The Magnificent Theatre of the Air

The Magnificent Theatre of the Air was a radio program I produced, hosted, and directed at KTUH. Initially it was a program for music from the 20s to the 50s, featuring classic popular music and jazz. It was always intended that the program would eventually make music a secondary objective and eventually showcase live and pre-recorded classic radio dramas performed by local actors.

Radio dramas were plentiful back during the early part of the 20th century, and many of those scripts are still floating around. Due to the nature of copyright law, essentially all of those scripts are public domain. Also, my contact with local theaters made it easy to compile a list of actors ready and willing to take on this project for free. The only element I lacked was the background music and foley effects, and those would cost money and take time to organize. Since I was hosting the show and I intended to play the occasional role, it would be difficult bordering on impossible to run all the sounds and manage the levels properly. I brought in another UH student and local performer to be my co-host on the program, and he would be in charge of sound during the radio dramas. Once I had him on board I was able to focus on directing and organizing the actors.

There were a number of stumbling blocks along the road, the most significant being the organization of schedules. Since this was a 0 cost passion project, many of the volunteer actors were unable to meet during my radio show’s time slot on a weekday in the morning. In retrospect, while a live show sounds attractive, a pre-recorded show will actually sound attractive. I had organized group efforts before, but producing a live show was an entirely different beast. You can’t just keep people around while you work out issues that have nothing to do with them. In a group project that requires gathering everyone together, time is the most precious commodity. When you’re by yourself, you need to see the big picture, doing everything you can outside of rehearsals and one-on-one so that you can maximize the efficiency of your time together as a group.