MY TWO CENTS' WORTH....

PART THE SECOND:

Okay.

Soooo...Susan and I were ready to start reviving the art of radio drama.  What was the next step?

I contacted Jim Walsh, chief-cook-and-bottle-washer of WITT 91.9 FM Zionsville Radio. Jim was enthusiastic.  He was welcoming.  But, he explained, although WITT had a donated production studio, it had no available engineer.  We would have to find our own.  He offered several suggestions:  find a willing engineer to use WITT's studio, find a studio (such as at University of Indianapolis or Butler University), or even engineer it on our own using programs such as Audacity or Garage Band.

After much investigation, it was decided that the first program would be engineered using Garage Band.

Next....who should engineer it?

This is where husbands come in.

Martin See ordered a good microphone and he and Franklin McClelland got to work learning the program.

Whew.  One problem solved.

Next up:  of what should our program consist?

We considered using already-published one-act plays.  We considered using old radio scripts. We wondered how much it was going to cost.

And that's when we hit on the idea of adapting classic/public domain material into radio scripts. The material is free and they have the advantage of name recognition.

And so the writing began.

Susan tackled several classic short stories.  I worked on a couple.  We read them aloud. We re-wrote, edited, re-read, re-edited.  And then had a screening party.

We invited about 30 people we knew who had an interest in theatre and asked them to perform and evaluate our adaptations.

With their help we decided on five, two of which we would include in our Halloween program:  The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, and a re-telling of an urban legend about a babysitter (aren't they always about babysitters?) and a clown.  The other three--The Open Window by Saki, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs--would be recorded in the first part of 2014. 

Lynne Manning, veteran writer of three Mysteries at Maplelawn, took on the job of shaping up the urban legend.

We had about 32-minutes' worth of material.  What could we add?

The shoo-in was Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven. OF COURSE.  Spooky, atmospheric.  And free.  What could be better?

We added the classic Act IV, Scene I of Shakespeare's Macbeth--a creepy scene of witches on a heath casting spells.  Truly frightening.

And I stumped for a reading of Little Orphant Annie, a scary children's poem that spawned the phrase "the Gobble-uns'll git you if you don't watch out!".  It was a change of pace from the other pieces we had, it was by James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier Poet, and it scared me to death when I was a little kid.  We had to have it.

And so our Halloween concept came together in five classic pieces--different styles, different authors, different eras but all just right for the scary season.

We announced auditions.  We held auditions.  We cast our shows.  We secured directors--Len Mozzi, Lynne Manning, Susan McClelland, et moi.  We rehearsed for about two weeks.

We were ready.