The first Plan-B radio show was RADIO MACBETH in the mid-nineties. For those of you who missed it, imagine 6-8 actors in costumes with swords and sounds effects, crammed in a closet in the attic of the Art Barn. The “scene” was a Victorian living room, a radio prominently place center stage, maybe a tea set and some cookies. The deal was you listened to most of the show, then for the fight scenes the actors would bust out of the closest(no pun intended), the lights would change, though all I really remember is maybe a blackout. Did they really do the fight scene with the swords in the dark? I bet they did. It was a crazy time. Tobin cranking out adapted scripts, directing and acting, Cheryl selling the props and costumes in yard sales at an duplex she rented on 11th East.

We tried radio drama a few times with varying success ’til THE WAR OF THE WORLDS in 2002. That was sure fun, and I think a real turning point for Plan-B. Sure we had had some great shows, but now we had the Studio Theatre at the Rose Wagner. On top of that we now had the Magic Barn. For those of you who do not know, the house I bought in 2000 came with a barn that is magic. If I need something and I think about it long enough it will appear, somewhere, hidden in the mountains of stuff. It has happened over and over again. Best of all it has a roof and finally some of the parts and pieces are out of the rain and snow.

Some of you may have noticed, and I know it a source of humor for the Rose staff, but we don’t just recycle cause were cheap, though admittedly I am. We recycle scenery cause it’s the right thing to do. It saves not just natural resources but also public arts funding. If you give us $1000 for scenery know that we are going to try and use every piece 3-5 more times, easily. How’s that for bang for you buck? In fact I was just going though the stacks the other day and I found flats the Skip Atkinson built for the big puppet show, can’t remember the title. That must have been 1992 or so. Sorry I digress.

We connected with Doug Fabrizio a few years ago and started doing radio drama again, moving into the KUER studio. Cheryl and Cory took care of things and they really didn’t need any scenery so I was kinda out of that loop for a while. Which is kind of a milepost in a organization, when things get so busy that whole projects started happening around us and we need to divide to conquer them all.

Anyway I think the studio experience really took what is now called RADIO HOUR to a whole other level. It gave us a chance to really figure out what radio theatre is and how it really is different from the other stuff we do. Big thanks to Doug and Elaine!

I am glad were doing big production radio theatre again, that people are into it and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Thanks for coming along for the ride, I know it’s been a long strange trip and sometime we don’t know where we are going but I know wherever we go it will be interesting.

A foley artist exists somewhere between an actor and a technician. Part of the world is of cue sheets and presetting props, and part of the world of having to have a costume and having to think about how to move about the stage. It was quite the jump for me to suddenly shift from being a theatre technician and designer to suddenly being more like an actor this was one of the many reason why RADIO HOUR: FRANKENSTEIN has been a totally new experience for me.

From the first meeting with sound designer Cory Thorell, I have been figuring out just what a foley artist is. Part of that is learning how to ‘play’ a chair and how to make a realistic wind sound. Part of it is being able to deal with doing 5 things in the time it takes you to normally do one them with out panicking. Part of it is being able to see (or in this case hear) past what you normally consider the world to be like.

While dealing with these challenges I have also had the pleasure of experiencing a side of theatre I had not experienced before. Instead of joining a cast for tech week and leaving when the show opened, with RADIO HOUR: FRANKENSTEIN I was at all the rehearsals and witnessed first hand the fun that is putting the basic building blocks of the show together – discussions about just how a character would sound to just when I was going to cut off an actor with a sound effect.

The next hurdle came with preview when the show was first performned in front of an audience. As someone that is used to hiding in the background of the theatre when an audience is in the building it was quite intimidating to be in front of one. After preview I thought that opening would be easier -after all I had done it! – that was not the case. Walking into the theatre at the start of the show was still nerve-wracking. Fortunately I didn’t have time to dwell on my nerves, for the show started and I had to starting making the noise in the form of some wind, a few splashes, and slam a wooden box closed to create the sound of a ship hatch closing. From there I enter into the world of foley barely come up for a breath during the show.

