reasoned, maybe the best way to tackle the segment would be to attempt an equally ambitious rendering using the language of audio theater, which is, of course, sound.

It's true -- in order to accurately adapt pages upon pages of beautiful prose, I decided we needed to get rid of the words altogether. I didn't even try to force them into a new medium, where they would almost certainly lose their effect. Instead, we sought to recreate Markheim's panic and paranoia inside the heads of our listeners. We aimed to put them in Markheim's shoes, causing their imaginations to conjure the feeling of the scene rather than its wording.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that the shift may not be totally successful. It may feel muddled or confusing in places, especially, I imagine, if you're only listening casually. I worried about this sequence when the show debuted on the radio, as sound quality is lower over broadcast, and the relative silence of the scene might be mistaken for a dropped signal.

But I'll let you judge for yourself. Here's the clip, and a play-by-play:

Markheim Clip (03:15)

00:00 - 00:34 The dealer is attacked, falls, and dies. We wanted this sequence to be loud, brutal, and awkward.

00:35 - 00:44 The deed is done. We hear Markheim's ragged breathing. And subtly those clocks, the ones surrounding him in the antique store, get louder.

00:45 - 00:55 Footsteps on the street outside. Is someone rushing to the shop, alerted by the crashing sounds within? No, it's just a boy running after his father on the sidewalk. He passes.

00:56 - 01:13 Markheim searches the dealer's body, finding his keys. He begins to look through the shop for a safe.

01:14 - 01:45 A knock on the door. The worst possible sound to hear in this situation! (Or is it?) The customer, discouraged, leaves, and Markheim resumes his search.

01:46 - 01:56 The clocks in the store all begin striking three. Markheim relaxes when he realizes what's going on. The strange cacophony is a nice way to announce our Visitor.

01:57 - 02:29 Footsteps upstairs. Or, anyway, loud noises upstairs. We hear Markheim's own footsteps as he walks further into the shop to investigate. The clocks fade as he leaves the main room and ascends the stairs.

02:30 - 03:15 Markheim throws open a door to find an empty room. He searches around a bit more and finds a locked cabinet, but the dealer's keys will not open it. Then the loud footsteps resume, and our Visitor makes his entrance in style.

If that's what you get from the scene when closing your eyes and listening, then great -- we succeeded. I wanted listeners to be on the edge of their seats, right there along Markheim as he agonizes over the tiniest noises and recoils at every possible danger. Our version of the story may not contain everything Stevenson said, but I hope it's close to what he meant.

(Be sure to check out the full recording on our website.)

This Week in Listening: We're Alive

2011-11-22T13:04:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend, a friend was recommending (compellingly) that I check out The Walking Dead. "It's got zombies," he told me, "but it's not really about zombies. It's about people."

This has become something of a cliche in the zombie genre, which in recent years has proliferated like... well, you know. The zombie story has merged with the disaster story to create scenarios in which zombies serve as a sort of natural disaster, an overwhelming outside force that spurs the teaming up of a ragtag group of survivors.

Nowhere is this formula better utilized than in We're Alive, an ongoing audio series produced in Los Angeles by Modern Myth Productions and released on a weekly basis. The setup is exactly as described above. But within that setup, creators KC Wayland and Shane Salk construct a world that is compelling, fully realized, and a thrill and a half.

The "we" of the title are a group of survivors holed up in an apartment complex to fend off the zombie hordes. As with the best disaster stories, We're Alive presents its characters with a series of creative, unpredictable "Oh crap" moments, then forces them to rely on their wits and strengths to find a way out -- or not.

The show's action sequences are great, but there's a lot more going on here, and things often slow down enough for the human moments to come through. The writers take their time in constructing fully believable characters. They're confident enough to make these characters unlikeable at times, and thus all the more complex and interesting. Meanwhile, the show presents its share of mysteries (Where did the zombies come from? How do they keep finding us?) but does a good job of doling out plausible answers at reasonable intervals.

On top of all that, the production is excellently realized. It's the rare audio drama that can pull off (for example) a scene in which the characters rappel down the side of a building onto a fire truck surrounded by zombies, fending them off while threading the fire hose back through a nearby window -- and make the scene comprehensible without benefit of visuals.

Naturally, I've always wanted Chatterbox to take on an ongoing series, but the logistical challenges are just too much for us at the moment. All the more reason to be impressed with We're Alive, whose roster of actors has remained pretty consistent since the show debuted in 2009. (Excepting the characters who get zombified or outright eaten, of course.) Wayland and Salk have a roster of great talents, and they use it well.

We're Alive is quite popular, and chances are you didn't need me to tell you about it. The show had its 4 millionth download this year. It has a dedicated forum and even a fan-produced podcast. (I'm midway through the second season right now, so for fear of spoilers I avoid these supplementary materials like you'd avoid that guy in your ragtag group of survivors who got scratched but not completely gobbled by a zombie, so he's probably fine but is acting a little weird, and even though you don't want to alienate him it's always best to be careful.)

As of this writing, the entire series is freely available through iTunes and through the We're Alive website. Start with Episode 1 to get the full effect.

So, yes, I'll gladly check out The Walking Dead. But it's got a lot to live up to.

The Long Halloween

2011-11-17T15:06:00.010-06:00

Original artwork by Derrick Dent

Chatterbox's 2011 Halloween Show is now available from our website. So if you missed the live broadcast, check it out!

Additionally, as you may know, our show was part of an international collaboration of audio theater producers known as Transcontinental Terror. Everyone contributed an hour of scary audio, and all six hours were streamed live through Sound Stages Radio.

Here's a full list of everything that aired during this year's Transcontinental Terror. Each group is free to release its shows how and if it chooses. I've added links to the ones that are available online.

