The Sonic Society : Recent Episodes
The Sonic Society
Original Air Date: 02212012- From the Old Country again we are proud to present the phenomenally talented Stevie K. Farnaby as this week’s guest hosts for the last two episodes of the “Strange Case of Springheel’d Jack” from Wireless Radio Theatre Company! And keep up the great work creating your own fantastic audioworks with Audio Drama Scriptwriting Month. 1,000 words a day. That’s not much for this Springheel’d Leap year, is it?
Original Air Date: 02142012- The amazing David Ault continues his tour as guest host again this week while Jack remains wandering the Sand Tunes. Tonight we complete our world premiere feature “The Rogue Plague” from the Leviathan Chronicles’! Make sure you go check out the Leviathan Chronicle yourself and keep writing for Audio Drama Scriptwriting Month.
Among the other amazing features, Sonic Summerstock is proudly highlighted in this Fairfax Independent article by long time friend of the show and journalist Mark Dreisonstok! From Rachel Pulliam’s “The Furnished Floor” to Jeffrey Billard’s adaptation of “A Wind is Rising” and the Amigos Collectives’ efforts in the recreation of “Temple of Vampires”, audio drama thrives in the brightest time of the year! Print graphic provided with permission from the Fairfax Independent.
Go get your copy today!
Original Air Date: 02072012- The amazing David Ault guest hosts this week while Jack remains lost in the Sand Tunes. Our feature is “The Rogue Plague”- a world wide podcast premiere of the Leviathan Chronicles’ Special Feature! Go check out the Leviathan Chronicles for all the amazing and top-rated Audio Drama they produce! And while you’re in the mood, don’t forget this month is Audio Drama Scriptwriting Month. Knuckle down and pinch out a good 1,000 words a day for this Leap Year Extravaganza!
Original Air Date: 01312012- Caith Donovan guest hosts while Jack continues to wander the Sand Tunes. We finish with the conclusion of Dream’s Landing‘s “Out of the Depths” and have a listen to Wireless Radio Theatre’s “The Strange Case of Springheel’d Jack”.
Original Air Date: 01252012- Samantha Mason and Matthew Boudreau from Aural Stage guest host while Jack wanders the Sand Tunes. Dream’s Landing’s Out of the Depths Part 1.
Original Air Date: 01172012- Jack wanders alone and lost in the sand tunes… before a strange figure beckons him onwards. “Strange Fate of Matthew Hornblower” and “Jack Sampson and The Roof of the World Part 1” by Broken Sea Audio are featured.
Original Air Date: 01102012- Jack and Jackabee have a final goodbye before listening to “Thwack That Dirigible” from Great Northern Audio and “The Last Person in this Place” from Cornicopia Radio.
Original Air Date: 01032012- Jack and Jackabee find themselves in a warzone and get a chance to listen to 3 Wizard Tales from Great Northern Audio.
Original Air Date: 12272011- Happy New Year everyone! Jack is back in the warehouse with Jackabee Cricket and this week’s episode is ZBS’s “Let Yourself be Loved” along with “They’re Made of Meat” adapted by Jonathan Mitchell.
Jack Ward and Andrew Dorfman’s series takes aim at religion in Joss Whedon’s “The Verse”- particularly the subject of cults with this latest episode. The nature of faith is a strong theme in Whedon’s original works and with “Religiosity” Ward and Dorfman give us a glimpse into the ethical beliefs of Book, Mal, and Jayne. Wait a minute, Jayne? Then stay tuned because we have a round-table discussion with a few more of our fabulous cast members, as well as more outtakes that will probably make you never want to eat hot dogs again!
Topics Covered: Crazy Dog Audio and Part 2 of “Silver-Tongued Devil” Podcast Review of PME in Ontario, California Podcasts mentioned:-Morning Brew Cast-Poddog Show-Mostly News-All Axis Radio-Podcast Pickle*More Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd.
Topics Covered: Another call on the listener line Keep emailing about community radio in your area!MIA Podcast Princess Crazy Dog Audio and Part 1 of “The Silver-Tongued Devil” Promo from Radio Yesterday Audio Drama Round Table With Jack Ward, Gregg Taylor, and Jim Munro.
Topics Covered: Missing “Talk Like a Pirate Day “Contact YOUR local community radio station about syndicating Sonic Society! Kerric Harvey and “Pirates” Saunders & Anderson and “The Secretary” Andrew Dorfman on SFX Audio Dani Cutler with podcast review of the Small World Podcast.
Episode 3: The Hub. After this next installment of the wildly popular series, we have an interview with the amazing composer of all the original music you hear in Firefly: Old Wounds, Sharon Bee. We end again with more outtakes! Have an idea for an Old Wounds T-Shirt? Send your ideas, as well as all your feedback, to sonicsociety@gmail.com.
Prologue: Andrew Dorfman on the Sonic Society.
The Society picks up its first American affiliate Dream Realm Enterprises and Celena’s Dreams Promo: The Gigcast Jack Ward on the Joys of Writing Audio Drama Podcast Review of “A Different Point of View” podiobook.
This year’s Chair: Andrew Dorfman. Topics covered: Decoder Ring Theatre and Black Jack Justice Podcast Review of 7th Son The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd
Episode 2: All Alone In The Black With a bit of of an homage to another sci-fi favorite, we bring you the second installment of Sonic Cinema’s first fan audio drama of the Firefly series. It will again be sure to leave you wanting more! After, a round-table interview with a few of the actors in the series, and we end this meeting as always with more outtakes!
Episode 1: Nuthin’s The Best ThingA treat for podcasting Browncoats everywhere! The production company Sonic Cinema (www.soniccinema.ca) is proud and very excited to bring you the premiere episode of the first Firefly fan audio to hit the ‘Verse. These podcasts will be in addition to the normal Sonic Society podcast, with a new episode every other week. It’s the season two that never was. You will also be introduced to the host of Sonic Society’s next season, Andrew Dorfman. After, join the Audio Addict as she chats with Jack Ward and Andrew Dorfman about writing, directing, and producing the series, why they chose to continue the series after season one, and tell us more about Sonic Cinema Productions. We close this extra-special podcast with some outtakes from their recording of the series. Sit back and strap in, because we’re ’bout to hit atmo!
Our regular broadcast through our radio affiliates this week has ended with Archibald MacLeigh’s “The Fall of the City” a triumphant distopic view of a society in distress. Because of various contract requirements, we’re unable to present this show for our podcasting audience. If you wish to listen to the Fall of the City, please tune in to one of our affiliate stations or download the archives from the CKDU website. In its place I’d like to present a special show available only through our podcast- Texas Radio Theater’s “The Snowman”. A Hans Christian Anderson tale adapted by our member in good standing Richard Frolich. This is our final meeting of this season’s Sonic Society, and there’s so much to be done. I want to thank all of our contributors and urge any of our more quiet members to send us your works or your thoughts for season 2.Afterwards, a chat with next season’s host Andrew Dorfman, and Audio Addict Dani Cutler, as they reminisce over the first season and give some hints as to what will be in store for Society Members next season. We then conclude this very successful first season with part 1 of Shadowlands Theatre’s “Ghosts of the Present”.**Please go to the show notes page for a link to Part 2 of “Ghosts of the Present! (this link will take you to the original episode that you can download and hear the exciting conclusion! Yes the show notes will match, but the media file is different.
Jack and David look at “The Fourth Ambit” episode 6: Tag Part 2 including a special recording from Craig Robotham’s play last summer! Happy Halloween coming everyone!
Jack flies solo returning back to England and the TORDIS projecting “The Fourth Ambit” episode 5: Children.
David’s holding down the fort while Jack’s at his son’s wedding as we continue with “The Fourth Ambit” with episode 4: Spectres
The Mutual Stage returns with another classic public domain screenplay for the world of audio drama. For the first time, the entire story of “Bringing Up Baby”
Written by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde and directed by Howard Hawks, this timeless classic starred Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Tonight on the stage, adapted by Jack J. Ward and starring some of the greatest modern-day audio drama actors. Stephanie Stearns-Dulli, Larry Groebe, John Bell, Tom Konkle, Theresa Ireland, Patte Rosebank and Paul Arbisi and produced by John Bell, Larry Groebe and Jack Ward. Premiering in it’s two acts in last season’s Sonic Summerstock Playhouse, it is here on the Mutual Stage we enjoy it’s full run!
David looks for a solution while Jack takes a flight back to Nova Scotia as we continue with “The Fourth Ambit” with episode 3: Freelance
Jack and David consider the fracturing of the Audioverse all through the Podverse as 20th Season continues with “The Fourth Ambit” episode 1: Stents, part 2 and a very special Sonic Workshop Bonus!
Jack and David mourn the loss of the TORDIS and consider that the audioverse has already forgotten about the Sonic Society. The 20th Season begins with the Audie bringing us “The Fourth Ambit” episode 1: Stents, part 1!
Completing our grand finale of Season 15, Sonic Cinema Productions presents the fantastic screwball comedy made popular by Howard Hawk, Cary Grant, and Katherine Hepburn- Bringing Up Baby. This public domain treasure is Jack’s all time favourite classic comedy movie and with the support of an incredible team including Stephanie Stearns-Dulli, Tom Konkle, Theresa Ireland, Patte Rosebank, John Bell, Paul Arbisi and directed by Larry Groebe, we present part two! See you next week!
For the beginning of our grand finale of Season 15, Sonic Cinema Productions presents the fantastic screwball comedy made popular by Howard Hawk, Cary Grant, and Katherine Hepburn- Bringing Up Baby. This public domain treasure is Jack’s all time favourite classic comedy movie and with the support of an incredible team including Stephanie Stearns-Dulli, Tom Konkle, Theresa Ireland, Patte Rosebank, John Bell, Paul Arbisi and directed by Larry Groebe, we present part one! With special thanks to John Bell!
Welcome back to Mutual Presents! Grab your best tux and join Jack and Penny for the next First Nighter double feature to kick of June! This week it’s “No Greater Need” and “Refresher Course”!
For our seventh presentation Rachel Pulliam returns with three women stand vigil, awaiting the death of a loved one in this tense tale of…Suspense! in “Waiting”!
In honour of Herbert Hoover’s 150th birthday this August 10th, William Wayne Anderson has shared this magnificent tribute masterpiece from the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site. We now proudly present from the life performance- “The Son of West Branch, America’s Great Humanitarian: The concept album”!
In a similar vein to “Sorry Wrong Number,” Laura Mirsky plays the role of Mary, an aging blind woman who must rely on her senses to deal with…”The Unexpected!”
Retro Rockets fires off with “A Chaste Kiss Good-Bye”. Cassidy is living her best life on her last day. But, what will happen to her husband Paris when he goes back to the Reclamation Centre? This week our cast stars Jessica Kinney, Peter Sauber, and Theresa Ireland. Production by Austin Beach and written by Jack J. Ward
Retro Rockets fires off with “Summer Break”. It’s that time of year and summer break is starting. If only it were like previous summers… Episode two of this anthology stars Jeffrey Billard and Angela Young and is produced by Austin Beach!
From Variety:
Blumhouse’s latest project is aiming to scare the headphones right off of horror fans.
iHeartPodcasts, Realm and Blumhouse Television announced the spooky new scripted podcast “Dream Sequence” on Monday. The show is set to launch on Aug. 5, with new episodes every Monday, available on the iHeartRadio app and all major platforms.
Per the official synopsis, “‘Dream Sequence’ will tell the story of two sisters and the nightmare that brings them back together. Kay Craft hasn’t spoken to her sister Sadie since the tragedy that tore them apart seven years ago. But now Sadie’s resurfaced with her new invention, a machine that can record nightmares, and a new theory – that something’s alive within them. Whatever it is, Kay will have to confront it to survive.”
