Voices In The Wind Audio Theatre

SFFaudio Online Audio

Voices In The Wind Audio TheatreExecutive Producer David Farquhar of the audio drama troupe called Voices In The Wind Audio Theatre, writes in to tell me about audio drama production group. From the website:

Voices In The Wind– Audio Theatre, formally Design Sound Productions. Our mission is to produce quality audio drama programs which reflect a wide range of genres including Suspense, Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi and Seasonal Presentations. Our production studio is located in Chatham, Ontario Canada, and we have had the good fortune of working with noted actors, writers and directors from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle in the United States as well as from Toronto, Guelph, Windsor and Huntsville in Canada.

And notably, among their roster of professionals is Seeing Ear Theatre veteran George Zarr! Check out these free downloads:

Running To Detroit by Dave CarleyRunning to Detroit
By Dave Carley; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 38 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Voices In The Wind
Published: July 2010
A mother and daughter plan on crossing the border from “Canuckistan” into Detroit, Michigan in an effort to “boost the American economy.” Sadly, a passport problem makes the change their plans – but all is not lost, as a pair of shady characters can help!

School Spirit by George ZarrSchool Spirit
By George Zarr; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 28 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CFCO / CHRW
Broadcast: Halloween 2005
“After a nighttime brush with the supernatural will Michelle’s first day of High School, be her last?”
SCHOOL SPIRIT was recorded live at the Von Ayres Cultural Center in Wallaceburg, Ontario on May 14, 2005 for later broadcast on CFCO AM 630 / 92.9 FM – Chatham and CHRW 94.9 – London on Halloween night 2005. The program was also featured on M Radio and The Sonic Society.
Stars:
ALEXANDRA POOLE: Michelle
NOELLE DUPUIS: Mom
GLEN TURNER: Dad and Fiend
JC CHARBONNEAU: Marcy and Mrs. Stanton
ANTHONY POSER: Ghoul
JASON DOLSEN: Newscaster and Mr. Jameson
PAT GOUGH: Homicidal Teacher
Crew:
Written and Directed by: George Zarr
Executive Producer/Background Ambiences: David Farquhar
Post Production: George Zarr
Recording Engineer/Front of House Mix: Brett Sansom
Musical Accompaniment/Spot Sound Effects: Joseph Benoit
Foley Sound Effects: Denise Benoit and Christina Roberts
“Voices In The Cold Wind” Lyrics by Frank Stasio, Music by George Zarr Performed by Noelle Dupuis and Denise Benoit, musical accompaniment by Joseph Benoit

Every Now And Then by George ZarrEvery Now And Then
By George Zarr; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 33 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CFCO / The Radio Works
Broadcast: 2003
“A sunny day, a quaint antique store, browsing through the artifacts of the past. To some, these are the ingredients for a pleasantly-spent afternoon. To Frank, it is the beginning of a journey that will tear his world inside out. Is his amusing and puzzling journey down memory lane an actual journey? Or a careening descent into insanity?” Every Now And Then [is] an original radio drama of suspense produced for broadcast on the New York based radio series The Radio Works and their 70 member stations across the USA and CFCO AM 630/92.9 FM. The Program was also featured on M Radio and The Sonic Society.
Cast:
GREGG RAINWATER: Frank and Johnny
NOELLE DUPUIS: Diane and Mabel
NORM MCLEOD: Mr. Sagen, Sea Captain and Sailor
ALEXANDRA POOLE: Virginia
PAT GOUGH: Mrs. Spencer
BOB STEELE: Horse and Carriage Driver, Newspaper Vendor and Sailor
DAVID FARQUHAR: Voice on Gramophone
Crew:
Written and Directed by: George Zarr
Executive Producer, Recording Engineer and Post Production: David Farquhar
Original Music: George Zarr
Vocals: Noelle Dupuis

Dark Road To Nowhere by Joey OuelletteDark Road to Nowhere
By Joey Ouellette; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 13 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBC Radio One (Windsor, Chatham and Sarnia), CFCO, Sound Affects
Broadcast: Halloween 2003
“It was a dark and stormy night, Simon and Felicia were out driving 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?
Cast:
ANTHONY POSER: Simon
ANDREA KING: Felicia and the Old Woman
JOEY OUELLETE: Mr. Howard the Keeper
HOST: Norm McLeod
DAN LIPINSKI: Igor
Crew:
Written and Directed by: Joey Ouellette
Executive Producer/Recording Engineer/Post Production: David Farquhar

Posted by Jesse Willis

Icebox Radio: Halloween (audio drama) lasts 24 hours

SFFaudio Online Audio

Icebox Radio TheatreIcebox Radio, is featuring “24 Hours of Terror”, a solid day of horror lasting the 24 hours that is Halloween 2009.

