Petalumans bring radio to life with holiday plays

Petaluma Radio Players present “Slay Bells Ring (Are You Listening?)” Dec. 8-9 at the Hotel Petaluma.|

“It’s a little hard to pin down what we do, I suppose,” laughed Ralph Scott, producer and founding member of the Petaluma Radio Players. Despite the difficulty, he gave it a crack. “We present theatrical productions intended more for the ear than the eye, but sometimes we put them on stage and invite people to come in and watch.”

In other words, Petaluma Radio Players is an ensemble of actors, writers and theater artists devoted to the nearly forgotten craft of classic live radio. Last year, as its inaugural presentation, the group presented, on two consecutive nights, a live staging of authentic episodes from the 1930’s radio mystery “The Shadow.” As text, the performers used actual scripts provided by Petaluma’s Linda Jay, whose parents wrote the episode as radio writers in the 1940s.

Employing a troupe of actors - some experienced, many learning the ropes as they went - the scripts were read aloud, the performances enhanced by “Foley artists” creating the sound effects using a variety of machines and household items.

“We’re blessed to have Mark Hindman and Dan Lyke as our Foley guys,” Scott said. “They’d never done this before, but they really took to it. They are very inventive. And the actors got to make some sounds, too. In one of the episodes, there was an evil dentist putting people to sleep in vaults for 10 years.”

The script called for the sound of a “midget respirator,” and with no idea how to fabricate something like that, the actors decided to just fake it and make the sound with their mouths.

“It took two of them,” Scott said. “The audience absolutely loved it.”

Those first twin performances were held at the DiCarli Trolley Barn and played to sold-out houses. Since then, the group has kept at it, finding short works to perform as radio theater, recording their efforts and stocking up a catalog of pieces that will, if all goes according to plan, be aired when Petaluma’s long planned KPCA-FM radio station hits the airwaves early next year.

This year, continuing in the same mysterious vein as the Shadow shows, Petaluma Radio Players will be back on stage again with four short pieces involving murder, mystery, and crime - at least one of which has a decidedly Christmas theme.

“We’re calling the show “Slay Bells Ring (Are You Listening?) and we’re not just excited because it’s going to be a great show featuring three pretty new pieces and one classic, but because we’re going to be in a pretty classic venue to do it,” Scott said.

The performance will be held in the newly refurbished ballroom of The Petaluma Hotel.

“It’s a beautiful place, with lots of history,” Scott said.

All four plays will be recorded live and will be broadcast sometime in the future on the KPCA.

Kicking the show off is “The Noir Before Christmas,” a new piece by Petaluma author Steven Lubliner (“Threeway”). It blends the beloved holiday poem by Clement Moore with elements borrowed from 1930’s gangster movies, and is narrated by a tommy-gun toting mob boss. “Trifles” is a twisty, surprise-packed, highly influential 1916 play by iconoclast American playwright and novelist Susan Glaspell, whose full-length play “Alison’s House” won a Pulitzer Prize in 1931.

“Trifles,” a drama about a Nebraska housewife who becomes a suspect when her husband is found dead, has been cited by historians and theater critics as amongst the most significant theater pieces ever written.

“A lot of people don’t know Susan Glaspell’s name, but they should,” Scott said. “She was considered a very progressive playwright for her time. She broke out in a very subtle way. In this play - which we’ve had to work very hard to adapt to the radio - it’s magical the way the playwright allowed the innuendo between the characters to push forward a rather political story.”

The rest of the program includes “The Railroad Detectives,” from first-time playwright Kate Crockett. It’s a noirish yarn about a bank owner and his socialite wife, who suspect they are sharing a train ride with the very man who just robbed their bank. And finally, “Playing with Knives,” from Mendocino playwright and children’s book author Natasha Yim (“Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas”), is a short mystery-comedy about a couple who are accosted in a dark alley, and prove that their relentless chatter and non-stop talk is a mighty a defense as any martial art.

“Radio theater allows you to draw pictures in your mind,” Scott said. “And that puts a lot of pressure on the actors and sound guys. There are a lot of crazy things that happen in these pieces, and it takes a lot of creativity to present that level of aural murder.”

With a laugh, he added, “We’ve kind of gone over the top a little.”

(Contact David Templeton at argus@arguscourier.com)

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