“Dream Sequence” was created by Andrew Robinson and directed by Dave Beazley and John Brooks. Molly Barton, Brooks, Marci Wiseman and Beazley are executive producing for Realm; Alex Williams and Trevor Young for iHeartPodcasts; and Chris Dickie and Noah Feinberg for Blumhouse Television. “Dream Sequence” is the fourth scripted series in a previously announced slate of co-produced podcasts by Blumhouse Television and iHeartMedia.“Our slate of scripted shows with Blumhouse TV has captivated listeners and we’re excited to continue this journey with the introduction of ‘Dream Sequence,’” president of iHeartPodcasts Will Pearson said in a press release. “The new series will explore the realm of dreams and offer a chilling exploration of the darkest corners of the mind.”
“It has been a joy to extend our track record of producing high-quality and immersive content for partners while also contributing to Blumhouse’s run of horror hits with iHeartMedia,” CEO and co-founder of Realm Molly Barton also said in a statement. “We’re excited to join them in introducing the world to Andrew’s visionary, horrifying new take on the dream dimension.”
Lothar reconvenes the Amigos for another session of Sonic Echo and science fiction with the limited series “Beyond Tomorrow” and the episode “The Outer Limit“!
Lorna Rogers wants a Mink Coat and will do whatever it takes to get what she wants in this somewhat comedic episode of “The Unexpected.” Rachel Pulliam brings this feature to the Sonic Summerstock Playhouse and starring Nicee Wagner, Frank Guglielmelli, Paul Arbisi, and John Bell.
Sam Mowry has passed. I’m beyond saddened at this redwood of a talent in our forest of audio drama. Bob Hicks from Oregon Artswatch says it best in this article A giant falls: Sam Mowry, 1959-2024
Theater legend Sam A. Mowry, who died June 20, 2024. Photo courtesy Cindy McGean
Sam A. Mowry, a beloved Portland actor and director known both for his personal gentleness and generosity and for his deep, profoundly captivating onstage speaking voice, died on Saturday morning, July 20, 2024, at Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center in Clackamas. He suffered massive cardiac arrest while being prepared to undergo emergency surgery for severe blockages in his arteries. He was 64.
“For those who do not know, my beloved Sam died this morning. His heart gave out,” Cindy McGean, his wife and theatrical partner, announced on Facebook. “Find each other and share stories and hugs and maybe a glass of whiskey or some bacon. I am heartbroken.”
Mowry was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., and moved to Portland in 1979, where he quickly established himself as a rising young star and eventually as a leading figure in the city’s theater scene both onstage and behind the scenes, lending a guiding hand to the late Heart Theatre and several other theater companies. In 2001 he added radio drama to his theatrical projects as one of the founders and leading lights of Willamette Radio Workshop.
Over the years onstage he played roles as diverse as Bertram in All’s Well That Ends Well, Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear, a Willie Award-winning performance as Clark in Miguel Pinero’s prison drama Short Eyes, the teacher of deaf students in Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God, a nefarious Professor Moriarty in a musical version of Sherlock Holmes, and even a couple of imposing theatrical lions: Shere Khan in The Jungle Book and the lion/god Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Sam A. Mowry (center) as King Lear, with Megan Murphy Ruckman as Goneril and Tom Beckett as Kent, in a 2010 production at Mt. Hood Community College.Mowry was an actor of impressive range and subtlety, but his deep and agile voice was his calling card. It provided him a career as an active voice actor, doing roles in, among other things, video games such as Beastmaster, Clockwork, Warlock, and Necrophos.
His 1985 performance for Heart Theatre in the title role of Brecht’s The Life of Edward the Second of England, I wrote at the time, was “a tour de force. … His resonant voice, commanding appearance, kingly charisma and ability to grow old and feeble as the part demands, yet remain fiery to the end, would make this a play to remember even if all the other characters were duds,” which they were not.
In 1987 his vocal cords were paralyzed during surgery for thyroid cancer. He recovered fairly quickly. That same year he was “a deep-voiced prophet of doom,” as The Oregonian’s review put it, in the Ancient Greek Theater Festival’s Antigone. The following year I reviewed his memorable performance for the old New Rose Theatre in the children’s play Wiley and the Hairy Man, based on the old tall tales from the backwaters of Alabama and Mississippi: “As the Hairy Man, Sam A. Mowry is a raspy, threatening, slobberingly disgusting lout: a bad guy with style and a mighty strong roar.”
As impressive as Mowry’s vocal skills were, he had much more going on as an actor. Reviewing a 1987 performance with Warren Harshbarger in Edward Albee’s two-hander The Zoo Story, I wrote: “For much of the play, Mowry’s role is to shy away, be politely diplomatic, respond with composure to an interesting but unnerving situation. Mowry handles it with humor and subtlety, playing well (as basketball aficionados put it) without the ball.”
Still, bigness was part of what Mowry was about. Sam idolized the larger-than-life Orson Welles, as a performer and director unafraid to think and act in a deep and oversized manner. And in 2010, for a holiday season performance at Tapestry Theatre of 1945 Christmas From Home, he got to play him, as Marty Hughley noted in The Oregonian: “Also striking is a cameo performance by Sam A. Mowry, who does a dead-on impression of radio showman Orson Welles.”
Intriguingly, Mowry’s acting career brushed close to the deities and their hangers-on on more occasions than his portrayal of the lion/god Aslan. In 1984, he played the Archangel Lucifer in Portland playwright Doug Watson’s The Creation. Phil Hunt reviewed the show for The Oregonian: “Lucifer is the strong member of this cast, bold one moment, sly the next, angelic at times, yet ready to get caught up in the same sin that he is promoting among the humans on occasion. … (the role is) done to near-perfection by Sam A. Mowry.”
In 1990 Columbia Theatre produced Bruce Graham’s Early One Evening at the Rainbow Bar and Grille, in which God and the bartender are sitting and having a beer after the humans have pretty much blown the planet to smithereens. Sam played the bartender. “As Shep, the intellectual bartender who writes trashy sex novels, Sam A. Mowry has the easygoing manner of a guy who can handle any trouble that walks through the door,” I wrote. “What with the world blowing up and all, he finds himself the target of two beautiful women out for a last-minute fling.”
And in a 1992 interview about Phoenix Theatre’s production of Christopher Fry’s The Lady’s Not for Burning, in which he starred as the doleful romantic hero, Thomas Mendip, Mowry noted: “Punishment back then was almost as much an entertainment as it was a punishment. If you’ve got a witch-burning or a hanging, it’s kind of like a double-header.”
A 2019 group reading of “A Christmas Carol” at the Mowry/McGean house. Cindy McGean and Sam Mowry are third and fourth from the left.As formidable as Mowry’s acting and directing skills were, they did not entirely account for the deep affection with which he was regarded in Portland’s theater community. In person, Sam was simply a lovely person. He was genuinely friendly: His voice, so dominating onstage, took on a softer eloquence as he spoke with you, and it usually seemed to be accompanied by a glint of humor, a kind of wrapping-up with warmth. “Sam said you should always tell someone you love that you love them, because you never know what’s going to happen,” his wife, Cindy, said.
His close companionship with Cindy, his wife of 30 years, and with his son, Atticus, were apparent, and they seemed to spill over to his large circle of friends and fellow workers, too. He and Cindy would host formal and informal gatherings at their Northeast Portland home, sometimes casual gatherings in what they called “the casbah,” sometimes group readings/slash/parties inside their house of the annual A Christmas Carol. He loved to be a mentor, McGean said — “he took that very seriously” — and if you were a newcomer to the theatrical circle, he would go out of his way to bring you in from the fringes. He loved collaboration. “He created this magical cathedral of community,” McGean said. “That was like a superpower.”
“He was also an AIDS buddy before that was a term,” Sam’s sister Judith Mowry said. “He loved and supported Peter Fornara so much.” Sam was the prime AIDS caretaker for Fornara, the legendary Portland actor and director who had been a mentor to him, and to fellow actor Richard Avila, McGean said.
Cindy McGean and Sam Mowry. Photo courtesy Cindy McGean.For more than 20 years, Mowry and McGean have been active in reviving radio drama as a form of theater. In a 2019 ArtsWatch feature, John Longenbaugh wrote that in 2001, Mowry attended a meeting about forming a new audio drama company:
“’There was a notice in the paper saying that there was an informational meeting at the library about starting up a radio drama group,’ the veteran actor recalls. ‘I’d loved the form since I was a little kid, and had listened to it my entire life, through re-broadcasts. At the meeting there were 10 other people who I knew from here, and a couple that I hadn’t met but had been doing audio drama in Florida. …
“This plan evolved, and quickly, into the Willamette Radio Workshop, where after a few meetings it was decided to jump right in with an inaugural performance on October 30 at the CoHo Theater, with the most famous script of all, The Mercury Theatre’s production of The War of the Worlds. Like many ‘staged radio shows,’ the microphones were fake and the staged sound effects a rough approximation of the original, but the audiences were real enough. ‘There were people lining up as we were loading in, and it was completely packed.’”
McGean, who in the years since has written many of the scripts for Willamette Radio Theatre, remembers that opening War of the Worlds vividly. “It was after 9/11,” she says. “And let me tell you, that show felt very different under the circumstances.”
In addition to his wife, Cindy McGean, and his son, Atticus Mowry, Mowry is survived by his sisters Judith Mowry and Jane Galloway, and brother Paul Mowry.
Word of Sam’s death spread quickly on social media, and many friends and fellow theater workers commented. Among them:
— Actor Kevin-Michael Moore: “Today’s news of the unexpected death of Sam A. Mowry has completely knocked the wind out of me. I have known this man my entire adult life. He was the performer that I wanted to be when I was a young man. He was a mentor, a colleague, and just a very good soul. We are all less without him. My heart hurts today.”
— Actress Clara-Liis Hillier: “I’m heartbroken. He was such a presence in my early acting years in Portland and I loved the time we spent together. He was such a force.”
— Actor, writer, and sketch comedian Ted Douglass: “… a gentle lion of a man and a constant, lovely fixture in the PDX theater scene. Rest in peace, good sir.”
— Playwright Steve Patterson: “Portland theatre lost a legend today: producer, director, voice talent, writer, radio impresario, and—especially—actor Sam Mowry has passed on. I lost a beloved friend of at least 30 years, which is nothing compared to what his family has lost. … If I learned anything from Sam’s life, it’s this. When you’re hanging out after a play or at an after-party or in the bar, and somebody comes up with an idea that you and your colleagues and friends think is great, and you all talk about how you should do it … do it. Especially if the idea comes from someone like Sam. Just do the damned thing. If it flies, it will forever remain a high point in your life. And if it falls, learn to smile and shrug.”
Actor and director Tony Sonera put it succinctly: “When Giants fall, it shakes the earth, and the world is changed forever. A Giant of Portland theatre has passed. Sam A. Mowry has fallen, and I am shaken.”
And on Sunday morning, after a surprise thunder and lightning storm shook the city like a dog tearing a stuffed toy to shreds, McGean wrote: “Can you hear him in this completely uncharacteristic Portland thunderstorm? ‘Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage, rage you cataracts and hurricanos!’”
Sam A. Mowry, it turns out, does not leave the stage quietly.
This week we’re thrilled to welcome back The Narada Radio Company as they return for their ninth year of Sonic Summerstock Old-Time Radio re-creations! This time, it’s remake of another “Quiet Please” episode, entitled “How Are You, Pal?” It’s not a lost episode, but the only existing copy of the original is so badly damaged that it is barely audible. Director Pete Lutz hopes this remake comes close to creator Wyllis Cooper’s original vision – the story of a man who reaches out to an old friend to get the answers to some pretty pertinent questions.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman! This week Mutual Presents is back with the next full serial installment of The Adventures of Superman with another serial. This week the Man of Steel teams up with the World’s Greatest Detective. It’s “Batman’s Great Mystery”
It’s been a minute, but Sonic Cinema Productions are back and in full swing. In a month-long release, beginning with this week’s continuing anthology series “The Wavefront”. In our twelfth short outing, Jack Ward writes a two-hander with the incredible voice talents of Jason Markiewitz and Caleb Bressler and explores more of the dangers of a society rushing headlong into a A.I. driven future.