Here’s the schedule:

Midnight – Oct 31, 2009
Atlanta Radio Theater Company: Brides Of Dracula 1
Atlanta Radio Theater Company: Brides of Dracula 2

1:00am
Atlanta Radio Theater Company: Brides of Dracula 3
Union Signal: Dead Man’s Hole

2:00am
Darker Projects: Man in the Chair
The Grist Mill: The Homecoming
Imagination-X: Background

3:00am
Chatterbox Audio: The Dead Girl

4:00am
Chatterbox Audio: The Dead Girl

5:00am
19 Nocturne Blvd.: Dracula Dot Com
Imagination-X: Up on the Rooftops

6:00am
Sound Effects: Haunted Sounds
Disney: Thrilling Chilling Haunted House

7:00am
Disney: The Haunted Mansion
19 Nocturne Blvd.: For Art’s Sake

8:00am
Darker Projects: Byron Chronicles: The Taint
Darker Projects: The Man in the Chair
Imagination-X: Mandible Hill

9:00am
BrokenSea Audio Productions: Kolchak

10:00am
BrokenSea Audio Productions: Kolchak
Ice Box Radio Theatre: 3 Skeleton Key
Disney: Thrilling Chilling Haunted House 01

11:00am
Willamette Radio: Murder of Crows
Darker Projects: Zombie Pumpkinheads From Outerspace
Haunted Sounds: House Labratory 05

Noon
Atlanta Radio Theater Company: Shadow Over Innsmouth

1:00pm
Atlanta Radio Theater Company: Shadow Over Innsmouth
19 Nocturne Blvd: Thrice Tolled Bell

2:00pm
Bells In The Batfry: The Spectre Bride
Ice Box Radio Theatre: Revolt of the Worms
Haunted Sounds: Entering the Haunted House 01

3:00pm
19 Nocturne Blvd.: The Temple
OTR: The Thing On The Fourbleboard

4:00pm
Ice Box Radio Theatre: Pickaxe Hill
Ice Box Radio Theatre: The Bats
Haunted Sounds: Gathering Storm 03

5:00pm
The Grist Mill: If You Take My Hand My Son |READ OUR REVIEW|
Ice Box Radio Theatre: The Thing On The Ice

6:00pm
Final Rune‘s Halloween Show: LIVE

7:00pm
Final Rune’s Halloween Show: LIVE

8:00pm
OTR: War Of The Worlds (WKBW-Buffalo)

9:00pm
OTR: War Of The Worlds (WKBW-Buffalo)
19 Nocturne Blvd.: Force Majeure (Premiere!)
Imagination-X: The House In The Woods

10:00pm
The Grist Mill: God Of The Razor |READ OUR REVIEW|
Ice Box Radio Theatre: The Thing On the Ice

11:00pm
Imagination-X: Family Radio
Darker Projects: And God Looked

[Thanks Bill!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBCR4: Bullitt

Aural Noir: Online Audio

Radio Times - Bullitt (BBC Radio 4 Saturday Play) by Jeremy Aspinall BBC Radio 4Very few people have heard of a novel called Mute Witness by Robert L. Fish (aka Robert L. Pike) – but many, many more have seen the 1968 film into which it was adapted: Bullitt, starring Steve McQueen and a Ford Mustang Fastback.

Personally I think naming a cop “Bullitt” just stupid. It’s like naming a fly fisherman “Rodd” or a janitor “Bukkett.” What you can’t argue with is that Bullitt is a good movie, with a really terrific chase sequence, despite the silly name.

A new radio play adaptation of the novel just aired on BBC Radio 4 and is currently available for listening via the BBC iPlayer. It’s also available over on RadioArchive.cc via torrent. But I got mine in the MP3 format via Radio Downloader. The voice acting appears to be by a British cast, playing New Yorkers. It works for me. See the Radio Times review, at left, for all the details.

BBC Radio 4 - BullittBullitt
Based on a novel by Robert L. Fish; Dramatized by Adrian Bean; Performed by a full cast
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 (Saturday Play)
Broadcast: 24th October 24, 2009 @ 14:30-15:30
“A gritty detective story set in the 52nd precinct in New York. Lieutenant Clancy is assigned to protect an important Mafia witness but when the witness is found dead Clancy has only a matter of hours to find the killer before his enemy, the assistant district attorney, finds out.”

