The good folks of AM 1090 KPTK pointed a video camera at last Friday's Seattle Radio Theatre production, and the result has just been posted on the radio station's website.
Click here to watch Part One of It's A Wonderful Life. Also, don't forget the rebroadcast of the complete program on radio on Christmas Eve (Thursday, December 24, 2009) at 7:00 pm.
Showing posts with label live broadcasting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label live broadcasting. Show all posts
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Seattle Radio Theatre LIVE BROADCAST on Friday, December 11
Time for a rare overtly self-serving post about next Friday's (December 11, 2009) Seattle Radio Theatre production of the Lux Radio Theater version of It's A Wonderful Life at Town Hall Seattle. Tickets are on sale now for the show that stars Pacific Northwest broadcasting legends Pat Cashman, Chris (J.P. Patches) Wedes, Tracey Conway, Steve Wilson, John Maynard, Jim Dever and Lee Callahan.
The fun gets underway with an audience warm-up at 7:45 pm, and we then go live on KPTK AM 1090 at 8:00 pm for the one-hour program, produced and directed by yours truly (I stole that last line from my former KIRO colleague Jim French). The show features live music performed by Rob Jones, and live sound effects performed (on equipment originally owned by sound effects legend Ray Erlenborn) by Curtis Takahashi of REPS (Radio Enthusiasts of Puget Sound). Since this is a live broadcast, the live audience is part of the show, too, with their laugher and applause (or boos and hisses for Mr. Potter, perhaps). The complete program will also be re-broadcast on Christmas Eve (Thursday, December 24) at 7:00 pm on KPTK AM 1090.
Last year, this (roughly) same cast presented the Lux version of The Bishop's Wife, and you can click here for audio of that live broadcast.
I founded Seattle Radio Theatre in 2000 while working for MOHAI, and then moved it to Town Hall in 2007. This year's show will be our 10th annual production, and I give special thanks to the wonderful cast and crew, many of whom have been involved since the very beginning, for making this holiday tradition possible each year.
The fun gets underway with an audience warm-up at 7:45 pm, and we then go live on KPTK AM 1090 at 8:00 pm for the one-hour program, produced and directed by yours truly (I stole that last line from my former KIRO colleague Jim French). The show features live music performed by Rob Jones, and live sound effects performed (on equipment originally owned by sound effects legend Ray Erlenborn) by Curtis Takahashi of REPS (Radio Enthusiasts of Puget Sound). Since this is a live broadcast, the live audience is part of the show, too, with their laugher and applause (or boos and hisses for Mr. Potter, perhaps). The complete program will also be re-broadcast on Christmas Eve (Thursday, December 24) at 7:00 pm on KPTK AM 1090.
Last year, this (roughly) same cast presented the Lux version of The Bishop's Wife, and you can click here for audio of that live broadcast.
I founded Seattle Radio Theatre in 2000 while working for MOHAI, and then moved it to Town Hall in 2007. This year's show will be our 10th annual production, and I give special thanks to the wonderful cast and crew, many of whom have been involved since the very beginning, for making this holiday tradition possible each year.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Long-Running Seattle Radio Show Keeps On Going
It's one of the longest-running live radio programs in the United States, and a throwback to an earlier era of "live remote" broadcasting. Please see the piece I wrote for Crosscut.com about KING-FM's weekly live broadcast of the Compline service from St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle.
Incidentally, this piece was in the works and mostly finished when the news broke last month about KING-FM's financial woes. It's nice to finally have this happier story published!
Incidentally, this piece was in the works and mostly finished when the news broke last month about KING-FM's financial woes. It's nice to finally have this happier story published!
Monday, September 14, 2009
NPR and 9/11
Please see the article about NPR's coverage of 9/11 that I wrote last week for Seattle-based Crosscut.com.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Media Convergence, circa 1984
With all the talk lately of the crisis facing traditional media (again!), especially this provocative article by Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal, it reminded me of a little "media convergence" ritual that I used to enact several days a week 25 years ago, with help from the Columbia Broadcasting System. (Note: thanks to Jerry Del Colliano's always thought-provoking Inside Music Media blog and e-newsletter for pointing me to the Wall Street Journal article in the first place.)