Find this show here on Wednesday Wonders~ Science Fiction & Fantasy weekly Podcast Magazine‘s RSS Feed or on the Mutual Audio Network‘s Broadcast Feed.
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For our second performance, John Bell from Bell’s in the Batfry brings an original OTR science fiction sure to become a classic in the manner of X-Minus One. Blast off for “Seeker”!
David Ault opens the Sonic Summerstock Playhouse for its 15th season with the incredible production of The Amigos and Audio Groove Cats starring Lothar Tuppan, Jack Ward, David Ault, Pete Lutz, Larry Groebe, Jeff Billard and John Bell in X-Minus One’s classic “The C-Chute” by Isaac Asimov!
We’re back with Mutual Presents and another series of misadventures with Adventures with Maisie double-feature with “Hargraves NY Banquet” and “The Ex-Convict” from the Mutual Broadcasting System…
Welcome back to Mutual Presents! Jack and Penny are back on board with another double feature from “The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen” and more classic old time radio from the Mutual Broadcasting System with the double feature of adventure with “The Ambitious Hostess on South Bridge Road” and “The Bubble Dancer and the Buccaneers”!
Jack and David are desperately finding their way through “Sight Unseen“. Amanda Houston is a beautiful, popular High School student. An amateur surfing champion and model she has the world at her feet until she loses her sight in a tragic car accident. As she tries to cope with this drastic change in her life, she experiences unexpected psychic powers and a mysterious visitor comes to be her guide on the journey through her new world. All episodes of Sight Unseen are available exclusively on Wondery+ or on Amazon Music with a Prime membership or Amazon Music Unlimited subscription.
https://traffic.megaphone.fm/MUTUAL8218635098.mp3
Welcome back to Mutual Presents! Jack and Penny are back in space! This week on our 2000 Plus double-feature created by Sherman H. Dryer and produced with Robert Weenolsen we have “The Robot Killer” and “The Insect”.
https://traffic.megaphone.fm/MUTUAL9166981270.mp3
Jack and David are finding themselves in Bridgewater by Lauren Shippen. When a relic from his past is rediscovered, folklore professor Jeremy Bradshaw puts his life on hold to solve the mystery. Along the way, he’s helped by people who challenge everything he believes in, and ultimately tries to answer the question: can the past be rewritten? A supernatural thriller for your ears, starring Misha Collins, Melissa Ponzio, and Alan Tudyk. This week it’s “Chapter 1: Remnants” and “Chapter 2: An Untamed Place”.
https://traffic.megaphone.fm/MUTUAL5770778259.mp3
Jack and David are flying out of control landing in “The Passenger List“. Atlantic Flight 702 has disappeared mid-flight between London and New York with 256 passengers on board. Kaitlin Le (Kelly Marie Tran), a college student whose twin brother vanished with the flight, is determined to uncover the truth. Passenger List is a mystery thriller podcast from PRX’s Radiotopia.
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Jeff brings to the Amigos Lothar and Jack the classic Ray Bradbury story “Fahrenheit 451” produced by BBC Radio. A massive discussion about the nature of freedom, censorship, television and books occurs!
https://traffic.megaphone.fm/MUTUAL8959825790.mp3
Welcome back to Mutual Presents. This week, we’re back with The Mysterious Traveler! This tremendously popular radio show was truly an all around favorite for any mystery lover of the time. Tonight’s double feature is “Death Is the Visitor” and “No One on the Line”!
https://traffic.megaphone.fm/MUTUAL3272256279.mp3
Jack and David try to distract Mr. Crow with the Wild and Wacky “Camp Here & There” to find the essence of Audio while the TORDIS slowly is dying… This week it’s Episodes 1 and 2. Tune in to the loudspeakers of a small midwestern sleep-away camp plagued by supernatural terrors and natural disasters. Sydney Sargent, resident camp nurse, cheerfully reports on all the terror we must face with a big smile. Let’s hope there’s nothing weird about that
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Welcome back to Mutual Presents! Grab your best tux and join Jack and Penny for the next First Nighter double feature to kick of June! This week it’s “The Tin Box” and “Old Lady Shakespeare”!
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Jack and David seek out the purpose for the TORDIS and find themselves in “The Subjective Truth” episodes 1 and 2. In June of 2020, Buddha Kline vanished from the Carson National Forest while searching for the legendary Fenn Treasure. From alien abductions to haunted hotels to reincarnation robots, everyone has a theory to push. A narrative they’re hoping to construct. Join our host, Graham Anderson, as she unearths all the answers to the question of… What happened to Buddha Kline?
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It’s the last Sunday in May and Jack and Penny are back out to Mutual Radio Theater‘s classic showcase with the double-feature “Interlude” and “A Nearly Perfect Crime”!
At last the confrontation with Mr. Crow happens in the heart of the TORDIS and begins a new desperate final chapter to The Sonic Society! The begin their quest with JD Sutter’s works beginning with more Greenhorn Tales that first began before Mutual began! And continue with more of JD’s shorts with “Lumi and Daffodils” and “Another Year Older, Another Year Wiser“!
Guest Starring: John Bell from Bells in the Batfry!
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman! This week Mutual Presents is back with the next full serial installment of The Adventures of Superman with another serial. This week it’s “Atom Man in Metropolis!”
Jack sits down with the makers of the both “Original Kin” and “Don’t Write Me Off!” Podcast- Chase Anderson and Cole Goslee!
In a brief pause before our heroes meet Mr. Crow Jack recaps the action and presents this week’s feature “Original Kin” from Lucky Broadcasting and Chase Anderson and Cole Goslee. When an unassuming, shy teenager comes face to face with a haunting figure from his past, his insulated life is ruptured by the chaotic revelation of something otherworldly lying dormant within him.
We’re back with Mutual Presents and another series of misadventures with Adventures with Maisie double-feature with “The Night Club” and “Hollywood Waitress” from the Mutual Broadcasting System…
Jack and David’s find their way back to the nest of Mr. Crow with Wireless Radio Theatres‘ “Owen Teale and Mark Lewis” Parts One and Two!
From the far-flung silver age of science fiction, comes a new anthology. Retro Rockets fires off with “Spirit Drive”. A space ranger take the final report of a scientist on the death of his colleague on a far-distant moon. But, was it an accident? This keen look at the Sonic Cinema Production Podcast inaugural episode of the Retro Rockets Anthology!
Welcome back to Mutual Presents! Jack and Penny are back on board with another double feature from “The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen” and more classic old time radio from the Mutual Broadcasting System with the double feature of adventure with “The Derelict and the Wandering Boy” and “Fang Rubies and the Black Siamese”!
Jack and David’s trail of Mr. Crow gets cold as they find themselves in “Nowhere on Air” from Jesse Syratt with episodes “Pilot” and “Honey, You’ve Got a Big Storm Comin'”!
Welcome back to Mutual Presents. This week, we’re back with The Mysterious Traveler! This tremendously popular radio show was truly an all around favorite for any mystery lover of the time. Tonight’s double feature is “Death Comes for Adolf Hitler” and “Murder Goes Free”!
Jack and David are following the trail of Mr. Crow deep in the multiple worlds of the TORDIS. Can they find their way out as they go through Meet Cute “The Summer: 1998 Part 2, and Curious Matter‘s Shambler from the Stars!
Welcome back to Mutual Presents! Grab your best tux, Jack and Penny get in the cab for the next First Nighter! This week our double-feature we have “An Order by the Lieutenant” and “There’s Something in the Air”!
Jack and David seek answers about Mr. Crow as they enter the never before inner sanctum of the TORDIS! This week they look from “Eastwynne” the urban fantasy audio drama to Meet Cute‘s “That Summer: 1998 Part 1”.
It’s Sunday and Jack and Penny are back out to Mutual Radio Theater‘s classic showcase with the double-feature “The Haunted Gold Course” and “The Last Of Scrooge”!
Jack and David find themselves going back to the amazing Christof Laputka’s Rapscallion Agency with Chapters 2 and 3- Fools & Fashion and Bullets & Blowfish!
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman! This week Mutual Presents is back with the next full serial installment of The Adventures of Superman with another serial. This week it’s “Alonzo Craig Arctic Explorer”.
Jack and David go follow the exploits of Bernie Pfelger, a clever man armed only with his wits, and a TEMP badge that opens the door to some of the most outlandish positions a man can get into. This week it’s a huge show with “Tardy” and “Mother Nature” from Michael Wilhelm!
We’re back with Mutual Presents and another series of misadventures with Adventures with Maisie double-feature with “Paul Jones Soldier On Leave” and “Maisie Stranded in India” from the Mutual Broadcasting System…
Jack, Jeff and Lothar return finally to complete their look into the world of Noir with “The Lives of Harry Lime” and “An Old Moorish Custom” and talk about what they’ve learned in their explorations of the black, the white, and the gris!
Can you believe it’s the end of the summer? We can’t either. To cheer you up we return with Mutual Presents and another series of misadventures with Adventures with Maisie double-feature with “Maisie Inherits the Millvale Sentinel ” and “Maisie Wrecks a Wreck & Bags a Bag” from the Mutual Broadcasting System…
David Ault sweeps away the spotlights from the Summerstock Playhouse with our final act and feature season finale from Sonic Cinema Productions and the incredible screwball comedy from FIRST NIGHTER- “Love is Stranger Than Fiction” starring John Bell, Patte Rosebank, Angela Young, Larry Groebe, Joe Stofko, and introducing Paul Arbisi and Trevor Rines! Thanks for […]
David Ault closes the Summerstock Playhouse with the first act of our two feature finale from Sonic Cinema Productions and the Amigos Collective beginning with the taut thriller from SUSPENSE- “The Long Night” starring Lothar Tuppan, Jeffrey Billard, Pete Lutz, Rachel Pulliam, Richard Summers, Austin Beach, introducing Jason Fella and produced by John Bell of […]
Welcome back to Mutual Presents. This week, we’re reintroducing our Tuesday Terror feature from the classic days of the Mutual Broadcasting System, and this time the incredibly eclectic anthology series- The Mysterious Traveler! This series ran on Mutual from December 1943 until about September of 1952. This tremendously popular radio show was truly an all […]
Summerstock Playhouse returns for a penultimate week with the amazing Rachel Pulliam and Sole Twin Audio featuring “The Most Dangerous Game” adapted from the archetypal short story of Richard Connell and the classic Escape series!
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with “The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen” and more classic old time radio from the Mutual Broadcasting System with the double feature of adventure with “Kang’s Treasure and the Ghost of Tangolan Bay” and “Beautiful Girl in the Bargain Basement”.
Summerstock Playhouse returns for the last call of Pete Lutz and his Narada Radio Company Players for season 14 as they present the NBC crime thriller “The Petrified Forest” originally featuring the iconic Humphrey Bogart.
Saturday, August 19, 2023, 1:00 to 2:30 pm EST / Online / $15 CAD In support of MAD-Con Toronto 2024 Up your audio fiction writing game! Using fun improv games (don’t worry, no improv experience is required) we’ll show you how to: • Give your characters character • Make your dialogue sing by ditching obvious […]
Welcome back to Mutual Presents! This week we sample another amazing science fiction series- the first of it’s kind from Old Time Radio and of course from the Mutual Audio Network’s spiritual grandfather- the Mutual Broadcasting System. It’s 2000 Plus! This series ran on the Mutual Broadcasting System from March 15, 1950 to January 2, […]
In our second Act of our Midpoint Summer special, Peter Beeston and the incredible Cornucopia Radio, produce their adaptation of the classic episode of ESCAPE from the original novel by Hammond Innes. Join us in this world Internet premiere!
Summerstock Playhouse presents a special double-feature to kick off our midpoint of entertainment! Beginning Act One with our second grand evening of Pete Lutz and his Narada Radio Company Players. This week they present “You Can’t Take it With You” first performed on the Lux Radio Theatre broadcast, October 2nd, 1939 from the Pulitzer prize […]
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with Mutual Radio Theater’s “Those Who Can” and “The Whale Savers”. Sundays never looked so sweet with great anthology showcases on Mutual!
