Middlebury Radio Theater

I’m finding that I half wish I’d had work after the show this week. That way, I would have been a lot more likely to write this up immediately, and thereby give all Gracious Readers the benefits of fresh experience and moderate exhaustion. Hopefully everyone is as willing to take what they can get as I am to give what I am able.

Anyway! This week’s show marked the end of our “regular season” (next week’s holiday-themed broadcast is technically… well… something we’re just doing because we want to, and shows in January are of the same mold), the season finale of “Brookshale,” and the first broadcast back from a break. Add to that a devilishly long script and some impromptu adjustments and addenda, and you’ve got the first show in a while that had everyone focused the entirety of the time we spend in the studio before we actually go on the air. Maybe I really ought to start at Friday (Wednesday’s auditions were unremarkable save political discussion vis-à-vis the group). From 4:30 to 6:45, we had our first read-through of “The Manchurian Candidate,” and we still didn’t finish the whole script. We had a large cast—maybe twelve?—with everyone doubling at the least. Looking around the studio as we headed to grab a quick dinner, it seemed like everyone had this “oh, so I guess this one will be work” look on their faces. I was wishing I weren’t a full-time student with two jobs plus extracurriculars. Once you’re addicted to the broadcast, the promise that something is going to be tough only makes you want to spend even more time on it. Or at least that’s what happens to me.

Saturday morning, Derek and I finished with “Brookshale.” (It is always better not to ask me what I mean when I come up with phrases like “hurts like a bible parade.” Not a clue.) At the studio, we sat down to our respective labors. Dave, who stepped in at a critical moment with the offer of doing a “Tales from the Bible” script, nabbed his cast and put them through their Solomonly paces. Derek and I ran through the soap opera with our extremely small cast so that we could all be sure to get through lines like “bible parade,” and finally we got to rocket through the last few pages of “Manchurian Candidate.” By then, it was pretty much air time. Felt like one of the shortest pre-show intervals I’ve experienced.

“Manchurian Candidate” is long! Right up there with “Double Indemnity,” only with four times the characters and proportional monologues. Adam had gone after us enough in Friday rehearsal, though, for us all to have done independent practicing. One of the more consistent feats of vocal concentration (i.e., juggling of various voices and parts) this season. I was very impressed (and tired) by the time we finished. The tiredness, I think, may have influenced my ability to hold in a mad fit of the giggles during “Brookshale,” so if you listen to 2×05 of that and hear a snort straight into the mic, that’s me totally losing it.

Major props to the cast of “Number One on the Docket”; they had a mere 15 or 20 minutes to get through their actually pretty fun script, and they shone. The core corps was hanging out in the booth making “go faster!” gestures at them the whole time, and you can still get a sense their characters out of it. Fantastic.

Finis: clean up the pizza boxes, drink the last of the root beer, wander off to watch Annie Hall or something. Maybe a little BSG. And so another evening ended.