January 21, 2024
Drummer’s Dome
This Great Northern Audio Theatre play was performed live at Minicon 35 in 2000. Listening to it later we realized there was another chapter to the story. So we wrote it, but we couldn’t get the excellent cast together again. We had to rerecord the whole thing in the studio. But this performance is so good I had to make sure it gets its due. It features David Ossman as Drummer, with Jane Yolen and Irene Ruderman (Clark), and Jeff Schalles on drums.
The Survey
A survey taker comes to ask questions of the elderly lady who answers the door. The questions seem to be about how people think of their place in the universe. It’s only at the end that we find out who the survey is from and what it’s about. From Yuri Rasovskty’s 2000X series.
The Bed and Breakfast Burglar
The Essex Audio Theater presents this play produced for the Hosiprog series of entertainment for hospitals in England. An elderly couple are awakened by a burglar n their house, but they are able to subdue him. Then the negotiations and scheming begin. It was written by Sue Lenier.
January 28, 2024
A Canadian Showcase
The Boneyard Man – The Prestigious Prestidigitator
The Natural Broadcasting Company of London, Ontario presents another episode of this very silly takeoff on The Shadow. Performed live periodically over 15 seasons, it is an irregular feature on CHRW, the University of Western Ontario radio station. Featuring Jeff Culbert, Rachel Jones, Jayson McDonald, and Jeff Werkmeister.
Peter Galaxy: Interstellar Envoy
Two long retired radio actors suddenly discover that their old radio show had a much greater reach than they had ever imagined. Two aliens arrive asking for their help, and don’t leave them any real choice in the matter.
Originally written for the Mark Time Radio Show, and produced here by the Decoder Ring Theatre of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada for their Summer Showcase (Season 9) as an episode of Mark Time Show Time.
February 4, 2024
The Corner Bar On Alpha Prime
Misfits Audio presents this series written by Mike Murphy.
The New Bartender
On the far-off world of Alpha Prime, Earthman Kent Stone brings a new bartender to his watering hole, an android known as SAL, who supposedly has 1,001 uses.
Zooster Sent Me
Kent and SAL meet Treena, a young woman who believes that her god has sent her to The Corner Bar to learn something profound..
The Spirit Among the Spirits
Business plummets when a ghost starts haunting the bar.
February 11,2024
Annie Speed and the Ukrainian Blackmailer
Annie misses the guys down at the precinct, but not the police work. Now she runs her own detective agency. Then a customer comes in that she hasn’t seen since a long ago high school reunion, and he has a tale of a beautiful woman, the Ukrainian Embassy, and blackmail. But it’s a mystery story, so you shouldn’t count on things being as they are presented.
Written by Rick McVey and presented for the Don’t Touch That Dial radio series by the Bristol Radio Theater out of Johnson City, Tennessee.
2 Minute Film Noir
4 Episodes from the series by ZBS. Short noir tales for radio., featuring tough guys, tougher dames, and coppers.
February 18, 2024
Antietam: The Lost Command
A lead-up to Antietam, one of the worst battles of the War Between the States. It’s kind of from a Confederate point of view. It’s a dramatic story, but I wouldn’t count it as a resource for historical accuracy.
Produced by Sound Mind Theater. I found it listed as formerly for sale on Amazon, but it’s no longer available, and there’s nothing else on the production company. So I guess that means you can only hear it here.
February 25, 2024
A Trip to Great Britain
No. 2 Ding Street
A man finds out he has inherited something from his step-father, and he’s not sure what to do with it. But there are quite a lot of people who have some suggestions.
Hosiprog was a production company that made audio entertainment for British hospital patients. This is one of their works, written by Bill Barrow.
Take a Dose of Laughter
Yo know that phrase “Laugher is the best medicine”? This is a story about a Doctor’s office in Britain that takes the idea seriously. From the Essex Audio Theatre.
A Ship In A Bottle
Telling a friend about a dream you had can be cathartic, even if you don’t know what it means. One of the Tiny Dreams tales from ZBS.