This week host David returns with a Summerstock favourite- Pete Lutz brings in the crowds with the Narada Radio Company‘s extended triumph, “Of Mice and Men” from the BBC production of their Afternoon Play!
This week Mutual Presents is back with the next full serial installment of the Man of Steel with The Adventures of Superman with our second serial “The North Star Mining Company Mystery!”
This week host David returns with Suspense! from the Suspense Radio Show with John Alsedek as the producer. Our feature tonight is “Who Goes There”. An Antarctic research expedition finds something frozen deep in the ice cap…something that is still alive…
A quick peek at what’s going on with Sonic Cinema on the Production Podcast we have Gunsmoke- In the Summer of 2016, Jack J. Ward and the Shadowlands troop put together a full length audio western of the classic episode “Sins of the Father” from Gunsmoke.
We return to Mutual Presents! This week its another Adventures with Maisie double-feature with “Chester Drakes’ Phony Love Letter” and “Stage Door Jasper Caper” from the Mutual Broadcasting System…
Jack sits down with one of his favourite people in the 4th Wave of Audio Drama- multi-talented actor, writer, producer, filmmaker, Youtuber, and audio dramatist Tom Konkle from Mindstream!
This week host David brings us the Shadow Recreation Society with “The Golden Deceiver”… The Prospector’s are finding gold in them mountains! Carl Murray, an old-timey prospector, finds a good amount of gold; he is charmed by the beautiful and lovely Rita Karen, a singer at the “Lucky-Seven” Tavern. Little does Murray know; she has […]
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with “The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen” and more classic old time radio from the Mutual Broadcasting System with the double feature of adventure with “King Ascot And The Maid In Waiting” and “Grafter’s Fort and Lonely Sultan of Isabella De Basilan”.
A Re-Imagining of a classic X-Minus One episode where Colin Ord, a Space Officer waits six and a half years to be picked up on Pluto and can’t be sure what’s real and what isn’t
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with “Exploring Tomorrow” and more classic old time radio from the Mutual Broadcasting System with the double feature of grand sci-fi tales “The First Baby in Space” and “The Adventure of the Beauty Queen”!
In our Season 18 finale, Jack and David think over the year and provide a double helping of MIDST! Three mischievous narrators spin a surreal, reality-bending, sci-fantasy space western about a crotchety outlaw, a struggling cultist, and a diabolical bastard making awful decisions in a world on the edge of disaster. This season finale “Unrise” […]
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with Mutual Radio Theater’s “Fontaine Harris Hollywood Producer” and “An International Sport”. Sundays never looked so sweet with great anthology showcases on Mutual!
Re-Imagined Radio presents four short science fiction radio stories by Jack J. Ward, an award-winning writer, director, actor, and producer of audio drama, and more. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. That’s about as far East as one can drive a car in Canada, before running into the Atlantic Ocean. We call this episode “Coast […]
This week Jack and David take a long three episode ride with Paradise Cab: A Paranormal Mystery! We feature episodes 1-3 with “The Tourist”, “Follow that Cab” and “Keep the Change”!Cab driver Joe is sent to pick up a new fare each week, by Angie, Paradise Cab’s dispatcher, who seems to know a little more […]
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with “The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen” and more classic old time radio from the Mutual Broadcasting System with the double feature of adventure with more “Ah Sin and the Balinese Beaux Arts Ball” and “Grafter’s Fort and the Black Pearl of Galahla Bay”.
This week Jack and David’s feature “Jackie the Ripper” where the infamous Whitechapel murders are retold in a serialised comedy-drama! We begin with “Chapter 1: Cock and Balls Story” and “Chapter 2: Leaving Her Mark”!
As Jack J. Ward basks in one of his finest moments- that being in the very chair that Robert E. Howard wrote not only Conan- The Barbarian, but all his great works… He was asked recently to provide a list of all the scripts he has written for all his various incarnations and basic times. As we’re coming close to the 20th anniversary of The Sonic Society (Put it on your calendar folks- it’s September 1st, 2024, Jack has provided the list so far with some tantalizing suggestions of what you can expect now that he’s completed his masters’ degree:
The Sonic Society Collection:
The Sonic Society- The World’s Largest and Longest-Running showcase of modern audio drama
Pre-Mutual Audio Network Feed (The Radio Memories Network 2005-2019): https://sonic.libsyn.com/sonicsociety/2008/06
The Mutual Audio Network Feeds (2019 and Onwards):
The Broadcast Feed (on Sundays and Mondays) https://feeds.megaphone.fm/mani
Monday Matinee weekly (2015 onwards replays) https://feeds.megaphone.fm/MUTUAL5370851038
Sunday Showcase weekly (Current releases from 2019 onwards) https://feeds.megaphone.fm/MUTUAL9188504915
Sonic Echo– Conversations with Lothar Tuppan and Jeffrey Billard – The Amigos! with guests looking at the very best of old time radio.
Sonic Speaks– Jack interviews the makers and shapers of the audio drama world
Sonic Summerstock Playhouse– The summer season of the Sonic Society where producers from the modern audio drama community recreate old time radio scripts for fun with their contemporary acting troops!
Sonic Retrospectives– Our tribute summer series for those who have left the modern audio drama community too soon (SADLY ONGOING)
Bill Hollweg
Mark Bruzee
JACK WARD’S PRODUCTIONS AND SCRIPTS:
All produced scripts can be found at the Sonic Cinema Podcast or through Sonic Cinema website
The Sonic Cinema Production Classic Series: 2003-2005
The Shadowlands– Shadowlands Theatre was the premiere original anthology series from Jack J. Ward. Combining Suspense and Dark Fantasy, this exciting series became the basis for the Deadly Sins Series and other compelling tales of mystery, and horror.
- The Seven Deadly Sins- A seven-part series of original tales from dark comedy to darker horror, plays of the past to terror of the future exploring the turning parts of the soul. Six parts completed: (Pride: And Low, Thou I Walk, Envy: Completion, Greed: Ghosts of the Present, Gluttony: Soul Survivor (Ogile Award Honorable Mention), Lust: Spin, Spin, Spin, Wrath: The Hitchhiker)
- Graves’ Shift Starring Phillipa Graves– “Open for Business” The pilot first audio drama script written by Jack Ward from his time in university exploring the noir tales of his female detective
- Biff Straker and the Spaceways (Old World)– The one-shot pilot episode of Jack’s parody of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon with his own pulp hero, Biff!
- Remotely Possible– A single Shadowlands episode exploring remote viewing and the depths of fear
- Hill Manors- “More Action than a Burma Railroad” A live tribute to the great “Fawlty Towers” series by John Cleese & Connie Booth
- Firefly- Old Wounds– The Internet’s first fan fiction of the science-fiction classic “Firefly”.
- The Dead Line Anthology- Tales of crime drama inspired by Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Initial run included: Goth Girl, Jeremiah Crandal- Funeral Detective, Messages, Right Number Wrong Party, The Replacement Show, Rule of Three)
- The Dead Line Shorts Anthology- less than a half hour presentations of this series (Initial run included: Anniversary, Choice, Deathbed Confessions, Duel, Fiend to the Old, John, Lighter, Night Driving and Sherry)
Electric Vicuna Productions: 2006-2021
- Firefly- Old Wounds “Wedding Day” – The much demanded follow up to the Internet’s first fan fiction of the science-fiction classic “Firefly”.
- The Wave Front Anthology- a science fiction collection that explores futuristic societies, distopic nightmares, technological travesties and bleak tomorrows. (Initial run includes: Borrowed Time, Black Knight, Alone in the Night (Mark Time Silver award winner), Voting is Anonymous
- The Wave Front Shorts Anthology- less than a half hour presentation of this series (Initial run includes: Acquisitions, Alien Invasion Cancelled, Distant Voice, Galaxy Master versus the Varn, Name Please, Nanites, Pets, Reservations, Spring, Trans-Humanity, Voices)
- The Dead Line Anthology- (Continued run includes: “Faith” also as the final Deadly Sins Script for “Sloth”, Daybreak, Coach #6, Clay Pigeon Shooting)
- The Dead Line Shorts Anthology- (Continued run includes: I’m Home)
- Darker Musings Anthology Series- an anthology series of fantastical mystery and terror.
Inspired by Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, Darker Musings always includes an air of another world that may be an alternate universe, or a terrifying nightmare, one in which the characters can not wake up.(Initial run includes: Breathing Space (one-man show), Muse of Madness, One by One, and Phil Morris~ Celestial Lawyer - The Darker Musings Shorts Anthology- less than a half hour presentation of this series (Initial run includes original and original adaptations of: Barney, Bravery. Plague Studies, The Chaser, The Monkey’s Paw, and Tulpa)
- Gate, a coming of age fantasy series in 10 parts; Gate McNeil, a young girl, discovers she is the one person in the world who can challenge the darkness and demons threatening to take over the world
- The Jack and Shannon Show- in an homage to great sit-coms of old, two hosts of the Sonic Society fictionalize their life and friends (3 Seasons)
- Spaceways Starring Biff Straker (New World)– imaginary pulp hero Stephen “Biff” Straker takes part in a secret experiment to prove Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relative Time. The experiment goes wrong and Straker is thrown from the 1990s into the 31st Century! – STILL IN PRODUCTION
The reboot fun action series, no longer a straight parody. (Initial 5 episode run: Year Zero: The Future is Now, The Haunted World, The Fallen Angel, The Pool of Death, The Man Called Methuselah – STILL IN PRODUCTION - Consortium Comics Anthology- is a collective series of superhero shorts by Jack J. Ward (Initial run includes: Blue Defender, Any Man) – STILL IN PRODUCTION
- Action Adventure Audio Theatre, pulp-pounding adventures inspired by the OldTime Radio series Escape (Initial episode: The Most Dangerous Game) – STILL IN PRODUCTION
The Sonic Cinema Production Returns Series: 2022-
- Retro Rockets Anthology- From the far-flung silver age of science fiction, comes a new anthology. (Initial episode: Spirit Drive) – STILL IN PRODUCTION
- The Wave Front Anthology- (Series continues with: Market Crash) – STILL IN PRODUCTION
- The Christmas Wreath- Seasonal stories to touch the heart and delight the ear (Initial release: The Gift of the Magi) – STILL IN PRODUCTION
Jack Ward adaptation Scripts Produced for Colonial Radio Theatre:
- Dead Ahead– On a restless ocean, a group of weary survivors contemplate their grim fortune: What had started out as a fun little fishing trip soon turns into a nightmare of damnation, trapped on a floating prison.
- Vincent Price Presents Volume 3– “The Best in the Universe” Dramatized by Jack J. Ward, from a story by Paul J. Salamoff. Assignments on frontier planets always irritate intergalactic mob hitman Randall Stiles and his partner Jake Mackey, and this mission would soon prove why.
New Series Currently in Production (Unreleased):
- Prairie Fire- an audio drama Weird Western 10 part series
- Flight of the Airmen- At the turn of the 20th century who are the protectors of the skies for this strange modern age? Canada’s The Airmen!
- Wingman– Ripped from the archives of the fictional radio theatre of the 1930’s. Wingman and Fly Boy save the world from Nazis infiltrators and evil criminals in America!
- Adventures by North!- In the early 20’s in Canada, a group of adventurers found their way exploring every mystery this vast country concealed!
- The Fates of Mace Windu- By mass request this audio Star Wars fan fiction six-part series explores what happened to Mace Windu at the end of George Lucas’ prequel
- John Carter- A Princess of Mars- The original Science Romance of the first of the pulp space heroes is explored through the first full-audio drama adaptation of the best-selling novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs!
- Proximity– A Third Age (First Person) account of humanity’s attempt to reach the Proxima star system.
Other things to look for. Script collection books on many of these series, and upcoming work through The Mutual Audio Network.
