***Be sure to check out Doug Kaye's comment to this post for more perspective about Lend Me An Ear.***
7:30pm Karen Beyer opens the shows
7:35pm Bill Tush, special guest, plays Vic in this first work: Vic & Sade circa 19387:30pm Karen Beyer opens the shows
7:40pm "Baseball is just a game... right?"
7:45pm "Kick a Home Run?"
Tonight's Foley Artist (readers of this blog already know what a Foley Artist is thanks to the ARTC) is Henry Howard. crreeeeeeeaaak-SLAM! Brad Weage is on the Keyboard(s) tonight.7:50pm Edith Ivey (via the magic of audio engineering) introduces this next work: Whispering Streets (Episode #1467) from 1958. Edith noted how she performed on this particular radio show for three years.
7:55pm Ms. Veronica is about to do something drastic... dramatic music from Brad... commercial break.
All the performers look great and are dressed up... suits, ties, skirts, jackets and... a white feather boa! Martha Knighton (with the boa wrapped around her neck, plays Millie, the retired burlesque strip-teaser) garners applause... no... not stripping... its her humor, her humor.8:05pm Doug Kaye steps up to the microphone as Eric and delivers...well... Shakespeare (what else?!!) to his old flame in the show. And not just any ol' Shakespeare... no, not the friar... he's reciting Romeo's lines.
8:15pm Jerry Immel is spot-on as The Announcer... close your eyes and he takes you right back in time.
8:17pm Next performance is Dick Tracy in B flat (a 1943 show) -- fun fun lyrics and zingers
8:20pm 10 actors on stage singing for Dick's wedding
8:21pm Leaving Tess Trueheart, Yolander Asher, at the alter to solve a crime
8:24pm Flattop, Jon Kohler, aims his gun low in DT's back and vows to "blow his brains out"
8:28pm William Colquitt, as Vitamin Flintheart, tries to sing us a song.
8:35pm Rivka Levin, Snowflake, sings "Somewhere Over a Barrel."
8:38pm Barry Stoltze, the Cheif, just won't let these two get married... he constant calls with interruptions.
8:40pm Henry Howard, sound effects man, does a great sound effect of crashing sounds ending with a gumball rolling around the rim of a metal bowl... when the gumball stops, he it and everyone cheers.
INTERMISSION: time for the Tavern's famous Apple Crisps... (too bad, Su!)
9:00pm everyone sings Happy Birthday (in four part harmony) to Deborah Calloway Duke (who is performing on stage tonight) and she says "I love you all and there ain't a damn thing you can do about it!"
And here's a news scoop, Marc Gowan totals up all the ticket sales (140 of us). Everyone here has helped raise over $1900, which translates to more than $10,000 in buying power for the Atlanta Community Food Bank. Congrats to all the volunteers who pulled this together and those who performed. Thanks to everyone sitting in the audience with me for coming out to the show for this great cause AND great entertainment.
9:08pm Barry Stoltze, is knockin' us out with the corniest one liners on earth as Joe Penner in The Baker's Broadcast with Joe Penner circa 1934.
9:20pm now... a murder mystery solved by misfits... Mr. & Mrs. North "The Opera Murder" from 1950.
9:25pm uh, oh.. something strange is going on... the North's arrive at their host's home and he's not there. Yep, he's dead.
9: 30pm who's dun it? Helen Ingebristen and Jon Hayden play the clever couple. Elizabeth Whitfield, Sally, is accused of the crime... caught almost red-handed... but Mrs. North thinks she is innocent cuz' she's a terrible liar. Her brother, Dick, played by Tim Peek, fesses up to the murder.... he's lying, too.
9:40pm Mrs. Stephano, Debra Nelson, is accused now. But it ain't her.
9:45pm Lt. Weigand, Clayton Landey, the tough cop sets Sally up for a confession convinced that she's guilty. Mrs. North shows the cops what a sleuth she is. She's convinced of Sally's innocence
9:47pm Mr. Stephano, Bob Bost, was done in by his best friend and business acquaintance, Spire, played by Tom Thon-- Spire gave Stephano the proverbial Stab.
9:50pm "Now it is time for dimensions in Time and Space told in Future Tense!" This is the final act of the night, a piece from 1950 call "A Logic Named Joe" from Dimension X
9:56pm As you might expect... there are lots of Sci-Fi sound effects in this one.
9:58pm Karen Beyer plays THE brat... does she do this professionally?
10:00pm 17 actors on the stage doing this piece. Littering the stage with scripts when they toss them aside as they finish reading them.
10:10pm big saloon scene with the cast making great crowd noises
10:15pm OK... these Logics are too smart for OUR own good.
10:20pm I think Moe Ralston is about to make Doug Kaye malfunction and blow up
Thank you, Keif, for being here tonight with us as we had fun with Old Time Radio and raised money for the Atlanta Community Food Bank!
ReplyDeleteThis project is a labor of love for us each year, as volunteer members of the nation's three major actors' unions work in tandem to bring a smile to your face and food to the hungry.
I'm glad we were able to comply with your desire to do this live blog during the show, and it's fascinating to read, after the fact, and see this comment and that, and say "Yeah, I done that!"
This was the sixth year we've done this show, and it's different every year (there's a lot of old radio shows to choose from), and each year we seem to assemble an even more spectacular cast and have even more fun than before.
We're all working professionals. Some of us are frequently on Atlanta's stages, some of us do film and TV, and you'll catch a few of us in commercials as well. A number of our cast have recently been on the locally filmed show, DROP DEAD DIVA. Our taped hostess, Edith Ivey, who is out of the country right now, was the wonderful woman who taught Brad Pitt the piano in BENJAMIN BUTTON.
But whether times are easy or hard for us, we always like to find time to devote to projects like this. Hey, I'm currently 'between jobs' -- got any work?
Anyway, thanks again for attending. And all of you who are just reading her blog, and didn't attend the show: we've got another one next year! Watch for it!
--Doug Kaye
Co-Producer, LEND ME AN EAR
This year, let's sing "Happy Birthday" again to Deborah Calloway Dukes.
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