Lieutenant Clancy ……………………….. Jason Isaacs
Ada Chalmers/Barnett/Renick/Johnny Rossi ……. Kerry Shale
Detective Kaprowski ……………………….. Lou Hirsch
Captain Wise/Johnny Rossi/Ships Officer ……. John Biggins
Dr Willard/Pete Rossi …………………… Stephen Hogan
Doc Freeman/Sergeant ………………….. Bruce Alexander
Detenctive Mark Kelly ……………………… Sasha Pick
Ann Renick/LAPD Officer …………….. Emerald O’Hanrahan
Hotel Manager/Chalmers’ Secretary ………….. Kate Layden
Directed by Pauline Harris

And though Halloween doesn’t really mean much in the U.K., BBC Radio 4 is doing something somewhat appropriate on this Saturday and the next following…

Haunted House: An Appointment With Fear
By Reece Shearsmith
2 Broadcasts – Approx. 60 Minutes [DISCUSSION]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: October 29 and November 5, 2009 @ 11:30-12:00
Comic actor Reece Shearsmith hosts energetic and witty illustrated discussions on horror, before an audience inside the reputedly haunted Sutton House in Hackney. Reece examines some classic scary moments from British radio and television and explores the ingredients for a classic horror story. He is joined by horror enthusiasts Mark Gatiss, Vic Reeves and Yvette Fielding.

Here’s one thing even the best audio dramatizations can’t do very well…

[Thanks very much Roy!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Five Free Favourites: Halloween Edition

SFFaudio Online Audio

Fred here, and I think Jesse called it: October is audio drama month.

Here’s where people who think The Shadow is just something that shows up at 5 o’clock start paying attention to this art form that’s been kicked back to life by modern recording technology like some Frankenstein zapped with 50 million volts.

I’m featuring horror audio all month long on Radio Drama Revival but I’ve run into the same dilemma I run into every year – how to share ALL of the great horror audio that I can’t fit into my ‘pod?

Well, here’s a list of five entries, all gruesomely awesome, which I hope will help whet your bloodthirsty appetite this Halloween season.
Five Free Favorite Horror Radio Drama

Zombie Podcast1 – We’re Alive: A Story of Survival

Zombies!!! Take Resident Evil and mix it with the marines from Aliens and you wind up with something like the outcome of this zombie podcast.

A group of foul-mouthed marines ends up locked up in an apartment building with a scattered batch of survivors after a zombie holocaust breaks loose with little notice (or explanation).

This one is well-produced, action-packed, and is as much about an odd group of people trying to survive together as it is about the roving droves of hungry undead. Not to be missed.

Wormwood Audio Podcast2 – Wormwood

Wormwood made it into my previous Five Free Favourites and it makes it again. Though not strictly “horror,” this brilliantly twisted thriller serial has ample spooks to make it a priority on any horror fan’s iPod.

If you haven’t been following, you have two full seasons to catch up on, tons of bonus content, and a third season coming up which is sure to send you to an early grave.

God of the Razor Horror story3 – The Grist Mill

Okay, the Grist Mill isn’t free but two episodes of their work are available for free download on Radio Drama Revival, so that sort of counts.

The one you should under no circumstances miss is God of the Razor. AM/FM Theater rightfully won the Ogle Award for this fine adaptation of Joe Lansdale’s classic horror short. There’s a reason you should stay out of basements in the South…

Also, Jeff Adams’ The Estates is an extremely awesome innovation to the spooky story meme – Stepford Wives meets The Shining. Thank you, Jeff.

The Buoy Audio Drama4 – The Buoy (Part 1 and Part 2)
The Cape Cod Radio Mystery Theater has been at it for a while, and “The Buoy” is perhaps the crowning gem of their productions.

This is a good classic New England ghost story, which packs an even stronger punch because of its eerie parallels to the classic Poe tale, “The Pit and the Pendulum.” A man “from away” winds up tied to a buoy as the tide comes in, and recounts his terrifying tale.

As the water gets higher, and no escape is in site, the real terror sets in…

dunesteef audio fiction magazine5 – Halloween in July

The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine aired this back in March, but it is much better fitting for Halloween. Breaking the trend from the rest on the list, this is not strictly audio drama, but hosts Rish Outfield and Big Anklevich did a splendid job bringing the text to live. Writer Kevin Anderson also has a script in the mix for my upcoming Halloween Live Radio Drama.

Posted by Fred Greenhalgh

Review of The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

SFFaudio Review

The Halloween Tree (audio drama) by Ray BradburyThe Halloween Tree
By Ray Bradbury; Performed by a full cast
2 CDs – 2 hours – [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2008
ISBN: 9781433232145
Themes: / Fantasy / Halloween / Death / Religion / Time Travel / Witchcraft / Paganism /
What is Halloween? How did it start? Where, why, what for? Witches, cats, mummy dust, haunts… it’s all there in the country from which no one returns. Would you dive into the dark ocean, boys? Would you fly in the dark sky?

This review may be a little out of season, but it was with relatively recent memories of carving jack-o’lanterns and taking my costumed children out to trick-or-treat that I listened to The Colonial Radio Players dramatized adaptation of The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. This neat little tale is ostensibly for children and young adults, but it contains an illuminating look into the origins of Halloween as well as an honest exploration of our own cultural view of death, that greatest of all mysteries.