Special Thanks to Lothar Tuppan (The Ninth Tower Productions) and Jeffrey Billard (Audio Groove Cats Productions)- THE AMIGOS!, David Ault co-host and the “Kevin Bacon” of 6-Degrees of separation in Audio Drama (David Ault Actor, Narrator, and Science Communicator), and the rest of the United Artists of Audio from Mutual- Pete Lutz (Narada Radio Company), John Bell (Bell’s in the Batfry), JV Torres (The Rise of King Asilas), Scott Mosher (CNY Table Reads). Joshua Price and the Queen of Audio Drama herself Tanja Milojevic (LightningBolt Theater of the Mind), Richard Frohlich (Texas Radio Theatre), Richard Summers (aka Captain Radio!) and Austin Beach (Broken Bard Studios) who constantly and eternally inspire, collaborate, and support his work!
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with “Exploring Tomorrow” and more classic old time radio from the Mutual Broadcasting System with the double feature of grand sci-fi tales “The Mountain of Diamond Inferiority” and “The Man from the Past”!
This week Jack and David’s feature 7 Lamb Productions and “Paralyzed“. This audio drama follows David, a chronic sufferer of sleep paralysis on his annual camping trip with friends. But something evil from his dreams awaits with Chapter 1: Restless Nights Part 1 and 2!
Welcome back to Mutual Presents! We’re back with another double-feature from First Nighter, the two-decade radio drama-comedy series that aired on various radio stations from 1930 to 1953 before landing on Mutual from 1942 to 1944. It’s “Wolf in Sheep’s Skin” and “Nonanny”!
This week Jack and David’s feature rated best podcast from the Audies! It’s “The Imperfection“. Charlie and Amber suffer from a disorder that causes a constant stream of hallucinations. When they discover that their psychiatrist is missing, they rally together with the other patients to search for him. Along the way, they encounter secret societies, half-human half-spider centaurs, and a hidden borough of New York under the East River. But how can you find the truth when you can’t tell what’s real? This week episodes 1 and 2 with “The Three Trials” and “If Your Psychiatrist Has Gone Missing”
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with Mutual Radio Theater’s “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby” and “The Blind Gun”. Sundays never looked so sweet with great anthology showcases on Mutual!
This week Jack and David are look at the award-winning “The Offensive“. An award-winning, critically acclaimed mockumentary podcast that follows fictional Premier League club Ashwood City FC. This week episodes 1 and 2 with “Deadline Day” and “The Biter from the Balkans”.
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with another Jack Armstrong- The All American Boy and The Luminous Dragon Eye Ring Episodes 21 and 22! skipping ahead some more! At this rate, we’re going to be just sampling the show, but we’re doing the best we can with what we can find!
This week Jack and David are headed “To Space.. but further!” with Voyage to the Stars. Space: It’s big. Like, really big. These are the misadventures of a group of misfits that accidentally found themselves on the wrong side of a wormhole, trying not to blow up the galaxy in their attempts to make the long journey home. Join us on a voyage to the stars with the wholly unqualified Captain Tucker Lentz (Colton Dunn), scatterbrained scientist Elsa Rankfort (Felicia Day), apathetic technician Stew Merkel (Steve Berg) and the misanthropic A.I. Sorry (Janet Varney). The universe will never be the same.
We return to Mutual Presents! This week for lucky #13 episode in our fourth season, we’re back with another Adventures with Maisie double-feature with “Green Suit Job” and “Foot in Mouth Disease” from the Mutual Broadcasting System…
From the far-flung silver age of science fiction, comes a new anthology by Sonic Cinema Productions. Retro Rockets fires off with “Spirit Drive”. A space ranger take the final report of a scientist on the death of his colleague on a far-distant moon. But, was it an accident?
Starring Joe Stofko, Tom Konkle, Jeffrey Billard and Lothar Tuppan, with production and editing by John Bell. Written by Jack J. Ward
This week Jack and David bring “S-Town” a podcast hosted by Brian Reed from Serial Productions, a New York Times company. The story follows a man named John who despises his Alabama town and decides to do something about it. He asks Brian to investigate the son of a wealthy family who’s allegedly been bragging that he got away with murder. But when someone else ends up dead, the search for the truth leads to a nasty feud, a hunt for hidden treasure, and an unearthing of the mysteries of one man’s life. This week we feature chapter 1. It’s Audio Drama Time!
This week the incredible “Two Dead Girls in Jubeliene” is a new audio drama brought to us by Ethan Wellin. Myra has spent a lifetime running from her past. But when her estranged father dies in a grisly “accident,” she comes home to take up his secret obsession: the hunt for her baby sister’s cold case killer.
“TDGIJ” is a serialized fiction audio drama, available free on all podcast platforms. New episodes drop every Tuesday. For transcripts, content warnings, and additional information, please find them on Instagram. @2deadgirlspod. It’s Audio Drama time!
It’s well into March and Jack is feeling the sentimentality of Spring. Time to look backwards before we spring forwards to Sonic Summerstock 2023. This week we bring a double-feature of fun recreations. First a very faithful one from No Soap Radio with “No One Remembers Jack’s Birthday” with thanks to Paul Kovit, and secondly we slip forward to Mindstream Players “The Reasonably Amazing Adventures of Flash Gordon- Episode 5” from the endlessly talented Tom Konkle!
Welcome back as Jack and David present another phenomenal feature from the fertile imaginations of John Barber, Marc Rose and Reimagined Radio with “A Mighty Span”. Re-Imagined Radio explores early examples of dramatized news events and uses this inspiration to create its own dramatization of the opening of the Interstate Bridge linking Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, across the Columbia River, 106 years ago, February 14, 1917. It’s Audio Drama Time!
We’re back with the latest from the Leviathan Chronicles. Lisette and Cluracan arrive in Paris! The young pair move into a borrowed maisonette in the 9th arrondissement to launch their fledgling cybersecurity firm. Together, with his computer skills and her abilities as a trained cat burglar, they are excited to start a new, and hopefully profitable, venture on their own terms.
Aftershock is a fast-paced thriller about a massive earthquake that destroys the West Coast, causing a mysterious island to rise up from the Pacific – with Sarah Wayne Callies (The Walking Dead), David Harbour (Stranger Things), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Walking Dead), and Tati Gabrielle (The 100). This week our immense double-feature is Chapter 1: “This has nothing to do with McKayla?” and Chapter 2: “I think we have a live one.” It’s Audio Drama time!
Join Jack, Jeff and Lothar as they welcome in Sharon Grunwald and have a great time listening to and discussing the classic OTR series Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, The Plantagenet Matter.
From an alternate universe the cassette recordings of “Within the Wires” written by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson. Our double-feature with Season 1:, Cassette #1: Stress, Shoulders and Cassette #2: Anxiety, Stomach. It’s Audio Drama time!
Norman Corwin (1910-2011) was the Grand Master of American Radio Theatre, and his final effort is extraordinarily timely today. In 1941, this program confronted an America more divided, more polarized, than at any time since the Civil War — and this new version, updated for the 21st Century, does the same. This brilliantly fascinating program reminds us to remember what we have in common, where we agree, and how we all still stand together — so we can tone down the anger and deal with our differences without hatred and violence.
A group of Americans from coast to coast talk about what the United States means, and try to discover how to deal with their differences without hatred and violence. This lively, fascinating and extremely timely production was the last script from Norman Corwin, acclaimed as the Grand Master of American Radio Theatre.
Jack meets up with American radio legends David Ossman from Firesign Theatre and Richard Fish from Firehouse Theater all in a lead up to Presidents’ Day release of “Between Americans Today”!
This audio drama invites your ears to visit Slumberland, a small island town in the US. Come along with Thomas Edward M, the freelance soundman. He’s been hired to meet the locals and record their oral histories for the town’s time capsule. The unfolding history of the town mixes folklore, paranormal, mystery and humor. It’s Audio Drama Time and it’s time for Slumberland!
It’s the End of the World and Eric Busby‘s Byron feels fine! David Ault reprises his classic titular role as we check in with the dark immortal with the new series “Crucible” and episodes one and two. It’s Audio Drama Time!
Audio Drama these days seem to collect modern talent as Academy Award® winner Rami Malek stars in the apocalyptic thriller “Blackout” as a small-town radio DJ fighting to protect his family and community after the power grid goes down nationwide, upending modern civilization. The desperation begins with this double feature of the Pilot and “Dead Air”. It’s Audio Drama Time!
What happens when a truck driver picks up a loaded trailer, but has no idea what’s really inside? Tony, Grammy, and Emmy award winner Cynthia Erivo journeys down a dark and lonely highway in this seven-part original scripted thriller. With immersive audio techniques that create a dimensional listening experience, the audience is strongly advised to use caution, wear headphones if possible, and listen… carefully. Produced by QCODE. Starring Cynthia Erivo. Written and Directed by Dan Blank. This week our “Carrier” double-feature includes episodes 1 and 2 with “Backhaul” and “Bolt Seal”. It’s Audio Drama Time!
SCP is back but this time with the podcast “Find Us Alive” which follows the strange developments at Site-107, a small Foundation research site trapped inside dimensional anomaly SCP-6320, as narrated by the site’s radio operator, Dr. Harley. This week, premiere episodes “The Voice of 107” and “Dash 1”. It’s Audio Drama Time!
Dr. Mark Dreisonstok is back reviewing Sonic Society’s Christmas submissions with Sonic Cinema’s adaptation of “Gift of the Magi” and Markiewitz Audioworks production of “Three Christmas Trees”!
“Post Christmas” is how the Mutual Audio Network describes its January offering of a dramatized version of O. Henry’s classic Christmas tale, “The Gift of the Magi.” This story is a very familiar staple of American literature. A young couple of very modest means in circa 1905 New York City, Della and James Dillingham Young, aspire to give significant Christmas presents to each other. What sacrifices are they willing to make to accomplish this?
…the warmth of Christmas festivities and traditions which the two productions evoke lovingly and convincingly.
This familiar tale is dramatized for audio with aplomb, with Jeffrey Billard and Tanja Milojevic who are very good in their roles as the financially-strapped but loving couple. Producer Jack Ward, founder of the Mutual Audio Network and of a series of Christmas tales called “Christmas Wreath Anthology,” desired to adapt this O. Henry story—filled with description in its original literary form—to work well as an audio drama. To do so, Mr. Ward has expanded the role of one character in the story, Madam Lucyna Sofronie, now owner of a wig shop, and added one character, Mr. Kent Wilkins, who repairs clocks. These two interesting individuals, presumably in middle age, are performed adroitly by David Ault and Erika Sanderson as they help us reflect on the nature of young love, family relationships, and, of course, how the young couple’s gift exchange might play out at Christmastime. O. Henry was a master of the surprise ending, and this version has the famous short story author’s dénouement. While this portion of the ending is retained from O. Henry, the audio drama concludes not with the master storyteller’s ruminations about the meaning of gifts and the original Magi from the nativity narrative in Scripture, but rather on the budding romance between Madam Safronie and Mr. Wilkens, a bold but interesting change of focus.
O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” is an extremely well-known Christmas tale—there is even a Disney cartoon adaptation, with Mickey and Minnie Mouse standing in as the young couple. The same level of fame cannot be claimed for “Three Christmas Trees“ by Juliana Horatia Ewing, another tale newly premiering on the Mutual Audio Network. This one is produced and directed by Jason Markiewitz who decided on a very different approach than the Jack Ward “Magi.” Instead of adding scenes and characters to make this a radio-style audio drama, he embraces the narrative of the original 1800s English short story, using voice actors mainly to highlight key portions of the story. The performance combines elements of both audio book and audio drama, perhaps slightly favoring the former.
The story follows the perspective of a person reaching the end of his earthly life, reflecting on how three Christmas trees have shaped his experience of Christmas, both as a child and as an adult. This is an interesting and unusual production of a Christmas-tide story which, in the opinion of this reviewer, should be better known. Mr. Markiewitz, who also serves as the congenial narrator, uses sound choices—especially some magnificent Christmas carolers (Sharon Grunwald, Lessa Nosko, and Kyle Wright) to help render this story from the past more accessible to audiences of today. Such is the case with his choice of a Christmas carol which is sung in two of the three vignettes, “While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks By Night”—a hymn which is used in the production movingly to bind the Christmas of the protagonist’s youth to the Christmas of his old age.
