Middlebury Radio Theater

Please note that the site was down when I wrote and tried to post this, therefore it is written from the appropriately sleepy 1:24 AM POV in which one has still only recently experienced the related events.

Our fourth semester of broadcast and podcast is complete! For some of us, that also means that our final fall semester at Middlebury comes to a close, but the beauty of our radio world is that we can ignore the depressing or scary parts and focus on the fact that, yes, we had another great season. And it was a great season!

This week’s show, for all that it was our holiday special with a second-hour piece called “Chris Kringle: Soldier of Fortune” (written by that guy who keeps writing stuff and sending it to us from China like he misses us or something), was fairly unremarkable in terms of preparation. Perhaps the most exciting thing was that we only rehearsed “Chris Kringle” on Friday and left our “A” feature, Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” until our five o’clock in-studio time this evening. And just so everyone out there knows, we looked for Hannukah scripts, found none (or at least none that were any good, and doing a bad script for the sake of doing it is worse than just doing Xmas), and so used a variety of Hannukah music for our interstitial pieces. Much more fun than your average everyday “Deck the Halls.”

I know Derek wished he could have spent more time putting the sounds together for “A Christmas Carol,” but I thought it went really well. Music and sfx worked well with Welles’s adaptation, and the cast was marvelous, if I am allowed to comment, which I am by my own authority. The real gem of the broadcast was “Chris Kringle: Soldier of Fortune,” though. I highly recommend that anyone who can stand to hear a whole heck of a lot of irreverence and some great (if slightly gruesome) sound effects listen to this piece. It’s epic. That’s really the only word. Epic. Try to spot my somehow out-of-place Marilyn Monroe impression.

After all that magnificence, there was no way to end the evening but with the Fourth Semi-Annual Adam Awards, our own self-congratulatory awards ceremony that honors both the real achievements (Best Director, Best Actress, etc.) and the silly ones (Perkiest, Best Mad Scientist), all the while giving us an opportunity to actually spend some time together talking about something other than the funny voices we can make or ideas for the next show. It was much-needed, and I really enjoyed my opportunity to host the get-together in my little house with its little fireplace.

What more is there to say? It was a brilliant season. I’ve made friends, and we have done rewarding work of which we can be proud. Thanks to everyone who listens, whether it’s live on WRMC, streamed online, or through the podcast. Our invisible audience makes as big a difference as the dynamic in the studio and what little rehearsal time we manage.

Happy holidays, and check back for at least one episode in January. Our lost lambs will be coming back from abroad!