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I'm interested in and write about a wide variety of topics - economics, psychology, marketing, music, etc. I prefer writing long articles to short posts and don't update very often.

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Radio Dramas, an Appreciation

For most of my life I've loved Radio Dramas, and I've recently rediscovered this love.

"Learn to love good books. There are treasures in books that all the money in the world cannot buy, but the poorest laborer can have for nothing." - Robert Ingersoll

How I Discovered Radio Drama

In the mid 80's, when I was a young teenager I was searching for the local pop music station and stumbled upon something strange. Something fascinating and wonderful - Radio Drama. I had discovered The Golden Age of Radio, a show that plays shows from Radio's Golden Era. This was called the shortest Golden Age of all time as Radio was quickly replaced by Television, but it still holds a special place in the hearts of many who experience it.

For thousands of years our ancestors told stories. We continue to tell stories, and we continue to listen to stories. Now, however, we pay $10 to sit in a theater and watch multi million dollar stories brought to life on the silver screen. To quote the grandfather from The Princess Bride, "When I was your age, television was called books." Well, for a brief period of time, television was called radio.

An Artform by and for the People

Radio, theater, literature, painting, and a handful of others are artforms by and for the people. Unlike movies, they require virtually no budget to create. Even low budget movies cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Quality radio drama can be created for much much less. In fact, if the facilities are available free of charge to those who want to create it, then the cost is practically nothing. Perhaps some tape, or blank CD's.

Another benefit to these artforms is that there is no limit to what can be done. More and more, Hollywood spends millions of dollars to convince you that a spaceship is really flying through space, or a person really turns into a werewolf. In radio, this can be done for pennies.

In fact, there is so little money to be made in radio drama - the BBC's Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series may be the exceptions that proves the rule - that it is almost always a labor of love, and typically more appreciated by people when they do come by it.

Radio Drama I know and love

I guess it all starts with Suspense, X-1, The Shadow, The Martian Chronicles, and other classic sci-fi & mystery shows of the Golden Age. Orson Wells and his Mercury Theater of the Air and his famous War of the Worlds broadcast that was so realistic that people were jumping out of windows so they wouldn't be captured by the aliens. I think The Shadow was the perfect radio character. A crime fighter (he formed the basis for Batman) he had the power to cloud men's minds. A hero who couldn't be seen in a medium whose only visuals were provided by your mind's eye.

Then there was the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. These are comedic masterpieces of radio drama, and produced only as far back as the 70's! This may be the most well loved radio drama of all time.

More recently, but still a decade old, Mike Sargent produced a version of the first book of Isaac Asimov's Robot City series, Odyssey by Michael P. Kube-McDowell, and broadcast it on his late night radio show Nightshift. Years later I found a copy for sale online and bought it. There is also an excellent video game based on the 2nd book in this series.

Then there was Avenue X. I don't know how many people know about this show... A couple of hundred, a few thousand? Produced by Brenda Black and aired on WBAI, this radio drama kept me up more night's so I could hear it/tape it when it was broadcast at 4:30 in the AM. Mike Sargent was also involved with the first season of this show, of which I have about 9 episodes on tape. It was broadcast at the end of Fredrick Geobold / Fred Geobold's show, Lightshow.

Avenue X is about a vampire named Veronica Reverence and her search for David Darren, the vampire who made her. While I don't think this could be considered high art, it was highly entertaining as a sort of "guilty pleasure." One notable cameo was by Max Schmidt, who continues to run the Golden Age of Radio show on WBAI.

Books on Tape

A close second to Radio Drama is books on tape, of which I have a large collection, in fact, it's the only way I consume fiction (other than TV and movies). Sometimes the reader is boring and doesn't do justice to the book, other times the reader is exception and really brings the books to life.

These are especially great for long drives, and I typically try to take a book on tape with me when I go bike riding. Bike riding while listening to a good book on tape is one of my great pleasures in life.

A few examples of books on tape that I enjoyed are:

Actually, books on tape are closest to the tradition of storytelling so lost in the world today.

Sometimes, as with the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Radio Dramas are created for the books. The BBC does a lot more of this than the US, but they are out there and they are worth looking for.

Radio Drama on the Radio Today

I can only speak for what I know about in New York. There used to be a great section in the back of the Daily News, which my mother used to read, that was just a simple listing of notable things on the radio on any given day. I'm sure the New York Times has a more elaborate section.

Max Schmidt has two shows on WBAI, The Golden Age of Radio and Mass Backwards, which present both Golden Age era and modern Radio Drama respectively. You can listen to WBAI online (see links below) if you don't live in New York and want to hear some of these shows.

A simple search for "Golden Age of Radio" on Google will turn up quite a few links where you can learn more about Radio's Golden Age.

On Saturday Mornings on WBAI, Jim Fruend has a Science Fiction and Fantasy show called Hour of the Wolf. He typically plays music, takes calls, and reads a short story.

You can also read up & ask questions on newsgroups such as alt.radio.oldtime.

There are also Old Time Radio conventions where you can buy sell and trade tapes or CDs, and meet some of the stars of yesteryear. And every Barnes & Noble will have a "Books on Tape/Books on CD" section and at the very end there are some of the more popular old time radio shows.

Finally, if you have access to the airwaves, or know someone who does, or even in today's age, access to a computer & the Internet, produce your own radio shows for the world to hear. There is a small, but dedicated following, and I think you'd be surprised what kind of cult following a radio show could bring you.

Other low budget artforms with a cult following

For you programmers out there, there's Interactive Fiction. If any of you played any of those Infocom games... the text ones, not the later graphic ones, you know what I'm talking about. The tools for making and playing these games on nearly any platform is free. If I had any clue about programming, I would certainly create my own. The newsgroups rec.games.interactive-fiction and rec.arts-interactive-fiction are the major hubs of activity. The Interactive Fiction Archive, and Baf's Guide are excellent places to start if you want to play.

Theater is produced by nearly every school in America whether it's a grade school, high school, or college. This is an excellent creative outlet no matter what your expertise is - actor, writer, musician, designer... I've seen enough good theater and off broadway theater to know that it takes more dedication than money to put on good theater.

Comics are another great low budget artform that have a cult following. Plenty of small black & white comics by people with a story to tell have gained national distribution.

Just Do It

In the end, it's the ability to express yourself, have a good time, and create lasting memories for yourself and the people who are entertained by what you've created that counts. Radio Drama is counter culture and not big business, easy to do, and you'll have something to take a way. A testament to what once was that will stay with you. I have tapes of me and my friends that I treasure more than photos from that time.

Radio Drama

Interactive Fiction

page first created on Wednesday, January 15, 2003

© Mark Wieczorek