Both “The Gift of the Magi” and “Three Christmas Trees” are well worth a listen, even in this “post-Christmas” season. They are reminders that we might return to the holiday spirit and once again bask in the warmth of Christmas festivities and traditions which the two productions evoke lovingly and convincingly.
Running time: Each production runs 30 minutes.
The Jack Ward “Christmas Wreath Anthology” series installment “The Gift of the Magi” can be found here. The Markiewitz Audioworks production of “Three Christmas Trees” may be heard here.
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with “Exploring Tomorrow” and more classic old time radio from the Mutual Broadcasting System with the double feature of grand sci-fi tales “The Secret(With All the Trappings)” and “The Stowaway”.
While we are partial to the initial SCP at Sonic Cinema Productions, we don’t have the monopoly on those three-letters and Midnight Disease productions has some great audio using them.
Secure. Contain. Protect. There are things that go bump in the night. Fantastic things. Horrible things. Redacted things. The SCP Foundation was built to keep humanity safe from a world of beings it doesn’t want to know exists. Things of wonder. Things of destruction. And these things have files. A LOT of files. This week on the Society we feature SCP Archives “Stairwell” and “Plague Doctor”! It’s AUDIO DRAMA TIME!
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with another Aventures with Maisie double-feature with “Clothes Make a Woman and “Hitching to Bartonville from the Mutual Broadcasting System…
Our family members are not always who we think. When Eleonore Richland exposed her father’s dark legacy, she vowed to clean up the family business – and hired her half-brother, Santino Reyes, to help her do it. But old habits die hard in this double-feature release of “Blood Ties” from the Wondery podcast group beginning with Post Mortem and the Year of the Woman! It’s Audio Drama Time!
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with another Jack Armstrong- The All American Boy and The Luminous Dragon Eye Ring Episodes 10 and 11!
It’s a late Christmas present as Jack and David present the last (or is it first) Sonic Cinema Production of the year with Jack’s own rendition of O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magic” paired like fine wine with part one of the holiday special “Moonbase Hope Colony” from Privy Projects Productions. Happy New Year everyone!
HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM ALL OF US AT THE SONIC SOCIETY AND THE MUTUAL AUDIO NETWORK!
This week we’re thrilled to provide a little Christmas spirit with The Holiday Spirit from Will Anderson and Stacey Pattison, and a retelling of the classic A Gift of the Magi from Odyssey Audioworks and Richard Summers, Tanja Milojevich, Josh Price, and Amy Price. All the very best to you!
We return to Mutual Presents! This week we’re back with another Wednesday Wonder’s “Exploring Tomorrow” and more classic old time radio from the Mutual Broadcasting System with the double feature of grand sci-fi tales “Overpopulation” and “Planet of Geniuses”.
We here at the Sonic Society are unabashed fans of Re-imagined Radio and our mutual partnership with Mutual! Last year, they produced a Christmas Sampler that Monday Matinee had on in August. We’d like to kindly restore it to the season here all of which features selections from Christmas episodes of radio programs like Suspense, Rocky Fortune, The Damon Runyon Theatre, The Jack Benny Program, Bing Crosby and The Kraft Music Hall, Vic and Sade, and the 2020 recorded performance of “A Radio Christmas Carol” by Metropolitan Performing Arts! Joyeux Noel!
And we’re back with Mutual Presents, sneak peaks at our daily releases on the Mutual Audio Network Youtube Channel. This week we’re back roaming the high seas with The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen and the feature: “The Story of Eight Historic Periods”. All aboard!
Jack and David are back with a fun-filled Sonic Society potpourri including episodes 1-3 of The Haunting of Selene from Misfits Audio written by our dear friend Alexa Chipman and post-produced by Jake Lewsey, followed by Barjory Bufffet: The Cruise Detective “Probably Claus” by Brad Beideman, and finally “Titch and the Enchanted Snow Globe” from Lie Hard with a Vengeance Podcast produced by Paul Blakeley and Rick Allden!
Jack and David bring in the season with the last two episodes of “Saint” Nick and the Big F*ck Up written and performed by Phil Rickaby and the Scare Fighters 3 Holiday Special- Solitary Place of Residence, written by Max Brown and Produced by Joe Wilkinson!
Welcome back to Mutual Presents! We’re back with another double-feature from First Nighter, the two-decade radio drama-comedy series that aired on various radio stations from 1930 to 1953 before landing on Mutual from 1942 to 1944. It’s “Give Up the Ship” and “Susan Stepped Out”!
Jack is once again solo and feeling a seasonal cold as he tries to bring in another season with “Saint” Nick and the Big F*ck Up is a hilarious, heartbreaking, and heartwarming Christmas audio drama with the first four of six episodes about a part-time mall Santa’s ability to mess everything up, written and performed by Phil Rickaby.
A Sound Effect Blog has a very interesting post on how to create horror sound effects. It’s a detailed discussion from sound designer/re-recording mixer Joe Dzuban who has worked with some great horror masters of film today like James Wan and Guillermo del Toro. While I bristle at the word “foley”- a term that’s used for […]
With respect to the great Kevin Hartnell’s list of best audio drama of all time, he may be adding a number of new features. We already identified The Three Ages of Modern Audio Drama and now it would be best to identify a fourth. The third age roughly started in 2012 and can be definitively […]
MADCON 2022 begins it’s final day with Cei and Tony talking about what we can expect in the upcoming panel discussions!
Jack is by himself as he makes his way to meet up with David and brings along with him “The Milkman of St. Gaff’s” episodes one and two! Lovecraft meets Kafka in this serialized fantasy/horror podcast about Howie, a troubled young man who joins the milkmen on the island of St. Gaff’s, only to discover […]
MADCON 2022 continues its Saturday table meets with Tony, Tom Konkle, and Erin talking about how to bring in new listeners!
David finds the spooky gardening shed and announces our two features from The Nightlight, winner of best fiction podcast featuring creepy stories written by and performed by black actors. This week we have episode 101: Letters from Home by Justina Ireland, and the bonus episode Stories of Love and Revenge.
Non-podcast content for audience engagement (video content, live shows, merch, companion pieces like TTRPGs and short stories) with Tony, Ed Jowett, Paul, Cai, and Erin!
Jack and David return with today’s feature where we have “Entropy: An Original Sci-Fi Audio Drama“. In the year 2309, Humanity is at an all out civil war between Earth and her colonies, as the Kepler Government seeks to rule the entire Colonial Sector with an iron grip. Using Authoritarian tactics, Kepler relentlessly slaughters it’s […]
In this session, Jaqi Seelagy, Ed Jowett, and Erin talk about Crowdfunding! The Mutual Audio Youtube shows the evidence!
Jack and David return and this week ur feature, ‘The Chronicles of Wild Hollow’, begins with The Boursin trilogy. In Episode One, Fandango investigates a high-rolling new nightclub in Fortuna City when Billy Bob’s customers are drawn away from Dust Town’s favourite saloon. Run entirely by frogs, the Lilypad Lounge continues to prosper night after […]
Jack and David return with “Hot Copy Radio Theater” who re-create lost episodes of the 1940s radio show, “HOT COPY” — all adapted from the original scripts! This week, an old man is found dead, after a mysterious fire destroys a house in a wealthy neighborhood. Was it a simple accident or a sinister murder? […]
Wrapping up the final session of Friday’s MADCON 2022 includes the discussion about Scripted Audio Drama and it’s future. Tony is your panel leader!
David returns to the Sonic Summerstock stage to present the final performance for 2022 with “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” a Lux Radio Theater recreation from Sonic Cinema Productions.
We return with the 3rd session of Friday’s MADCON 2022 includes the discussion about Diegetic Recordings and sound. Innovation in Audio Drama!
Tom Parson’s glorious theme begins our latest Retrospective of the life of Mark Bruzee. This week I speak with Elie Hirschman who talks of his long-time friend and collaborator from Darker Projects. The episode he chose was “The Bug Doctor”. The second feature from the “Night Terrors” horror anthology. Mark is, as always, the arbiter […]
For our final act this week, The Narada Radio Company returns with their third and final Summerstock production for this year, Lux Radio Theatre’s adaptation of “Les Miserables” – the non-musical version originally broadcast in December, 1952. Join familiar characters Jean Valjean, his nemesis Javert, and all of the colorful characters from Victor Hugo’s tragic […]
David Ault returns for our penultimate week for the Summerstock 2022 season beginning our first act with Rachel Pulliam’s Sole Twin Audio and “Rope”!
We return with the 2nd session of Friday’s MADCON 2022 includes the discussion of Improv and Scripted Play including host Jeffrey , Greg, Xan, and Erin on the panel!
For our second Act, Pete Lutz and Jeff Billard show up on stage to provide “More Bob and Ray”! Hilarity and fun for your Sunday Showcase followed by John Bell with “Danse Macabre”!
David Ault brings back Project Audion to the stage with Larry Groebe introducing “Bad Day at Black Rock”. This show is an adaptation for radio from the 1955 MGM movie which starred Spencer Tracy. Since Lux Radio Theatre and Screen Guild Playhouse and other classic American radio series were now gone from the airwaves, THIS […]
Playing after the intermission for the second Act, No Soap Radio takes the stage and presents another Jack Benny Recreation, this time tackling the May 5th, 1940 episode where the gang returns to Hollywood by way of a TWA flight.
This week the Sonic Summerstock Playhouse begins its first act with Rachel Pulliam and Sole Twin Audio‘s adaptation of “The Turn of the Screw” from their Patchwork Classics series. The cast for this epic includes Sharon Grünwald as Announcer, Ross Bernhard as The Whistler, Ted Bjorndal as Douglas, Karl Nordman as The Uncle, Tanya Rich as The Governess, Fiona Mack as […]
As we start a limited series of interviews and reflections on the incredible collection of audio work of the writer, producer, and actor extraordinaire, Mark Bruzee, Eric Busby of Eric Busby Presents and Darker Projects fame, help share some memories about Mark and his contribution to the early days of the Golden Age of the […]
Act II of The Narada Radio Company presentation of a remake of the BBC adaptation of THE CAINE MUTINY COURT-MARTIAL, kicking off the 12th (?) Season of Sonic Summerstock Playhouse! Herman Wouk’s moving novel of World War Two was condensed by the author into a two-act play, which the BBC broadcast in the 1950s. This […]
Act I of The Narada Radio Company presentation of a remake of the BBC adaptation of THE CAINE MUTINY COURT-MARTIAL, kicking off the 12th (?) Season of Sonic Summerstock Playhouse! Herman Wouk’s moving novel of World War Two was condensed by the author into a two-act play, which the BBC broadcast in the 1950s. This […]
It’s our finale for season 17 and Jack and David are feeling a little “Unwell” from the long year! It’s “Unwell-a Midwest Gothic” episodes one and two “Homecoming” and “The Diner”! Lillian Harper moves to the small town of Mt. Absalom, Ohio, to care for her estranged mother Dorothy after an injury. Living in the […]
This week Jack and David go out in deep space where biologist Violet Liu is floating through the void, trapped in a doomed research ship. She’s the sole survivor of a devastating explosion, and frankly, her odds aren’t looking great, either. But when she is contacted by the charming—and woefully inexperienced—Captain Kay Grisham, Violet learns […]
This week Jack and David visit a Dystopian world in which Money, State, and God becomes fused into a single entity called “The Program“. Each episode is a self-contained story focusing on ordinary people inhabiting this extraordinary world. And for them, it is not this future that is terrifying – it is our present. This […]
This week David and Jack get science fictiony with the atmospheric “Beyond the Dark” from author and musician Mark R. Healy. Each episode is a new world to explore. You might find yourself in the heart of a cyberpunk metropolis, a post-apocalyptic wasteland, or an alien world. Each story features its own original music score […]
Jack, Jeff and Lothar get together to discuss Lux Radio Theater’s production of Murder, My Sweet!