The Wireless Theatre Company (London, England)

Curse of the Wolfman

The Cask of Amontillado

Electric Vicuna Productions (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
The Muse of Madness
Faith

FinalRune Productions (Portland, Maine)
Intensive Care
Dark Passenger

Chatterbox Audio Theater (Memphis, Tennessee)
2011 Halloween Show

Icebox Radio Theater (International Falls, Minnesota)
The Demon

The Willamette Radio Workshop (Portland, Oregon)
Dracula

I was performing and cleaning up for most of Halloween night, so I've got some great listening ahead of me as well. Enjoy.

Chatterbox in the Classroom!

2011-11-08T16:43:00.000-06:00

School sure was serious business back in the day.

Today we have a guest entry from Lisa Marie Carpenter, a teacher in the Susquehanna Community School District in Pennsylvania. Lisa uses the Chatterbox productions of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Rip Van Winkle in her classroom, and we couldn't be happier about that. Lisa:

I use Chatterbox audios in my 7th grade English classroom. I find that they help my students relate to the characters and become interested in the literature that they are adapted from. The audios are always interesting and my students enjoy listening to them and gaining the background knowledge before they read a story.

As a teacher, I have found the free educational guides very helpful in planning my lessons. In addition, I wrote to Chatterbox to ask for the script version to use with my drama unit. I was sent the script very promptly and am sure that they will only continue to benefit my students. I would recommend Chatterbox to any teacher looking to liven up a lesson and keep their students interested. Excellent work!

Are you a teacher who finds our work helpful in your classroom? If so, drop us a line and let us know! We'd love to hear from you.

Happy Chatterween!

2011-10-31T00:00:00.000-05:00

Tonight's the night! Be sure to tune in to 91.1 WKNO-FM (through your radio, if you're in the Memphis area, or through the WKNO website) at 7:00 CT to hear Chatterbox's live Halloween broadcast. Or, listen to the online re-broadcast at 9:00 pm CT as part of Transcontinental Terror (which will be streaming original works of audio horror from across the globe from 6:00 - 12:00 pm).

Here are a few images to whet your appetite, courtesy of David Barton, who is also one of our illustrious Sound Effects Artists for the show:

Don't miss it!

Halloween Show Load-In

2011-10-23T23:45:00.004-05:00

Eric and I spent most of today moving our piles of equipment over to the lovely WKNO studios in Cordova. Here are some pictures of the basic setup -- which, not surprisingly, had evolved even further by the end of tonight's rehearsal.

Treats, tricks, etc.

2011-10-11T12:36:00.004-05:00

Some seriously spooky artwork by Derrick Dent, from our 2010 show.

It's October, which means Chatterbox is gearing up for its annual Halloween Show on WKNO-FM. This live broadcast has become a tradition since we first started it in 2008. And it's one of the most fun things we do all year.

The 2011 show will consist of four original horror stories. Scripts were written by myself and the talented Deborah Hyatt, who penned our adaptation of Jack London's "Moon-Face" as well as two previous Halloween stories: "Burning Cold" in 2010 and "Boil" in 2009. (I just noticed that both of those stories have temperature-related titles, a streak that Deborah will break in 2011 unless she opts for some creative last-minute renaming.)

Naturally, the less you know about the scripts, the more likely you are to be horrified, so I'll stay tight-lipped. But I can tell you we've got some really intense stuff planned for this year, and that the stories will range from subtle and eerie to squirm-inducing and over-the-top. Remember: we're trying to give you nightmares. So if you have young kids, don't let them listen unless you want them to have nightmares.

Casts for our Halloween Show are always hand-picked. The stakes are high on live radio, so I like to work with seasoned performers whom I trust implicitly. I got a bit of a late start on casting this year, so we still have a few roles to fill -- but I can already say with confidence that we're going to have a great lineup of voices, including a few newcomers to Chatterbox. As with all shows, casting is half the battle, and with the right team on board rehearsals go a lot more smoothly.

Later today I'm meeting with producer Eric Sefton, musician Cheri Hughes, and SFX designer David Barton to go over the scripts and brainstorm ideas for music, sound, and production choices. There, we'll think hard about how to create some really gruesome sounds and a really unsettling atmosphere. Then rehearsals start next week!

The show will air live on 91.1 WKNO-FM in Memphis at 7:00 CT on Monday, 10/31. You can listen from anywhere in the world through WKNO's website. It will also be rebroadcast that same night as part of the Transcontinental Terror event. If you like horror audio, I highly recommend you tune in to as much of this event as you can.

More updates coming soon! In the meantime, mark your calendars for the show.

Report from the Open House

2011-09-24T19:27:00.000-05:00

Like most of us, Aiden got into audio theater for the babes.

Earlier this week, we hosted our second Open House in the Chatterbox Studio. It was great fun, with a crowd of about 60 friendly faces. Everyone had a chance to get on mic and to play with sound effects equipment (which was especially fun for the young'uns who attended). And of course there was food and drink and great camaraderie throughout the evening. You can see photos from the Open House on the Chatterbox website.

Events like these remind me how much Chatterbox depends on its community in order to succeed. Our little theater requires directors, actors, writers, musicians, sound effects artists, sound engineers, visual artists, Board members, administrators, donors, and of course listeners. Without every single one of those elements in place, we couldn't do what we do.

If I weren't busy with Chatterbox, I like to imagine I'd spend my free time hunkered down in a basement somewhere, working on a the Great American Novel. Which would be fun, sure -- if nothing else, I could smoke a pipe and wear jackets with elbow patches -- but would also be a fairly solitary endeavor. Meanwhile, in four years of Chatterbox, we've worked with about 220 people in the creation of our shows, and thousands more listen in each month. I'm certainly the richer for it, and I hope all our participants can say the same.