The Halloween Tree opens with eight young boys gathered together on Halloween night to go trick-or-treating. A ninth boy, Pipkin, is notably absent from the group, and when he finally emerges from his house it’s apparent something is terribly wrong: He’s pale, moving gingerly, and clutching at a lancing pain his side. But the call of Halloween is too strong and he joins his friends. Later we learn that Pipkin is suffering from an acute bout of appendicitis.

The boys decide to go trick-or-treating at a haunted house, and there they encounter the ghostly, skeletal, white-haired Mr. Moundshroud. Moundshroud takes the boys to see The Halloween Tree. En route they have to cross a deep ravine, which proves to be a metaphor for the Valley of Death, and Pipkin fails to reach the other side. When the boys call to him, his pumpkin light goes out and he vanishes from sight.

Moundshroud offers to take the boys on a dreamlike trip back through time in order to save Pipkin. Along the way he reveals the origins of Halloween and its association with death. The boys travel back to ancient Egypt and view that culture’s reverence of the dead, including its great pyramid-tombs, mummies, and the worship of the sun god Osiris, murdered each night by his jealous brother only to rise again the next morning. They are whisked away to pre-Christian Europe and encounter the cowled, scythe-wielding Samhain, the druidic god of death from which Halloween derives its origins.

The boys witness the extinction of the druids and their religion at the hands of the murdering Romans, whose polytheistic approach to religion is itself eradicated by the coming of Christ. “Now the Christians come and cut the Romans down—new altars, boys, new incense, new names,” Moundshroud says. Here I’ll mention that The Halloween Tree includes a subversive view of Christianity, as the boys witness the persecution of innocent witches in the dark ages in the name of Christ.

The boys’ journey continues to 16th century Paris and Notre Dame Cathedral and finally to Mexico for the Day of the Dead celebration. Their strange, dreamlike trip not only reveals the origins of Halloween, but also illuminates our own view of death here in the United States—cemeteries are lonely, cold places, and when someone dies we turn our attention to moving on and forgetting, rather than remembering and honoring our deceased loved ones. When contrasted with Bradbury’s bright description of The Day of the Dead, our cultural reaction to death seems stunted and sad in comparison:

By every grave was a woman kneeling to place gardenias, or azaleas, or marigolds, in a frame upon the stone. By every grave knelt a daughter, who was lighting a new candle, or lighting a candle that had just blown out. By every grave was a quiet boy, with bright brown eyes, and in one hand a small papier-mâché funeral parade, glued to a shingle, and in the other hand a papier-mâché skeleton head, which rattled with rice or nuts inside.

Halloween, this odd, out-of-place holiday that has persisted through the ages, and remains with us now as a night to beg for candy in a costume, is revealed as an ancient ritual denoting the end of the harvest season and the onset of cold winter, of night, and of death. Its origins trace back thousands of years and span multiple cultures. “Four thousand years ago, one hundred years ago, this year, one place or time, but the celebration’s all the same—the Feast of Samhain, the Time of the Dead Ones, All Souls, All Saints, the Day of the Dead, El Dia de los Muertos, All Hallows, Halloween,” Bradbury writes.

In the end the boys are presented with a difficult choice to bring Pipkin back from the dead, one that involves a paganistic sacrifice to the dark gods. I won’t spoil the ending. But there’s a great line where one of the boys asks Moundshroud, “Will we ever stop being afraid of the night and death?” Moundshroud (who may be death himself, or the spirit of Halloween) replies reassuringly, “When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and death himself will die.”

I had a few minor quibbles with the presentation of the story. The Colonial Radio Theatre presentation at times relies too heavily on unnecessary sound effects and crashing music that threatened to overwhelm the story, although the voice of Moundshroud, Jerry Robbins, was excellent, as were the production values. The tale also contained a bit more whimsy (a giant kite that whisks the boys back through time, etc.) than I typically like, but Bradbury is such a gifted, poetic writer that it mostly works.

Death may be our greatest mystery, but Bradbury is not afraid to look into its cold, impenetrable depths in search for meaning. The Halloween Tree illuminates the subject with a ghostly pumpkin candle whose light remained with me long after the tale was over, which is one sure mark of a good book.

Posted by Brian Murphy

Singularity Podcast CONCLUDES Halloween!

Podcast - The SingularityBill DeSmedt, author of the podiobook Singularity, has recorded the final episode of his podcast, a Question and Answer show, hosted by Paul Fisher. The episode will go live tommorow, Halloween! I’ve been listening to the novel and have been blown away by the awesomeness. The podiobooks.com ranking has this audiobook rated at 5 out of 5 stars with more than 60 votes! If you like science, Science Fiction, action, and surprises ’round every curve, click on over to Podiobooks.com, sign up and subscribe, you won’t be sorry.