March 3, 2024
Goldfish
Philip Marlowe, one of the toughest of the noir detectives of the 1940s, is after the Leander Pearls. They were stolen decades ago, and the thief was caught, but the pearls were never recovered. You just know there’s dames, and intrigue, and double crosses involved.
The story was written by Raymond Chandler. The production comes from Otherworld Media, adapted by David Ossman, produced by Judith Walcutt, and starring Harris Yulin as Marlowe, and Harry Anderson as the very dangerous Sunset. Recorded on location in the Pacific Northwest, where the original story was set, so listen with your headphones for the full effect.
March 10, 2024
Houston, Houston, Do You Read?
Three astronauts embark on a trip around the sun, but on their return the only people who respond on the radio from Earth are women. They find they have somehow been flung into the future where a plague has killed all men on Earth. The women send a ship to rescue them, and find there are bigger problems that arise. Story themes revolve around feminism, environmentalism, and male violence.
Original story by James Tiptree, Jr., and won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Science Fiction Novella in 1977. Production is from the Sci-Fi Radio Series on NPR, and is listed in the Mark Time Science Fiction Audio Hall of Fame.
March 17, 2024
The Space Merchants
In the future overpopulated, corporate controlled world, the advertising companies hold the most sway. Fowler Shocken is the biggest. Mitchell Courtney is in charge of the account to convince people to take the “opportunity” to colonize Venus, without telling them it’s a hellhole. But Courtney’s position is not secure: there are those who want his job.
A Classic science fiction novel by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth. Excellent SF satire, and noted for its use of invented language: such as first use of “try-Di” to mean three-dimensional, “R and D” for Research and Development, “Muzak” as a generic term. and first use of “survey” as a term to mean taking a poll.
The production is from the CBS Radio Workshop in 1956-57. Film rights were sold, but a movie version was never made.
Listed as one of the best SF Novels of all time, Pohl wrote a sequel in 1984 titled The Merchants War. Three other books by these authors are similar in satirical style and in plot outline - Gladiator At Law, Wolfbane and Search the Sky.
March 24, 2024
From the Darker Side
The Nephews
The Nephews are islands off the coast of Maine. There is a reason there that no one goes to visit the lighthouse on one of the islands.
From Audio Comics (at Pocket Universe Productions).
The Dark Road To Nowhere
t was a dark and stormy Halloween night; Simon and Felicia were cruising along a lonely country road when suddenly something jumped out in front of their car. Was it a Halloween trick, an illusion, or the beginning of a nightmare?
Written and directed by Joey Ouellette, produced by Voices in the Wind Audio Theatre, in Canada.
Time Is Money
Yap Audio Productions in Edinburgh, Scotland tells a tale that takes its title very literally.
March 31, 2024
Tales with a Twist
King Me
An original play from Robert Arnold of the Chatterbox Theater in Memphis, TN. He thinks he’s planned the perfect crime that can’t come back to haunt him.
The Hockey Bag
Sometimes you want a good friend to just listen and not try to fix it.
Written by Jeffrey Adams, director of the Icebox Radio Theater in International Falls, MN.
After Twenty Years
An adaptation of a short story by O. Henry by the Chatterbox Theater.
April 7, 2024
Very different views of science fiction audio.
The Moonlight Contingency
Producer Robin Schild sends us this tale of a scientist who has been trying to hide the capabilities of an Artificial Intelligence, but the AI has other ideas of its own.
Arakis Newswatch
A news program broadcast from the planet Arakis, home of Atreides family.
I really don’t know where this came from. I’ve had it for more than 30 years, and it has no credits on it.
What On Earth
The Home Office checks in on a research project that has been going on for a long time. It doesn’t seem to be going as well as they had hoped, so there is some discussion that drastic measures may have to be taken. The early aspects of the experiment involved dinosaurs, and these more recently there has been an unfortunate trend toward war.
A science fiction satire from YAP Audio Productions in Scotland.
Krator and the Death Ray
A short piece from Wisconsin’s own Radio Pirates.
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