So, no matter how you participate in Chatterbox, thank you! And whether or not you made the Open House, mark your calendar for our next event: a live Halloween broadcast on WKNO-FM, part of the Transcontinental Terror collaboration. More details soon.

A Glimpse into My Inbox

2011-09-01T16:56:00.000-05:00

That has to be the longest steering column I've ever seen.

One of the consistently amazing things about Chatterbox is its global reach -- the fact that the work we do here in Memphis can affect a listener hundreds of miles away. And the fact that said listener can then turn around and communicate back with us almost instantly.

This mind-boggling thought struck me anew as I was looking over my inbox yesterday evening. At the moment, I've got 16 emails flagged as needing a response. They include:

- Four sketch submissions from a comedy writer in the UK
- A networking email from an audio theater producer in Long Island, NY
- An email from our friend Mariele of the great Wireless Theatre Company (in London) about this year's Halloween collaboration
- An email about the possibility of Chatterbox performing at the Memphis ComicCon
- A networking email from another UK-based theater company (Blackshaw Productions)
- An awesome Halloween Show script from Memphis writer Deborah Hyatt (which we're totally going to use)
- An email from Geneva Community Radio in Geneva, NY about airing our shows (Woot!)
- A suggestion from a listener in MN about a book he thinks would make a good adaptation
- A theater student from Macedonia (!) inquiring about the possibility of performing one of our scripts in area classrooms
- Notice of a monthly donation from a generous new donor (Thanks, Nathan!)

What an array! It's amazing, and humbling, that our work has entered the online conversation enough to inspire such communications. When our mission statement says we hope to "advance the exchange of ideas," this is exactly the kind of thing we're talking about. Exactly.

Anyway, long live the internet! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some emails to answer.

A Closer Listen: Workshop Clips

2011-08-30T19:01:00.004-05:00

Run! It's a monster!

Marques and I have been working hard to map out Chatterbox's new Sound Effects Workshops, which has been a blast, and very rewarding. In the process, we identified and uploaded some representative clips from both OTR and Chatterbox shows that we find particularly effective. I thought I'd share a few with you today. Click each show's title to hear the clip.

Three Skeleton Key
This clip comes from a classic OTR episode of Escape, and there's really only one thing you need to know: Rats. Thousands and thousands of them. The characters in the story are trapped in a lighthouse. An unmanned ship has wrecked on their island. The ship was filled to the brim with rats, which are now swarming the island and the lighthouse. According to Leonard Maltin, the squeaking sounds were created by rubbing damp corks against glass, and looping the sound over and over until a few became a multitude.

Dead and Gone
This is from the first scene of our Southern adaptation of James Joyce's "The Dead." The main characters, Gabriel and Margaret, trudge through the snow toward their elderly aunts' holiday party. The wind sounds are recorded. The snowy footsteps were created using a classic radio technique: squeezing a box of corn starch. And the party noises (which continue throughout most of the show) are of course just our talented actors. Simple enough, but for me, the scene beautifully creates a change in temperature. We go from the cold, desolate outdoors to the warm, inviting indoors. (You can practically smell the wood burning in the fireplace.) Naturally, this simple transition has a lot of interesting thematic relevance. But it also just works as a nice entrance into the story.

The Damned Thing
Still one of my favorite Chatterbox sequences, this comes from our 2009 Halloween Show. The story is by American writer Ambrose Bierce. Two hunters stalk an animal that they soon discover is invisible. Our Halloween Shows are broadcast live, and every effect here is manual. We've got grass sounds (unspooled VHS tape), gravel (in a gravel box), that pulse-like pounding (a soft mallet against a metal box), and gunshots (the real thing, but blanks, of course). And then there's the horrible, otherworldly wailing of the creature. SFX artist and physics magician Michael Towle is the one who told us that dry ice contracts metal so quickly that the metal will release a horrific shriek. So the sound you hear is metal pipes pressed against dry ice. That plus some vocalizations from Mr. Towle himself combine to create something that simply doesn't exist in our world. Thankfully.

Super Feature
Another horror clip, this one from the classic OTR show Lights Out. The two speakers are criminals who travel town-to-town screening a monster movie. While the whole town watches the movie, the criminals sneak out and rob their empty homes. In this clip, the monster in their "picture" comes to life and slides off the screen. This episode is brilliant for what it doesn't tell you. Listen for the sound of the monster: nothing. Throughout the entire show, it's never audible, though it's clearly dangerous. It's also barely described; we know it has teeth and a tail. Leaving so much to imagination causes the listener to fill in something far, far worse than any writer could devise. In this case, less is so very much more.

I hope to make a regular feature of these types of close listens. Got any suggestions, or any clips you'd like to share yourself? Just let me know.

Audio Theater as a Cross Curriculum Educational Tool

2011-08-09T16:16:00.000-05:00

So, you might think that Audio Theater is a fine tool to use for a theatre teacher. After all, many of us use an approach to teaching drama that is comprised of analysis and synthesis. In other words, we break things apart, and put them back together. If a performer’s greatest tools are her body, her voice, and her brain, then we may break down a performance unit into Pantomime, Audio (or Reader’s) Theater, and Improvisation/Characterization. Obvious, no? Well, like so many other art educators around the world, I have awoken to the idea that the arts need to be spread throughout a student’s whole curriculum. A human being’s education is not complete if their understanding of the world around them does not include the objective creativity that only the inclusion of art can provide. So, maybe we start thinking of correlations that aren’t so obvious.