Mark Bruzee left us May 20, 2022 with his husband by his side. I can barely comprehend the loss to the Audio Drama Community. Mark was a stalwart, tireless, creative dynamo. He would have laughed if I called him spritely, but looking back that’s the energy he had. We would text back and forth through […]
This week we start our campfire series with the anthology series by playwright Jonathan Cook “Gather by Ghostlight“. Think of the Ghost Light as your campfire. Gather around and listen to stories from a variety of genres that have been produced in theatres around the world. Short play festivals have become wildly popular in recent […]
Re-imagined Radio proudly presents an incredible new release of Archibald MacLeish’s “The Fall of the City” originally released from The Columbia Workshop, one of radio’s most inventive series during its Golden Age! This modern retake melds the classic tale with the original script from Jack J. Ward, “Great Day for a War”. Listen now on […]
“Berlin, 1921. Democracy teeters. Zealots battle in the streets as the Bechsteins, Europe’s famed piano makers, host an elegant soiree. A surprise guest arrives – a combat veteran – unknown and seemingly unremarkable. He unveils powers of seduction, manipulation and demagogy that will soon change the course of history.” This week history MARCH takes the […]
This week Jack and David visit their friends at Re-Imagined Radio for their Women’s History Month, women in radio, and specifically Lucille Fletcher, one of our favourite writers of all time and RR picks the cream of the crop reprising a double feature of “The Hitch-Hiker” and “Sorry, Wrong Number”!
This week Jack and David bring you Seven Lamb Productions and their new sci-fi apocalyptic series called “End of All Hope“. Ava, Mark, and Jay have been friends and co-workers for years. On a routine trip to New York for an environmental convention, they soon find that things are about to go horribly wrong. Is […]
This week Jack and David present Y2K which is a completed story in 66 episodes over two seasons but we’re only featuring the first four episodes. Olivia launches Y2K podcast, and plays the first two voice mails from Kat and Jess in the year 2000 by Karin Heimdahl.
This week from the very appropriately named “The Audio Drama Show” David and Jack present two adaptations of “The Story of Tom Smart” and “The Strange Client” by Charles Dickens scripted by James Newberry.
“Tales of the Night Sky” is a unique Audio Drama experience with spectacular soundscapes, based on the Greco-Roman myths behind the constellations. Written and directed by Bibi Jacob, these moving and sometimes humorous tales, brim with tragedy, injustice, and violence. This week Jack and David look at a trilogy of tales including “Callisto: The Constellation […]
This week in honour of Mutual Audio Network’s crackerjack fourth season, Jack and David have a listen with American Radio Theater‘s recreation of Mutual RADIO Theater’s “Oh, Really? No, O’Reilly”, when a boomtown goes bust some local merchants hatch a scheme to preserve their prosperity.
This week Jack and David bring a run from a fun science fiction mini-series from Theatre of Tomorrow with the first three episodes of The Lost Logs of the Saratoga! Fun retro radio drama!Be sure to do your part to help the crowd funded show from Faustian Nonsense- Super Suits! Go to http://seedandspark.com/fund/super-suits before March […]
This week Jack and David bring a run from a thriller anthology series The Long Hallway. Behind each door lurks a tale designed to send a chill down your spine. These bite-sized, flash-fiction stories are written by members of the Skylark Media team.Be sure to do your part to help the crowdfunded show from Faustian […]
This week Jack and David bring the premiere episode of The Godshead Incidental, Lorem Ipsum. Em has a run-in with the “God” of “Memory.” Plus, how to deal with vision board theft.Be sure to do your part to help the crowdfunded show from Faustian Nonsense- Super Suits! Go to http://seedandspark.com/fund/super-suits before March 10th!
This week Jack and David bring the first two episodes of Brimstone Valley Mall.
The year is 1999. Lurking somewhere between Hot Topic and the food court, five misfit demons from Hell kill time inciting sin in a suburban shopping mall. When the lead singer of their band goes mysteriously missing, the demons only have two weeks to find him before they play the biggest gig of the Millenium – or face the wrath of Satan herself.
Be sure to do your part to help the crowd funded show from Faustian Nonsense- Super Suits! Go to http://seedandspark.com/fund/super-suits before March 10th!
This week we complete Roar Creative Productions feature with “The Grove“! Written and directed by Meg Toogood and episodes 4-6.
In this episode, Jack checks in with the founders of the incredible artistic organization- Faustian Nonsense, Jaclyn Seelagy and Amelia Kinch.
This week we check out a Roar Creative Productions feature with “The Grove“! When she’s asked to present at the company’s flagship conference graduate developer Mira Fisher must face her biggest fear – public speaking. But life at the world’s coolest, biggest, wealthiest tech company is not as it seems. In the atrium of ornamental trees ancient, mythical forces are waking that will change Mira’s destiny and grant her a terrifying gift. Written and directed by Meg Toogood. Sound design by Ed Clarke. This week the first three episodes.
Feeling in the dumps from the dark days of January? Let Sonic Society brighten your day with some music! This week we have “Ignore City” which is an audio drama rock musical with original songs by The Shake Ups! In a post-apocalyptic future where technology has been outlawed, Deban Rimpa, a scrappy bike messenger, befriends a sentient robot head named Saner 0805. She embarks on an intrepid adventure through Ignore City to save civilization before government agents catch up with her. Part Futurama, part Terminator, this whimsical tale is written by Ed Cho, author of the graphic novel series, Little Guardians, and features music and voice work by The Shake Ups!
Our Christmas tradition sadly ends this week as we bring “Christmas in Crisis” from Steven Cardinal. Santa’s Workshop is in turmoil – the number of kids on the nice list has dropped to 0 – the ListCheck 3000 says so! And, what’s worse, Santa is nowhere to be found. Can a plucky little housekeeping elf solve the mystery and get Santa back in time to save Christmas? And we finish off with “Father Christmas Letters #5″ from Misfits Audio.
In this episode, Jack interviews the wife and husband team behind Madison on the Air, Chrisi Talyn Saje and Jeremy Saje.
It’s the New Year for certain but our holiday spirit hasn’t wained as we present, “Frosted” from Steven Cardinal and Aural Traditions.
Sometimes a magic hat is more than just a magic hat. And sometimes, you don’t always get the real story the first time. Frosted is our attempt at correcting the story you may have heard of that particular frozen fellow.
From the Half Moon Bay Review:
As a writing professor at Stanford University in 1995, Richard Holeton wrote a 500-word short story about Theodore Streleski, the Stanford graduate student who bludgeoned his faculty advisor to death with a hammer in the 1970s. He developed the story into a hypertext novel, “Figurski at Findhorn on Acid,” which for the last 12 years has been unavailable to the public due to outdated software — until now.…
Holeton also embarked on the unprecedented project of adapting the hypertext novel into a radio play. In collaboration with Emmy award-winning sound artist Marc Rose and John Barber, who wrote the screenplay adaptation, the play will debut on Re-Imagined Radio. For more information about listening, visit the main webpage for the Re-Imagined Radio website, and check the How To Listen section.
Read the full article for more and congratulations to the amazing Marc Rose and John Barber, from Re-Imagined Radio. The radio play is in good hands!
It’s our favourite day of the year. Public Domain Day.
On January 1, 2022, copyrighted works from 1926 will enter the US public domain, 1 where they will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. The line-up this year is stunning. It includes books such as A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, Felix Salten’s Bambi, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Langston Hughes’ The Weary Blues, and Dorothy Parker’s Enough Rope. There are scores of silent films—including titles featuring Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Greta Garbo, famous Broadway songs, and well-known jazz standards. But that’s not all. In 2022 we get a bonus: an estimated 400,000 sound recordings from before 1923 2 will be entering the public domain too!
In 2022, the public domain will welcome a lot of “firsts”: the first Winnie-the-Pooh book from A. A. Milne, the first published novels from Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, the first books of poems from Langston Hughes and Dorothy Parker. What’s more, for the first time ever, thanks to a 2018 law called the Music Modernization Act, a special category of works—sound recordings—will finally begin to join other works in the public domain. On January 1 2022, the gates will open for all of the recordings that have been waiting in the wings. Decades of recordings made from the advent of sound recording technology through the end of 1922—estimated at some 400,000 works—will be open for legal reuse.
Why celebrate the public domain? When works go into the public domain, they can legally be shared, without permission or fee. That is something Winnie-the-Pooh would appreciate. Community theaters can screen the films. Youth orchestras can perform the music publicly, without paying licensing fees. Online repositories such as the Internet Archive, HathiTrust, and Google Books can make works fully available online. This helps enable access to cultural materials that might otherwise be lost to history. 1926 was a long time ago. The vast majority of works from 1926 are out of circulation. When they enter the public domain in 2022, anyone can rescue them from obscurity and make them available, where we can all discover, enjoy, and breathe new life into them.
The public domain is also a wellspring for creativity. The whole point of copyright is to promote creativity, and the public domain plays a central role in doing so. Copyright law gives authors important rights that encourage creativity and distribution—this is a very good thing. But it also ensures that those rights last for a “limited time,” so that when they expire, works go into the public domain, where future authors can legally build on the past—reimagining the books, making them into films, adapting the songs and movies. That’s a good thing too! As explained in a New York Times editorial:
When a work enters the public domain it means the public can afford to use it freely, to give it new currency . . . [public domain works] are an essential part of every artist’s sustenance, of every person’s sustenance. 3
Just as Shakespeare’s works have given us everything from 10 Things I Hate About You and Kiss Me Kate (from The Taming of the Shrew) to West Side Story (from Romeo and Juliet), who knows what the works entering the public domain in 2022 might inspire? As with Shakespeare, the ability to freely reimagine these works may spur a range of creativity, from the serious to the whimsical, and in doing so allow the original artists’ legacies to endure.
Here is a more detailed snapshot of just a few of the books, sound recordings, movies, and musical compositions that will be in the public domain in 2022. 4 They were supposed to go into the public domain in 2002, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years. Now the wait is over. (To find more material from 1926, you can visit the Catalogue of Copyright Entries.) 5 You can click on some of the titles below to get the newly public domain works.
- A. A. Milne, *Winnie-the-Pooh*, decorations by E. H. Shepard 6
- Ernest Hemingway, *The Sun Also Rises*
- Dorothy Parker, *Enough Rope* (her first collection of poems)
- Langston Hughes, *The Weary Blues*
- T. E. Lawrence, *The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (later adapted into the film Lawrence of Arabia*)
- Felix Salten, *Bambi, A Life in the Woods*
- Kahlil Gibran, *Sand and Foam*
- Agatha Christie, *The Murder of Roger Ackroyd*
- Edna Ferber, *Show Boat*
- William Faulkner, *Soldiers’ Pay* (his first novel)
- Willa Cather, *My Mortal Enemy*
- D. H. Lawrence, *The Plumed Serpent*
- H. L. Mencken, *Notes on Democracy*
What a list! There is a lot to be excited about—beloved children’s characters, an iconic story of the “lost generation” after World War I, poetry from a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance and pioneer of the blues and jazz aesthetic, and clever verse from the “wittiest woman in America.” Note that in all of these cases, what is going into the public domain are the specific works from 1926, not the later books, movies, or translations based on the original books, or all of the other work by that author. Thus, while you will be free to use the material from the original Winnie-the-Pooh book, not every Pooh story or movie or Hemingway novel or Langston Hughes poem is entering the public domain.
Sound Recordings In 2022, experts estimate that some 400,000 sound recordings published before 1923 will enter the public domain! They will become free for all to download, remix, or use in a soundtrack.
US copyright law treats musical compositions and sound recordings differently. A composition consists of the lyrics and music that you might see on a piece of sheet music. A sound recording is the embodiment of a particular performance of that composition, fixed on media such as vinyl records or on digital audio files. If I write a song called “Public Domain Day!” and you record it, I get the copyright over the composition and you get a separate copyright over your recording of my song. 7
While US copyright law has covered compositions since 1831, it did not add the sound recording right until Feburary 15, 1972. The new right only covered recordings made from that date onward, leaving recordings made before 1972 subject to a confusing patchwork of state laws, with nothing becoming public domain until 2067. 8 The 2018 “Music Modernization Act” brought all of those pre-1972 recordings under federal law and set a timeline for older recordings to gradually enter the public domain. 9
The first big date was January 1, 2022, when a trove of recordings finally goes into the public domain. (The underlying compositions are already in the public domain because their copyright terms expired earlier—all songs published in 1926 and earlier are public domain.) Yes, these recordings are a century or more old, but better late than never!
