The Radio Works 2001 Season

* This Audible Earth & WorldMix Montreal/Kansas City *

From producer Dwight Frizzell, and his students in the “Audio for Video, Performance and Installation” class at the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, comes This Audible Earth. Throughout this class, students used the mechanism of “transduction” — the conversion of a sound or signal from one medium into another — to create a series of aural portraits of the physical world around us. With the students’ permission, Frizzell edited and rearranged these portraits into a larger landscape, a journey through the sumptuous soundscape of our “inaudible” planet to feature on his “From Ark to Microchip” audio series. Additionally, you will hear a selection from WorldMix Montreal/Kansas City. In this piece — a real-time, two-city event created during the Third Manifestation Arts Festival in Montreal, Canada — a group of artists from Montreal, under the direction of performance artist Tony Allard, were connected digitally to a group of audio art students from Kansas City Art Institute, under the direction of Dwight Frizzell. The performance begins in each respective city with a person eating fruit. From this central point, our ear reach expands ever outwards across each cityscape and on to regional, continental, global, solar and intergalactic space.

* Tread Softly Bill Lizard *

From Crazy Dog Audio Theatre in Dublin, Ireland and producer Roger Gregg comes Tread Softly Bill Lizard. Thrown off his Train of Thought, detective and hapless Yank tourist Bill Lizard needs his dimensional-portal-opening mobile phone in order to get home from a journey through an Ireland that isn’t on any tourist map.

* Fat Cats *

From writer and producer Tom Lopez of ZBS Media in Fort Edwards, New York, comes Fat Cats. Custom painter and finisher Willie, avid reader of paperback detective novels, is hired by big city millionare Lucas Trust to repaint a room in Lucas’s tremendous summer cottage. However, Willie soon suspects something is afoot. Has he been reading too many Short Top Detroit hard-boiled detective novels, or could it be the presence of Lucas Trust’s swimsuit model girlfriend who is tickling Willie’s...apprehensions?

* White Noise Radio Theater *

From producer Lester Milton and co-writer/co-performer Stephen Brophy of Pacifica, California, comes a sampling of White Noise Radio Theater. Through a series of comic sketches, imaginary advertisements, and maximally verbose radio fix-it spots, White Noise offers a humorous journey through our radio landscape–where reality itself is on the fritz.

* Zagora *

From writer/producer Susan Stone of KPFA in Berkeley, California, comes Zagora. An American woman visits the ancient village of Zagora in eastern Morocco, where she is new to the beauty and strangeness of life at the edge of the desert.

* Tales of Myster & Mirth for Anyone Stuck in Traffic *

From writer/director Jonathan Lowe and producer/engineer Jeff Davis of Sun Sound Audio Theatre comes a selection from “Tales of Mystery & Mirth for Anyone Stuck in Traffic.” The three stories presented were created to benefit the Sun Sound Radio for the Visually Impaired. They include “A 12 Step Program for Sports Fanatics,” “Little Dreams,” and “Playing with Fire.”

* Moral of the Story *

From veteran storytellers Bobby and Sherry Norfolk of Atlanta, Georgia and August House Publishers comes “The Moral of the Story: Folktales for Character Development.” Believing that the teaching of moral lessons through folktales has always played an important role in storytelling, this husband and wife team performed a collection of their stories based on folk traditions from all over the world.

* Lives of the Cat *

From producer Angelo Panetta of the Radio Repertory Company of America in Saddle Brook, New Jersey comes an episode from “The Lives of the Cat.” When the Head of Police and his vicious Lieutenant threaten to seize control from Governor Econ, it is up to honest cops like Jack Reynolds and daring detective Anne Manx to save the entire sector. Lucky for Governor Econ, detective Manx has a trick up her sleeve.

* The Waiting Room *

From Producer Janine Preston of WKNH Radio Theatre in Gilsum, New Hampshire comes a selection from The Waiting Room. Created from a collection of poems written by Beverly Archibald, The Waiting Room gives voice to the hopes and struggles of the elderly inhabitants of a nursery home. From Producer Janine Preston in Gilsum, New Hampshire, this is a selection from The Waiting Room.

* The Life At Night *

From Producer John O’Brien of Complete Theatrical Sound in Lake Elmo, MN, this is a selection from Life at Night. This unique fusion of spoken text, sound effects, and music follows the gentle collapse and rebirth of narrator Elliot–a middle-aged white-collar Chicagoan, laid off suddenly after twenty years at the same company. From Producer John O’Brien of Complete Theatrical Sound in Lake Elmo, MN, this is a selection from Life at Night.

* The Gristmill: The Appointment Book *

From producer Scott Hickey of STH Productions in Lowell, Massachusetts comes “The Appointment Book.” Created as a part of the on-going horror serial THE GRIST MILL, this stand-alone episode asks the question “What if any entry we wrote in our appointment book came true.”

* DON'T and SquareCloud *

From producer Alex Oliszewski of Square Cloud Radio Theatre in Durango, Colorado and director Audrey Tebrich comes a selection from “Don’t.” Created by artists in the local Durango community, “Don’t” explores the role of “don’t” in the world we live in with the purpose of recreating these don’ts into dos. Also, producer Alex Oliszewski presents two short pieces created as part of Square Cloud Radio Theatre: “ The Boy and the Rainbow” and “I Don’t Know.”

* Saiorse *

From writer and composer Landon Dowdey and producers Barry Fasman and John O’Kennedy of Los Angeles, California, comes this selection from Saiorse. Based in part on The Four Zoas, an unfinished epic created by poet/artist William Blake, this contemporary English-speaking opera follows the awakening of the Saiorse, the Celtic name for Freedom, in the imagination of a young woman suffering through an increasingly dispassionate marriage.

* Dorothy and The Wizard *

From actor, writer, and director Jerry Robbins and The Colonial Radio Theatre On the Air comes a selection from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz from the collection “The Wonderful World of Oz.” This selection, taken from the fourth Oz book by L. Frank Baum, explores storylines beyond the famous movie that we all know and love.

* The Horn of Gabriel *

From Producer Sarah Montague and writer/director Andrew Joffe of Exit 3 Productions in New York City, comes The Horn Of Gabriel. From the ongoing series Jazzplay, this episode tells the story of hornmaker extraordinaire Louis Desbris who receives a devilish commission.

* The Vortex *

From Designer Sound Productions in Ontario, Canada in association with Bargain Basement Productions of Los Angeles, California comes The Vortex, a Cliff Weller Mystery. Strange things have been happening for detective Cliff Weller lately, but none stranger than his first client in a long time, a mysterious woman claiming to be from...Canada.

* Tsunami Radio Theater & The Tale of the Fortunate Smartie *

A sampling of shorter works from Producer/Artistic Director Patrick Redden of Tsunami Radio Theater of Orange California. This show also features work from Rod Lewis of Edwardstown South Australia, The Tale of the Fortunate Smartie – a chocolate covered candy similar to M&Ms in the United States. Truely a yummy adventure.

* Anything Can Happen *

From Executive Director Vinny Beachem of Pagliacci’s Fools, an Oakland California based radio production comes Anything Can Happen, the story of a door-to-door salesman and his unique attempts to sell magazines.

* I Might Be Edgar Allan Poe - Halloween Special *

From writer/performer Dawson Nichols and producer/engineer Jim Horne of The Ambit Group in Seattle, Washington, comes I Might Be Edgar Allan Poe. Originally created as a solo performance piece, touring to great acclaim throughout the US and internationally, I Might Be Edgar Allan Poe explores one man’s encounter with, and growing fascination with the prince of horror.