The subject of audio theater, just like the basic principles of storytelling, has connections to almost any area in a child’s education, and I believe can enhance their comprehension of other core subjects. More obvious subjects that immediately spring to mind are; Multi-Media/Communications, Social Studies, History, Science: both technical and biological, and many more.

Here’s an easy one; Consider any research project that must be done by a student in any class. What presentation couldn’t be enhanced by turning it into a fully realized short film or piece of audio theater? This, again, is a pretty obvious collaboration, but simply consider the act of producing such a work, and the comprehension and appreciation that it develops; creating sound effects to enhance the subject matter, learning the technical editing skills to use the equipment, as well as the comprehensive editing skills to focus on the important aspects of the subject at hand. Communicating real or abstract ideas in a clear and concise way.

As a teacher, I have even used one audio theater project as a means to assess two completely different classes. Being a teacher of both Introduction to Performance, and Introduction to Media Concepts, I let the recording of Vocal Performance and live sound effects (re-creating folk tales over a microphone) be a final assessment in one class, and the use of editing and enhancement software (fixing timing, adding music and filtering using Garage Band or Audacity) be the assessment for the other. This is a simple idea that has saved me time, and is really just the tip of the iceberg.

I would like to give you some more specific examples of how audio theatre is being used around the country, and around the world, to help enhance the content of school subjects, as well as important social issues. There’s so much cool stuff out there, I’ll save out for a separate post.

Stay tuned!
-Marques Brown

Light as a Feather

2011-08-02T09:06:00.042-05:00

Original Artwork by Amy Hutcheson

We just posted our adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's satirical fable "Feathertop." I know, I know, Hawthorne. He's right up there with Melville and Dostoyevsky on the list of authors that every student hates to read.

But give "Feathertop" a chance. It's not nearly as dreary as, say, The Scarlet Letter (which I confess to liking as well). In fact, for a Hawthorne piece, it's downright upbeat. It's got magic and witchcraft, an invisible demon who lights pipes, a lot of humor (some subtle, some not), and a truly poignant ending. Yes, it's Hawthorne, but it doesn't feel like homework.

You'll notice that we pulled a similar trick with Melville for our very first show, recording the witty, affecting satire "Bartleby the Scrivener." One of the great things about Chatterbox is that we're able to bring works like these to vibrant, entertaining life. They have life on the page, of course. But for those who groan at the very mention of these writers, I hope our adaptations are a pleasant surprise, and suggest the rewards to be found within the original works.

We recorded "Feathertop" at the same time as Robert Louis Stevenson's "Markheim," and I loved the thematic echoes between the two pieces. (Spoiler alert!) In both, the title character ultimately chooses non-existence rather than acceptance of what he is. That sounds awfully bleak, but the key point is that both characters recognize something intolerable in their natures, something flawed but unchangeable, and decide that the only way to escape it is through self-destruction. So there's a certain tragic nobility to their choices -- a kind of redemption. To quote Markheim: "If my life be an ill thing, I can lay it down."

For a variety of reasons, "Feathertop" was one of those long-in-gestation shows; it was actually recorded back in April 2010, over the span of about a week. Now that it's finished, I hope the cast and crew enjoys revisiting this strange, funny little parable. And of course I hope you enjoy it as well.

Listen up & learn!

2011-07-21T12:52:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody,

Marques Brown here, Education Director for Chatterbox Audio Theater. I realized that I had yet to contribute to our Chatterblog, and as a member of the group who has a lot to say, especially when it comes to our medium and education, I will be rectifying my silence by blogging at least once a month on the subject of audio theater and education. In the next several weeks, be expecting to hear more from me on the subject, and more specifically about including my thoughts and ideas in support of incorporating audio theater in to our student’s curriculum and school experience. My “Back to School” series of blog entries will focus on why I think audio theater is a perfect medium for teaching cross-curriculum subjects, engaging students in the classroom, and employing brain based learning, education taxonomies, and meeting standards and objectives. Not only will I discuss why I think it is important, but I will also share some ideas how to incorporate audio theater to its fullest potential if you are not sure how to introduce such a project. As always, I hope this will open up a dialogue between our fans, especially parents and educators.

Cheers, and keep listening!

-Marques W. Brown

This Week in Listening: The Columbia Workshop

2011-07-17T13:23:00.000-05:00

Orson Welles, Irving Reis, and Archibald MacLeish working on The Fall of the City.

Things are calming down for me after a busy couple of weeks (months, really), so I'm looking forward to getting back on track with my listening. Because of Chatterbox's upcoming recreation of "Meridian 7-1212," I've been inspired to dig deeper into The Columbia Workshop.

According to author John Dunning, when The Columbia Workshop debuted in 1936, radio was only a decade old and was still trying to decide what kind of medium it would be: "Would it be commercial or a public entity? What would be allowed in the name of 'art'? Was radio by its nature simply another vehicle for pop culture, to be absorbed by the lowest common denominator and immediately forgotten?"

Luckily, a man named Irving Reis saw the artistic potential inherent in sound. Reis conceived of and championed The Columbia Workshop from the beginning. In the early days, not only was he the director of the show, but he also wrote several scripts (including "Meridian 7-1212") and apparently even answered the show's fan mail. William N. Robson took over for Reis in late 1937. Robson shared Reis's interest in experimentation but grounded the show in more literary works.

The Columbia Workshop was billed as a show of "experimental radio." The idea was to find brave, creative writers and directors to explore the vast possibilities of this new medium. According to Douglas Coulter, "The Workshop programs grew out of a conviction that there was much to be done to improve the originality of radio drama, both in content and in production."

Coulter and Wikipedia detail several of the show's innovations, including extended soundscapes, microphone filters, and the use of music cues to suggest sound effects. During its eight-year run (from 1936 - 1943, then again from 1946 - 1947), the Workshop was a breakout show for several audio luminaries, including composer Bernard Hermann and radio writer par excellence Norman Corwin.

