In The Embers
In The Embers wins Audie!
Jun/03/17 10:24 Filed in: Great Northern productions | In The Embers
In The Embers takes the Best Audio Drama Audie Award
June !st the Audio Publishers Association announced the winners in their annual Audie Awards in New York City. We are pleased to say that In The Embers took the prize in the Audio Drama category.
Photo:
Brian Price, Paula Poundstone, Robin Miles. > >
We’d like to thank the Academy, the Foreign Press Association, our long-suffering families, Tom Lopez, the excellent cast, CONVergence, and librarians all across the country for this great honor. We are pleased to be recognized for something that we loved doing.
Stearns and Price honored with Norman Corwin Award
The founders and moving spirits behind the Great Northern Audio Theatre have been chosen to receive the 2017 Norman Corwin Award for Excellence in Audio Theatre. Based in the Midwest, Great Northern Audio Theatre creates its own unique brand of lighthearted, whimsical, and comic original stories that evoke the inventiveness of Firesign Theatre and the sophistication of golden-age radio producer, Norman Corwin. Working with Minnesota's premier Sci-Fi convention, Minicon (later moved to CONvergence), Jerry and Brian created live shows each year to the delight of con-goers, embracing – and extending, and often satirizing – the Science Fiction genre. Their motto says it all:
“Ours is not to create the machines of the future.
Ours is to make fun of them when they break down.”
They have also created many excellent studio productions, and their work is not always comic. It can be pointed, ingenious, and dramatic, crossing genres and offering new viewpoints on modern life. To give just a few examples, Tumbleweed Roundup turned a Western story on its head with a wild cowboys-and-aliens encounter; Drummer's Dome explored generational realities and perceptions; Solid State University took a look at education as it was, is, and might become (winning the Golden Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters); Dialog With Martian Trombone ingeniously revealed the real extra-terrestrial invasion that was covered up by Orson Welles' famous broadcast; and In The Embers – a truly classic original story of music, memory, and time and was mastered at the legendary ZBS studios – has won an Audie Award for Best Audio Drama. .
The Norman Corwin Award for Excellence in Audio Theatre, given annually by The National Audio Theatre Festivals (NATF), is the premier American recognition of lifetime achievement, regardless of media, in the field of audio theatre. It was instituted May 3, 2010, on Norman Corwin's 100th birthday. The first Award was given to Mr. Corwin himself, who is considered the Grand Master of American radio theatre.
In The Embers is Audie Finalist
Feb/09/17 16:37 Filed in: Great Northern productions | In The Embers
In The Embers is an Audie Award Finalist
The Audio Publishers Association announced the finalists for the 2017 Audie Awards on February 8th, and Great Northern’s In The Embers is included as a finalist in the Audio Drama category, and in the Original Work category. We’re very pleased by this event. The Audies are given each year for the best in audiobooks, and for the narrators who perform them.
In The Embers available from Blackstone Audio
A review in AudioFile Magazine announced when In The Embers was released by Blackstone Audio on their Downpour website. We are very pleased to be published by Blackstone, one of the leading audio publishers with an ear for audio theater. You can also find In The Embers as a download in the ZBS online catalog.
The Blackstone release includes three original songs integral to the story and a 70-minute In The Embers - The Making Of documentary created especially for Blackstone. The song lyrics were written by Brian Price and sung by Robin Miles, with music performed by Mike Wheaton. (In The Embers, My Columbine, and My Gorgeous Boy.) The documentary consists of commentary from the writers and producers, and interviews with the actors, musical composer, and producer Tom Lopez of ZBS. We also introduced the two actresses who played the grownup versions of the two sisters at the center of this story, Robin Miles and Jacquie Maddix, on KFAI radio recently. The two had not met until we brought them together on Sound Affects to talk about their roles.
Twin Cities Geek Reviews In The Embers
The Twin Cities Geek website posted a review of In The Embers, written by Kelly Starsmore. You can read the whole review at twincitiesgeek.com. She says, “In the Embers is one for the ages and something that I will come back to time and time again.” We’re glad she liked it, and we hope you will get yourself a copy and give it a listen, too. You can see more here at Great Northern Audio. It’s available for download from ZBS.org and at Blackstone Audio’s Downpour site. In the Twin Cities you can get compact discs of the show at Uncle Hugo’s SF Bookstore, and at Dreamhaven Books.
Oh, and there’s a 60-minute documentary on The Making of In The Embers that includes interviews with the producers, the actors, and the musician, and a few comments from our mentor, Tom Lopez of ZBS. It’s entertaining as well as having something to say about the making of modern audio theater. There’s a link to the documentary on the ZBS home page, and it’s free.
And since we’re speaking of ZBS, they also have links to some new podcasts all about ZBS’s use of binaural sound recording. There are already several episodes up there, so lots to listen to, including complete ZBS stories, and some examples of ambient binaural recording that is full of fun and wonder. Narrated by Meatball Fulton. To get the full effect of binaural be sure to listen using headphones.
Sound Affects: A Radio Playground, on community radio KFAI in Minneapolis, is broadcasting another ZBS project, The Fourth Tower of Inverness, the very first Jack Flanders adventure. There are a few episodes each Sunday evening at 9:30 PM through June, on 90.3 FM and 106.7 FM in the Twin Cities, and streaming live at KFAI.org. Archives of the show are kept for two weeks, so don’t hesitate to listen now.
Mark Time Awards finalists posted