What will we celebrate in 2022? Everything from experiments with nascent sound recording technology in the late 1800s to opera, classical music, early blues and jazz, vaudeville, ragtime, popular songs, and comedy sketches. With so many recordings to choose from, we can only feature a few of them here. To listen to more recordings, check out the selections from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections and go to the Library of Congress National Jukebox—in 2022 the Library of Congress will make all of the pre-1923 recordings in its collection available for download from this site, while recordings from 1923 forward will be streaming-only until they are in the public domain. As you look through the following list, note that only the pre-1923 recordings made by these artists are entering the public domain, not their later recordings.
Sound Recordings Entering the Public Domain
- Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds, Crazy Blues, Don’t Care Blues, That Thing Called Love, and You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down (Perry Bradford)
- Ethel Waters, Down Home Blues (Tom Delaney) and There’ll Be Some Changes Made (Benton Overstreet, Billy Higgins)
- Sophie Tucker, Some of These Days (Shelton Brooks) and Pick Me Up and Lay Me Down (Harry Ruby, Bert Kalmar)
- Norfolk Jazz & Jubilee Quartets, Jelly Roll Blues (Ferd “Jelly Roll” Morton)
- Fisk University Jubilee Quartet, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (see story) (Traditional African-American spiritual song)
- Vess L. Ossman, Maple Leaf Rag (Scott Joplin)
- Bert Williams, Nobody and Let It Alone (Bert Williams, Alex Rogers), and Everybody Wants a Key to My Cellar (Ed Rose, Billy Baskette, Lew Pollack)
- Billy Murray, Give My Regards to Broadway and The Grand Old Rag (Flag) (George M. Cohan), Alexander’s Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
- Harry Lauder, Roamin’ in the Gloamin’ (Harry Lauder)
- Enrico Caruso performances from operas such as Rigoletto and La Traviata (Giuseppe Verdi), La Bohème (Giacomo Puccini), and Pagliacci (Ruggero Leoncavallo); songs such as Over There (George M. Cohan, French lyrics Louis Delamarre) and O Sole Mio (Neapolitan folk song)
- Pablo Casals, Bourée (Johann Sebastian Bach) and Dream of Love (Liebestraum) (Franz Liszt)
- Sergei Rachmaninoff, Liebesleid (Fritz Kreisler; arr. Rachmaninoff)
- Orquesta Max Dolin, La Golondrina (Narciso Serradell Sevilla)
- Ory’s Sunshine Orchestra, Ory’s Creole Trombone (Edward ‘Kid’ Ory)
- Europe’s Society Orchestra, Too Much Mustard (Cecil Macklin)
- The Sousa Band, The Star-Spangled Banner (John Stafford Smith, Francis Scott Key, arr. John Philip Sousa), Semper Fidelis and multiple other marches by John Philip Sousa
- Jules Levy, The Tale of the Bumble Bee (Gustav Luders, Frank Pixley)
- Anna Chandler, She’s Good Enough To Be Your Baby’s Mother (and She’s Good Enough To Vote With You) (Herman Paley, Alfred Bryan)
- Fanny Brice, My Man (Maurice Yvain, Jacques-Charles, Albert Willemetz, English lyrics Channing Pollock) and Second Hand Rose (Grant Clarke, James F. Hanley)
- Marion Harris, I Ain’t Got Nobody (Roger A. Graham, Spencer Williams)
- Nora Bayes, How You Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm? (Joe Young, Sam M. Lewis, Walter Donaldson)
- Al Jolson, Swanee (George Gershwin, B.G. De Sylva, Irving Caesar)
- John Steel, A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody (Irving Berlin)
- Joe Schenck and Gus Van, Carolina in the Morning (Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn)
- Peerless Quartet, Cows May Come, and Cows May Go, but the Bull Goes On Forever (Harry Von Tilzer, Vincent Bryan)
These recordings reintroduce us to some legendary figures. There are incredible artists such as Mamie Smith and Ethel Waters, who paved the way for generations to follow, and in Waters’ case became a proud icon for the LGBTQ community. You can hear the first tracks from legendary opera singer Enrico Caruso, or the transcendent cellist Pablo Casals. Even on a scratchy recording from over 100 years ago, the magic comes through with all of these artists. There are recordings by Fanny Brice, the real-life Funny Girl portrayed by Barbra Streisand. There is the multi-talented Sophie Tucker, called “the last of the red-hot mamas.” Bert Williams was the first Black artist to break through the color barrier and star in a leading role on Broadway. Kid Ory recorded the first commercially-released tracks by a New Orleans African-American jazz band. You can hear Europe’s Society Orchestra, the first African-American orchestra to have their work recorded, and Cuban-born conductor Max Dolin directing his orchestra for “La Golondrina.”
For us, these recordings provide an aural time capsule, a way of capturing fragments of the past. You can browse pop stars from Billy Murray to Harry Lauder, or hear John Phillip Sousa’s marches. But you also get a glimpse of the politics of the time. Some of our favorites include songs about women’s suffrage (“She’s Good Enough to Be Your Baby’s Mother (and She’s Good Enough to Vote With You)”) and comic laments about Prohibition such as Bert Williams’ “Everybody Wants a Key to My Cellar.”
Rediscovering the incredible early recordings by African-American artists is also an occasion for more somber reflection. They were recording at a time of legally-enforced segregation and the shameful tradition of minstrel shows. 10 Many of the songs from the era contain racist language and demeaning and misleading stereotypes. There was also rampant exploitation of Black talent: Black musicians were routinely excluded from copyright’s benefits and denied both recognition and compensation for their work. The artists featured above were unusual in that they gained some recognition for their contributions in the face of a colossally unfair system, but this does not mean that they were treated fairly. Discrimination, lopsided contracts, and an exclusionary music business deprived many of these artists of the compensation their work so richly deserved. 11
Movies Entering the Public Domain
- For Heaven’s Sake (starring Harold Lloyd)
- Battling Butler (starring Buster Keaton) 12
- The Son of the Sheik (starring Rudolph Valentino)
- The Temptress (starring Greta Garbo)
- Moana (docufiction filmed in Samoa)
- Faust (German expressionist classic)
- So This Is Paris (based on the play Le Réveillon)
- Don Juan (first feature-length film to use the Vitaphone sound system)
- The Cohens and Kellys (prevailed in a famous copyright lawsuit)
- The Winning of Barbara Worth (a Western, known for its flood scene)
The first four films on the list include performances by the great Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Rudolph Valentino, and Greta Garbo. Moana is a work of docufiction filmed in Samoa by Robert J. Flaherty, who made the famous 1922 film Nanook of the North. Copyright buffs will remember The Cohens and Kellys from the famous copyright case Nichols v. Universal, in which Judge Learned Hand said (among other things) that stock characters are not copyrightable. Faust is a German expressionist take on the eponymous play by Goethe. Because Goethe’s play was in the public domain, the filmmakers were free to reimagine it. And that borrowing went in more than one direction. On the right, you can see one of the scenes in Faust, which inspired the strikingly similar “Night on Bald Mountain” scene from Disney’s Fantasia.
Musical Compositions Every piece of recorded music is covered by two distinct copyrights, one over the original composition—the words and music—and the second over the actual recording of the song. Earlier we listed sound recordings from before 1923 entering the public domain. Here are some of the compositions from 1926 that will be joining them.
- Bye Bye Black Bird (Ray Henderson, Mort Dixon)
- Snag It (Joseph ‘King’ Oliver)
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Irving Berlin)
- Black Bottom Stomp (Ferd ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton)
- Someone To Watch Over Me (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin)
- Nessun Dorma from Turandot (Giacomo Puccini, Franco Alfano, Giusseppe Adami, Renato Simoni)
- Are You Lonesome To-Night (Roy Turk, Lou Handman)
- When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along (Harry Woods)
- Ke Kali Nei Au (“Waiting For Thee”) (Charles E. King), in 1958 renamed Hawaiian Wedding Song with new lyrics (English) by Hoffman & Manning
- Cossack Love Song (Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, George Gershwin, Herbert Stothart)
Christmas is over, but the adventure continues for Mrs. Claus! It’s the exciting conclusion of Evil Wears a Green Dress: A Mrs. Claus Story With the villain’s moon base in sight, Mrs. Claus is locked, loaded, and ready to deliver coal to the Scarlet Jade’s stocking. Will our fearless party survive the onslaught of missiles, drones, droids, and foot-soldiers to put an end to her evil scheme before it’s too late? You’ll have to listen to find out… with episodes 3 and 4!
Dr. Mark Dreisonstok and MDTheatreGuide has a look at Sole Twin Audio’s remake of “Holiday Affair”.
“Miracle on 34th Street,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and several versions of “A Christmas Carol” are some of the most popular Christmas films. For its Christmas audio offering based on a classic film, Sole Twin Audios chooses to take a different track (trains are important here) by adapting a less familiar film, “Holiday Affair” (1949). This choice (based on a 1950 audio performance for radio) renders this Christmas-themed production both familiar yet also fresh. There are the traditional Christmas themes of second chances, but presented in a new way, and the show is as relevant to our own time as it was when the movie was released in 1949…
It looks like Hollywood has come up with an interesting idea. Why don’t we have Podcast Movies? The New York Times is struggling to have a name for it. Can anyone come up with something?
Reggie Ugwu writes:
What do you call a podcast that presents a single, fictional story in 90 minutes? It might feel like a movie but clearly isn’t one. It recalls midcentury radio drama but involves no radio.
“You could say ‘feature-length podcasts’ but that just seems boring,” said Chris Corcoran, the co-founder and chief content officer of Cadence13, a podcast production company. “You want to exemplify the experience in a way that feels forward-looking but is still legible to the consumer.”
Corcoran’s preferred term of art, “podcast movie,” mashes two distinct categories together, reflecting the exuberance — and confusion — of this moment of media upheaval. (Movies themselves were once self-consciously called “photoplays.”)
Whatever the new form’s ultimate name, the content has arrived. This fall, Cadence13 released its first two “podcast movies”: “Treat,” a Halloween teen horror story starring Kiernan Shipka, and “Ghostwriter,” a psychological thriller led by Kate Mara and Adam Scott. A third is in progress, and others are circling similar territory. In April, Two-Up, a Brooklyn-based entertainment company (“Limetown,” “36 Questions”) released a “feature-length audio movie” titled “Shipworm,” and the children’s podcast studio Gen-Z Media published the “movie-length audio epic” “Iowa Chapman and the Last Dog” in August.
“Why does the format have to be confined to this notion of serialized stories?” said Ben Davis, a partner at the Hollywood talent agency William Morris Endeavor, which is collaborating with Cadence13 on its features projects and represents Two-Up. “The maturation of podcasting can unlock new forms of creativity and new outlets for creators.”
It’s the night after Christmas and all through the house, the incredible Adventures of Mrs. Claus captivated Jack and David from Last Act Radio Theatre! Mrs. Claus, Lyric, and Kuma find themselves trapped in a prison cell after trying to save Princess Nyra, and who’s behind it? The Scarlet Jade herself, a nasty no-good-nik bent on draining planets of their lifeforce…but to what end?! Can Mrs. Claus and the gang stop the Scarlet Jade in time and save the Princess? Should they trust the handsome blue alien they meet along the way? And will Santa get to borrow the sled for Christmas Eve? Only one way to find out…
Are you ready for Christmas? Jack and David are preparing as they take a trip into “Tinsel Town” with episodes one and two. After making a wish on the Christmas Star, Holly finds herself popping in and out of Tinsel Town, a magical place where it’s Christmas every day.