The Workshop was broadcast as a "sustaining" show, meaning it had no advertisers and thus no outside forces to answer to. The creators were free to work in the name of art, not commerce.

The Columbia Workshop's finest hour is generally considered to be its production of Archibald MacLeish's poetic, gorgeous, frightening, and moving original script "The Fall of the City," which features Orson Welles, Burgess Meredith, and about 300 extras. With a celebrated poet like MacLeish on its side, The Columbia Workshop put to rest any question of whether radio could be a medium for art.

I had heard a handful of Columbia Workshop plays after stumbling across "Meridian 7-1212." Upon finding a longer list on archive.org, I'm really enjoying jumping back in. As with any experimental work, some of the shows are better than others, but all have something worthwhile to offer. Plus, they're almost entirely devoid of any cliched "Old Time Radio" trappings. Heck, most of them are shows I'd be proud for Chatterbox to produce today. Not surprisingly, I find listening to this show very inspiring.

The list begins with Orson Welles's one-hour version of Hamlet, and while I'm left hungry for the full-length play, it's always a treat to hear Welles doing Shakespeare. Also recommended are an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's fable "The Happy Prince" and the two-part "Alice in Wonderland." "The Fall of the City" really is as good as its reputation. And naturally I'm quite fond of "Meridian 7-1212," which is a master class in intertwining stories, shifting moods, and mounting suspense. (Chatterbox's recreation will debut on The Sonic Society in August.)

There are more than 60 Columbia Workshop productions freely available on archive.org. I'm going to be checking them out in the weeks and months ahead. You should, too -- I'd love to hear your thoughts.

When You Hear the Signal, the Time Will Be...

2011-07-06T09:43:00.001-05:00

And here's just a glimpse at the amazing cast we managed to assemble for Meridian 7-1212:

These photos only show about half the people involved -- it was a big group! As before, the photos are courtesy of Mike Hanrahan. Keep an ear out for Meridian on The Sonic Society podcast this August. It will hit the Chatterbox site sometime afterward!

The Weed of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit

2011-06-13T18:54:00.001-05:00

Here are a couple of sneak-peek images from our upcoming recreation of The Shadow:

The photos are by Mike Hanrahan. Our recording of The Shadow will debut in August on The Sonic Society podcast, along with another Chatterbox Old-Time Radio Recreation, Meridian 7-1212. Stay tuned!

On Post-Production

2011-06-05T10:32:00.000-05:00

Alla Bartoshchuk's amazing artwork for Markheim.

This month, Chatterbox will be releasing two diametrically opposite shows. The first, Markheim, is already available for streaming and download from our website. The second, our live performance of The Bremen Town Musicians, will be posted later in the month.

The differences are numerous. One show is dark and serious; one is light and fun. One was recorded in an intimate studio setting; one was recorded live, with audience interaction. And one of them definitely does not feature the song "I'm Just a Honkey-Tonk Donkey."

More to the point of today's post, however, The Bremen Town Musicians will be available within a month of its recording, whereas Markheim was recorded in April of 2010, more than a year ago. Why do some of our shows have extended post-production schedules, while others are turned around almost immediately?

It happens for a lot of reasons. One is the recording technique. Our live shows typically don't get much post-production. Everything has to be carefully set up on the front end, and whatever happens during the performance is generally what ends up on the site. (As a perfectionist, some of the flubs in our live shows drive me crazy. [Especially my own.] But it's also part of those shows' charm.) Because a lot of our live shows are mixed down to stereo as we're recording them -- as opposed to studio shows, where we can keep each performance separated onto its own audio track -- we don't have nearly as many editing options.

Now, to be clear, none of our shows get that much editing in post. We don't assemble our shows, e.g. taking lines from three different takes and cobbling them together. No matter the setting, all of our actors are always in the same room with one another, and the interaction you hear is genuine. Still, studio shows leave much more room for polishing. We'll go back and re-record flubbed lines, for instance, and cut out the flub in post. Not so with a live recording, where again, whatever happens -- happens.

That's one reason some shows take longer than others. Additionally, even after they're finished, shows like Markheim sometimes get held back to make room for shows that need to be posted on a schedule. Our Halloween and Christmas offerings are the most obvious examples. On Halloween night, we present our live performance on WKNO-FM. We like to post the performance to the website within a week or so of Halloween, when people are still in the mood for something scary. We also try to turn our Children's Theatre Festival shows around pretty quickly as well, in order to capitalize on the excitement from those who attended. Shows like Markheim (which is, admittedly, set on Christmas Day) are handy because they can be posted at any time of year.

Finally, we're just darn busy. Our intrepid producers rarely finish recording a show before I'm recruiting them to record another. They also have jobs, lives, and gigs with other theaters. (The nerve!) So, projects sometimes get shelved because there's simply no time to work on them.

Since most of our fans don't know what we've got up our sleeves until it shows up on the site, the people who suffer the most from long post-production times are those involved in the shows. I've repeatedly assured our Markheim cast that there was nothing wrong with the show or their performances; the recording didn't require any major surgery. It just necessarily got put on the back burner as we renovated and opened our studio, presented a couple of live shows, and got caught up in the holidays. In the meantime, everyone got older, and some things changed, like Markheim lead actor Randal Cooper relocating to Nashville.

Part of what makes these recordings so powerful for me is that they're a snapshot of a particular moment in time -- a record of the people we were, and the people we were with. I think the Markheim cast will enjoy re-discovering this show and thinking back to the rehearsal and recording process last year. More poignantly, after the loss of wonderful people like Ralph Hatley and Laurie Cook McIntosh, having all these talents on record seems like an incredible gift.