Working on RADIO HOUR: FRANKENSTEIN has been a completely new and pleasant experience for me.

RADIO HOUR: FRANKENSTEIN has been just the challenge I needed. I haven’t really taken on a full role since about 2006 back in DC, and that was only because someone in the play I was directing quit and I had to step in at the last second. I’ve been fortunate enough to keep my acting muscle lubed through scene work for Plan-B: SLAM and BANNED ’08. Now this.

After Cheryl asked me to play the Monster last spring I started the obligatory research, which consisted primarily of reading the Shelley novel and online articles that explored the symbolism of the Monster. As detailed as the descriptions are in the novel about the monster, it really wasn’t going to help my voice-only radio performance. And after 28 years in the theatre as an actor, director, playwright and producer, I’ve never seen anyone successfully play a symbol. Cymbal, yes; symbol, no. If acting is all about completing an action first, and establishing behavior second, then that’s where I finally started the ‘real’ work on the play.

I’ve been assigned four roles in the play. I created character worksheets for each scene a character is in to help me keep them straight, analyzed all of them using the same basic questions (Where does the scene take place? What occurred immediately before the scene started? What do they want to happen by the end of the scene? What is their relationship to the others in the scene? What do they want right now? How does their current goal satisfy their future plans? What tactics are they using to achieve their current want?). Basic acting stuff that leads to more revelatory questions like ‘Where were they born?’ The Lieutenant on the Prometheus will have a completely different birthplace than the Irish fisherman, or Frankenstein’s Swiss father, or the Monster that is ‘born’ right before the audience’s ears. And the answer to the birthplace question will immediately create behavior. The Irish fisherman will speak with an accent and the Lieutenant (whom I’ve decided is from York) speaks with a Midlands accent (akin to Sean Bean in the Sharpe’s Rifles series). The newly minted monster needs to learn how to speak, and because he’s been cobbled together from the spare parts of several corpses, he might have some built-in speech impediments to overcome. (All of this on top of Cheryl’s request that I try to create audibly an image of the Monster’s massiveness.)

From what I’ve seen in rehearsals, the other actors are experiencing similar trials in creating their different characters. The cast has certainly risen to meet the challenges presented in the script and I hope the audience enjoys the ride!

A quick peek inside Cory Thorell’s head as the sound design takes shape:

Two prop tables full of things that make noise. The classic door prop. A thunder sheet or two. Some rice poured on a washboard…hmm…will that do for rain? Maybe beans for a storm? How many mics do we have? Where are they placed?

Hanging out in the plumbing aisle bonking pipe ends with a pencil, thinking about church chimes, and the clerk asks me if he can help me ‘I wish you could but I don’t think you are on the same planet as me.’

How do you create Frankenstein’s lab and ELECTRICITY so it also reads on the radio?

The chop chop chop of body parts, dripping blood, and dead bodies. I need melons, a knife, some celery, a bag of potatoes, and a metal bucket and a wet rag. That should do it, I hope.

Setting the scene with sound…sound creates environment…what are these people doing? Where are they? What does that environment sound like?

Foley 1: Rain (continuous) and wind at the same time.
Foley 2: Door open, footsteps, door close. Cork pop, pour drink. Thunder sheet.
Foley 3: …wait, only 2 foleys…rethink…
Foley 1: Rain stop, hatch door, keys in lock.
Foley 2: Wind, stick snap, rustle bags, soft thunder.

Prop placement, script placement, mic placement, cabling, oh my.

Music accents for scene changes. Call composer again! Character themes to drive the plot forward. What sound do we need when Victor Frankenstein realizes the depth of the doom he has created? How does sound support sympathizing with the monster? How does sound support the innocence of Elizabeth?

Silence is a character too. Which scenes are text only? Which scenes are filled with background sounds?

There is a pile of props on the back porch that look different than they sound. Still need a few items. Oh shit, and teaching it all to two willing people!

Things to do…gotta go!