What is Audio Theater

Audio Theater was one of the first forms of recorded audio, as well as one of the first forms of broadcast audio. (For a treatise on this see Richard Fish's history of audio theater.)

It has been known by many names: Radio Drama, Radio Theater, Audio Drama, Audio Theater, Theater of the Mind, Full Cast Audio, and many others.

Well, today, it is primarily a recorded artform, all too infrequently broadcast on radio, so "Radio Drama" does not seem a good term.

LIkewise, "Old-Time Radio" (OTR), so often used to describe "golden-age" radio drama productions, does little to describe what continues to be an active, developing art form with new productions coming out all the time.

"Full Cast" audio is often used to describe audiobooks which use multiple voices, and even make some use of music and/or sound effects.

Although the line has blurred between audio theater and audiobooks, audio theater gererally makes more use of sound effects, music, and the art of performance than audio books, and is usually created, or at least adapted, specifically for audio presentation.

Indeed, there are a good many "audiobooks" which are, in effect, audio theater in diguise.

Created to activate the imagination, audio theater "is like audio books in technicolor and wide-screen."

Perhaps there is no perfect definition of audio theater. It is related to many art forms, and draws from all of them. Perhaps it is best described by the simple maxim, "I know it when I hear it."

Well, we're fans of audio theater, and we know it when we hear it. When we hear something good, we put it in the catalog, so you can hear it too. Thanks for visiting the site. And enjoy!