So there's a little peek behind the curtain at the two shows you'll hear from us this June. Regardless of their differences, I sincerely hope you'll enjoy them both.

Memphis Children's Theatre Festival

2011-05-27T11:37:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow (Saturday, May 28), Chatterbox will perform live at the Memphis Children's Theatre Festival for the fourth year in a row. This absolutely charming event is organized by Voices of the South and hosted at the McCoy Theatre at Rhodes College. Both organizations are good friends to us, so for that and a hundred other reasons, this is an event we truly love to take part in!

Chatterbox performs at 3:15. We'll also be there all morning at a craft booth, helping kids make their own percussion instruments out of simple materials. They can then bring those instruments to the Chatterbox performance and play along with the songs.

Our show, The Bremen Town Musicians, is an update of a classic fairy tale. It features a honkey-tonk donkey, a bluesy hound dog, a jazzy cat, and a rock-and-roll rooster, all of whom team up to (accidentally) fend off a gang of bad guys. The show is adapted and directed by Chatterbox Education Director Marques Brown. It features original songs and great character voices, and it promises to be great fun for children and adults alike.

Here's a brief rundown of our Children's Theatre Festival performances. In 2008, we performed The Queen Bee as well as a live version of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. In 2009, we presented Esemerelda the Ugly Princess and Stone Soup. In 2010, we offered The Shepherd of Clouds. So check out those shows, then join us tomorrow as we create another! We hope to see you there.

On Selecting Shows

2011-03-19T14:58:00.001-05:00

One question I'm asked fairly frequently is: "How do you pick which shows Chatterbox records?" Which often translates as: "You just did a Jack London story and now you're doing a Greek myth. What's the thought process here?" With lots of ideas and very limited resources, it's definitely a balancing act, though often an enjoyable one. Here's an attempt to explain the philosophy behind our show selection.

First, and probably most obviously, it's subjective. There's no science behind it. There are hundreds of scripts out there that might make for a great recording -- scripts that another audio group might jump on in a heartbeat. But if, for whatever reason, the story doesn't grab any of us, we pass. Adapting, casting, scheduling, rehearsing, recording, editing, and posting a show takes a tremendous amount of work, and if we're not excited about it on the front end, chances are we'll never make it through. So any show we pick has to be particularly enticing to us from the outset for one reason or another, whether it's the content, the technical challenges involved, the casting opportunities it presents, or something else entirely.

Who is the "us" in the previous paragraph? Well, even though as Executive Director I give the ultimate thumbs-up or thumbs-down, I also like to decentralize the selection process as much as possible. I've never wanted Chatterbox to reflect only my tastes and my sensibilities. To that end, I work closely with Artistic Director Kyle Hatley to brainstorm ideas for shows. (Kyle also writes and directs his own shows, mostly independently of my involvement, which is not something I'd trust just anybody to do.) Marques and Dave are also usually involved to some extent. And we've got an excellent group of independent readers who look over all submissions we receive and make recommendations as to which ones may fit with our priorities and preferences.

Did you catch that? Yes, Chatterbox accepts script submissions. You can pitch us your idea (or your existing script) by using the Contact page on the Chatterbox website. But what are the Inner Sanctum, the Readers' Circle, and I looking for in a script? Here are a few important qualities:

1. Free. We don't have a lot of money, so we steer clear of any stories that involve copyright or licensing fees. It's complicated, expensive, and time-consuming. Plus most lawyers' heads would probably explode trying to figure out a fair price. ("It's online? And free? Forever?" [SFX: LOUD BANG]) So, we stick to original works (where we have express permission from the author) or works that have fallen into the public domain and are no longer under copyright. Since that latter category includes most stories written before the 1920s, we've still got centuries of material to choose from.

2. Meaty. Chatterbox's mission statement says that our work is intended to "enlighten, entertain, and inspire." Sure, some of our shows lean more toward pure entertainment (I'm looking at you, Sight Gag). But in general, we like to take on works that offer some kind of artistic or intellectual nourishment. Something with some meat to it. Heck, look at some of the heavyweight authors we've taken on: Melville, Kafka, Joyce, Verne, Stevenson, Hawthorne, Sophocles. (Those last three are upcoming shows, by the way, so you won't find them on the site just yet.) There's nothing wrong with lighter shows, but to paraphrase Edward Albee, we think that if you're going to spend hours of your time listening to a story, there should be some danger that you'll end up transformed by it.

3. Fresh. On a similar note, check out the Chatterbox show listings. You won't find a single noir piece, campy soap opera, or sci-fi comedy a la The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Why not? Well, there's nothing wrong with any of these genres, but practically every audio theater troupe out there (and there aren't many of us) already does them. Some do them extremely well, but with all respect to our colleagues, we feel that there are just too many other genres to explore. And personally, I don't like the implication that audio is inherently tied to mid-20th-century America, and that we can no longer do anything new with it. While the stories we record aren't always new (in fact, some are hundreds of years old), we certainly hope they bring something new to the table.

4. Reasonable. Your 500-page audio script tracing the lives and loves of six generations of the Galloway family was beautiful. It really was. But there's just no way we can take on something of that scope, not with the limited resources I mentioned earlier. While we don't shy away from richly imagined, ambitious shows (see Dead and Gone, Pinocchio, or our annual Halloween Shows, to name a few), there's a logistical line we simply can't cross. So if the script calls for 150 characters and enormously complicated effects, we probably won't be able to do it justice.