I lived close enough to my high school to often come home for lunch and catch the last ten minutes or so of The Price Is Right with Bob Barker (this was in the glory days, when I knew the first names of all the Price Is Right models--wasn't it Janice, Holly and Carol?) Just after TPIR ended with Barker's traditional spay and neuter entreaty (just shy of the top of the hour—maybe at 10:58 am Pacific Time), CBS Television would present a short, live "newsbreak" broadcast anchored by longtime CBS newsman Douglas Edwards. As soon as this 90-second video newsbreak was over, I’d head to the bathroom I shared with my father and brothers, and which also housed a battered AM radio perpetually tuned to Seattle CBS Radio affiliate KIRO (710 AM).
I’d immediately hit the "ON" button and usually hear the local lead-in to the hourly CBS Radio newscast (promo for the next hour of KIRO's Midday with Jim French and/or local headlines) as I used the facilities and then got ready to brush my teeth before I had to return to school. More often than not, anchor for the hourly radio newscast was--you guessed it--Douglas Edwards, whose aged visage I ‘d just seen in living color on my parents’ TV set.
Hearing Douglas Edwards like this (after just seeing him) always made me feel like I was taking part in something cool, something obscure that maybe only I was paying any attention to (rather than "obscure," I almost said "rare," but that sounds a little too glorified for how small this is). Small or not, how many other radio voices (circa 1984 anyhow) could you see LIVE on television, only moments before you heard them LIVE on the radio?
Moments like these speak in a small way to the magic (which is a corny word, I know) possible when mass media is truly mass, which nowadays only happens during the Super Bowl and terrorists attacks (which are the only two occasions I know of when the majority of Americans tune into the same broadcast together--otherwise known as the First Down & 9/11 Effect--which is a name I just made up).
Current producers of audio and video content have little hope of reaching a mass audience, and I think that's unfortunate now, and even more so in the future as the audience becomes more and more segmented. Mass media is how Americans (and many other nationalities) collectively defined themselves for the last six decades of the 20th century--by listening to (and later watching) the same programs, often during live broadcasts, and simultaneously sharing national experiences. Collectively identifying as Americans--particularly with a population of increasing ethnic and socioeconomic diversity--is likely to be one of the great challenges of the 21st century. It remains to be seen whether media--new, old, mass, segmented, social or otherwise--will be of much help.
I lived close enough to my high school to often come home for lunch and catch the last ten minutes or so of The Price Is Right with Bob Barker (this was in the glory days, when I knew the first names of all the Price Is Right models--wasn't it Janice, Holly and Carol?) Just after TPIR ended with Barker's traditional spay and neuter entreaty (just shy of the top of the hour—maybe at 10:58 am Pacific Time), CBS Television would present a short, live "newsbreak" broadcast anchored by longtime CBS newsman Douglas Edwards. As soon as this 90-second video newsbreak was over, I’d head to the bathroom I shared with my father and brothers, and which also housed a battered AM radio perpetually tuned to Seattle CBS Radio affiliate KIRO (710 AM).
I’d immediately hit the "ON" button and usually hear the local lead-in to the hourly CBS Radio newscast (promo for the next hour of KIRO's Midday with Jim French and/or local headlines) as I used the facilities and then got ready to brush my teeth before I had to return to school. More often than not, anchor for the hourly radio newscast was--you guessed it--Douglas Edwards, whose aged visage I ‘d just seen in living color on my parents’ TV set.
Hearing Douglas Edwards like this (after just seeing him) always made me feel like I was taking part in something cool, something obscure that maybe only I was paying any attention to (rather than "obscure," I almost said "rare," but that sounds a little too glorified for how small this is). Small or not, how many other radio voices (circa 1984 anyhow) could you see LIVE on television, only moments before you heard them LIVE on the radio?
Moments like these speak in a small way to the magic (which is a corny word, I know) possible when mass media is truly mass, which nowadays only happens during the Super Bowl and terrorists attacks (which are the only two occasions I know of when the majority of Americans tune into the same broadcast together--otherwise known as the First Down & 9/11 Effect--which is a name I just made up).
Current producers of audio and video content have little hope of reaching a mass audience, and I think that's unfortunate now, and even more so in the future as the audience becomes more and more segmented. Mass media is how Americans (and many other nationalities) collectively defined themselves for the last six decades of the 20th century--by listening to (and later watching) the same programs, often during live broadcasts, and simultaneously sharing national experiences. Collectively identifying as Americans--particularly with a population of increasing ethnic and socioeconomic diversity--is likely to be one of the great challenges of the 21st century. It remains to be seen whether media--new, old, mass, segmented, social or otherwise--will be of much help.
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