5. Exciting. And that brings us back to the X factor that I was talking about above. Each script we select has some quality that speaks to one of us. We can't always explain what it is. I can't always tell you why we adapted this story rather than that when both are from the same author or both address the same basic themes. Some shows just speak to you, that's all. And when a show speaks to one of us, it has a much better chance of speaking to one of you.

So, there you have it: a subjective and entirely unscientific explanation of why we produce what we produce. Together, it adds up to a very particular -- and, I hope, unique -- voice.

The Song of Orpheus

2011-02-16T20:09:00.000-06:00

Billy as Orpheus during Argonautica rehearsals.

Argonautica was a big hit last weekend, with sold-out crowds at both performances! Thanks to all who attended. We had a great time. By way of closing out this project, here's one final blog (written just before the show debuted) by Billy Pullen, who played Orpheus, the legendary musician and our story's narrator.

Before there was the wheel, there was the story…and what a story “Argonautica” is. As a teacher I relish all the elements this ancient story possesses. As an actor I treasure Chatterbox for making the telling of this story such a congenial adventure. The obvious paradox for us as a cast is telling this story via radio while simultaneously performing in front of a live audience, but with Bob’s directorial vision, this process has been a pleasant one. Bob both listens and watches perceptively.

As Orpheus the narrator, I maintain both an objective and subjective point of view. I talk to the audience and then get the privilege to interact with the dynamic characters. Since narrating consumes much of my focus, I don’t get to play with the sound effects. However, I’ve enjoyed watching all the monsters, legends, and storms
come alive through sound.

Nevertheless all of us are united in telling this story. “In the tale, in the telling, we are all one blood…and we all come to the end together, and even to the beginning; living, as we do, in the middle.” (Ursula K. Le Guin)

That wraps up our entries on the Argonautica performance, but stay tuned as we prepare to delve into a couple of new shows, as well as a variety of other audio-theater-related topics!

Argonautica Debuts TONIGHT!

2011-02-11T10:08:00.000-06:00

Jason (Chris Jowers) and Medea (Natalie Jones) meet for the first time.

In anticipation of this weekend's performance, here's one more blog from our Argonautica cast. This one comes from Chris Jowers, who plays Jason himself.

I have been a fan of Greek mythology ever since I was a kid. Epic heroes fighting horrific monsters? What’s not to love? As a kid, I spent countless hours in my backyard battling imaginary skeletal warriors, dragons, and evil soldiers. Who knew all those hours of swinging a stick around my head and slashing at thin air would finally pay off?

I have to say one of my favorite experiences in this production, besides befriending some of the most talented folks I have ever met, has been recreating the various battles of the Argonauts and the trials of Jason against the monsters of legend on stage. I don’t want to give anything away, but you will hear monsters of myth come to life on stage with uncanny skill. Bob has done a great job putting the elements together to make our monsters breathe. Not only does this cast have amazing vocal skill, but using everyday objects they bring these creatures to life.

When you hear this production, I am certain you will be transported back to a place in your childhood when you easily pretend yourself into a world of heroes, monsters, and magic. Come to the show and you will witness a group of talented actors and musicians having a great time bringing a legend to life. It is not something you will want to miss.

Oh, and Jyo? Jason would dance circles around Aeetes. Any place, any time. ;)

Argonaut, Boread, and King: Ross Williams

2011-02-09T15:43:00.001-06:00

Chris and Ross working the SFX table. You can tell this photo is from

a few weeks ago because the table is so much more crowded now.

Chatterbox's version of the Argo sets sail this weekend! If you're in the area, I hope you can attend the show at the McCoy Theatre at Rhodes College, 7:30 pm this Friday and Saturday. Here's a blog post from Ross Williams, who plays several roles in the show, including the Argonauts Idas and Calais and the noble king Cyzicus.

This is my first time working with Chatterbox. The experience has been interesting and a lot of fun. I've always loved to act, and the opportunity afforded by audio theater to perform several different characters in the course of one production has been great. The most difficult part of the rehearsal process has probably been remembering to act into the microphone as opposed to turning and facing my fellow actors.

The production has really started to take shape in the past week or so since we've added most of the music and sound effects. Before I started this, I had a basic understanding of how old radio shows used sound effects to add realism to the actors' narratives, but I had no idea how rich and textured an audio performance could be with music and effects.

The rest of the cast has also been great. Everyone is so talented and willing to make the production a success. I also think it's nice that we come from such different professions and areas of life. With only a week of rehearsals left, I'm really looking forward to putting on an entertaining show.

Argonautica live performance THIS WEEKEND!

2011-02-07T12:09:00.002-06:00

A replica of the Argo, built (and sailed) by a team of Greek sailors in 2008.

We're enjoying sharing these posts from our Argonautica cast members, so we've got a few more leading up to the show's performances this Friday and Saturday. (More info on the Chatterbox website.) Today's entry comes from Jyo Carolino, who plays the Argonaut Telamon as well as the cruel king Aeetes.

Oyo.

I was introduced to Bob and Chatterbox only last year, but I had an enjoyable experience and am happy to be working with the cast and crew of Argonautica. I had met only two members of the team prior to joining, so I thought I would be very out of place. The group is very friendly, however, and we all get along pretty well for a group of strangers. That would be theatre for you. Of course, it does help that we are (as Abby said before) a bunch of cut-ups.

The process has been a very fast-paced but rewarding one. Everything comes in layers—the words, and then the voices and intonations, and then sound effects, and then music, and then everything together. It really is a novel process. It was strange for me to speak to a microphone instead of directly to a person, and to yell the battle cries of a character when I was actually not in a physical fight. But you would not know that from just listening to the audio. Every combat scene gets my adrenaline pumping just as it would should there be choreography attached. Every party or banquet gets us garrulous and jovial. The sound effects are just as fun to work; creating a whirlpool or a rolling sea tide was a rather curious but entertaining experience. Just wait for the monsters and demons. That will be a trip for you.

If there was one thing that I wish we could add to the show… it would be some form of hip-hop. To have Billy (who plays Orpheus) break out some crazy rhymes would have been a treat; alas, the time period is not conducive to such things. Seriously, who would not want to see Jason and King Aeetes in a breakdance battle for possession of the Golden Fleece? Hmm, maybe for Medea…

All Aboard the Argo

2011-02-04T10:37:00.002-06:00

Jim and Brent making cricket sounds.

Here's another insider's post from an Argonautica cast member! Today's entry comes from Brent Morgan, who plays Tiphys, Zetes, and several other roles in our upcoming production.

So I'm honored that Bob & Tommy asked me to write this blog post. Sometimes when you're the newest member of a new group, it's easy to feel like you're still an outsider. I mean, I know I was 'officially' accepted when Bob cast me, but that was mostly because it counted toward his mandated community service hours, so it's still hard. But this is a great group, very friendly and extremely talented, and I'm just trying to keep up and contribute the best I can.

It's certainly cliche, but absolutely truthful, that you don't know how much work goes into the finished product until you go through it yourself. I asked Bob if I could get out of rehearsals if I slept with him, and now I see why he declined: the group, both individually and as a whole, has made substantial progress over the past two weeks.

I must honestly say that I'm very impressed with Bob's directing; he not only catches what little I notice, but so much more. And while rehearsing the same script over and over is naturally tedious, it's a genuine pleasure watching (and hearing) the other actors. If every parent could provide a lilting, soothing narration like Billy Pullen's Orpheus, children would never know how any bedtime story ended. I feel safe in saying that each cast member delivers particular lines in a better way than I would ever have thought of, or that I would be incapable of reproducing no matter how hard I tried (or both).

Being a natural cataloguer, I'll note my top 5 favorite lines (as a combination of writing and delivery) in another blog post, along with the best behind-the-scenes comments. Until then, keep checking the blog for updates, mark your calendars for February 11-12, and happy listening!

More insight into Argonautica

2011-01-30T12:59:00.000-06:00

Abby and Ross work to create the sound of a campfire.

Hi, all! Our next post comes to us from Abigail Amsden, a cast member in our upcoming production of Argonautica. Abby reads five or six different roles and is responsible for performing a huge number of sound effects. We asked her to talk about her experiences with Chatterbox so far.

I learned about Chatterbox on Facebook. One of my friends posted a Chatterbox link of a show they were in and I had to find out what this audio theater was all about. I hit the “like” button so I could find out when auditions were being held. After a couple months, auditions for Argonautica were posted. It was the first time I had ever prepared two contrasting monologues. Not as easy as it sounds!

We’ve been rehearsing for a couple weeks now and we just finished blocking Act 2. We’re a bunch of cut ups so Bob’s been real patient and fun to work with. As a director he’s great at telling you exactly what he wants out of the character. We’re all playing multiple roles so it’s challenging, but so entertaining! The cast is amazing to work with and really talented. It’s crazy hearing some of the voices that come out of people.

I’ve learned a couple things so far… like correct Roman and Greek pronunciations. And what ‘Walla’ really is. We’re going to start adding sound effects tonight and I can’t wait. I’m curious to see how we’ll make the sounds for waves, mighty rowing, and flapping wings!

Welcome to the Chatterblog!

2011-01-24T11:03:00.001-06:00

Brent, Chris, Joe, and Ross during Argonautica rehearsal

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Chatterbox Audio Theater's official blog! We're going to kick things off with a post from Tommy Harless, Assistant Director of Chatterbox's upcoming live performance of Argonautica. Here's Tommy:

Hello Chatterbox Fans! As a part of our debut of Argonautica, we decided to set up a blog to give y’all an exclusive look at the work we directors, actors, and techies do to bring you the highest-quality radio drama. Each post will be from someone directly involved with the day-to day operation behind the final recording you can hear, for free, online. If reading this blog interests you in participating, please sign up for our email newsletter, and maybe you too can be part of one of Chatterbox’s entirely original online radio productions.

My name is Tommy Harless, and I am Assistant Directing Chatterbox’s production of Argonautica. I am a freshman at Rhodes College, and am interning with Chatterbox as part of Rhodes’s Center for the Outreach in the Development of the Arts fellowship. Thus far, we have had two rehearsals, and have another one tonight. It’s been great getting to hear the cast work and bring to life this amazing story.

Argonautica is being directed by, and was adapted by, Robert Arnold, the Executive Director of Chatterbox, so the groundwork for this production has been in place for a while. Bob and I first started talking about this last semester, and I got a chance to read the script when it was being finalized. At the end of last semester, we held open auditions to determine our cast, and I was shocked at the number of people who attended and their talent level. Unfortunately, we couldn’t cast everyone, but we are very happy with those actors we cast.

Argonautica presents a unique challenge as a radio drama because of the range of characters presented, with over 30 different voices heard throughout the story. Thus, each actor has to present a range of voices and characters, often within the same scene. Also, the actors will be involved in the production of manual sound effects, which will be timed, performed, and recorded live during the show. I am excited to see how the actors will take to their roles in the upcoming rehearsals, and I am confident that this will be one of the most exciting and challenging shows Chatterbox has performed.

Argonautica will be performed in front of a live studio audience at the McCoy Theatre at Rhodes College in Memphis, February 11th and 12th at 7:30 pm. Tickets can be purchased through the McCoy Theater Box Office, 901-843-3839. Prices are $10 General Admission / $7 Seniors / $5 Students / $2 Rhodes Students. Hurry and get them, as there is limited room!