Copyright 1996
60 minutes
Radio Thriller/Stage Reading

Listeners are transported back to St. James Hall, Piccadilly, first to eavesdrop backstage on a heated discussion between George Dolby, Dickens’ road manager, and his physician, Dr. Beard, about whether the Chief should be allowed to go on stage to perform yet again another strenuous reading of his murder scene, which although popular, is now poising a grave risk to the Chief’s own health. For Dickens, these performances have become something of an obsession.

The listener is then given a front row seat to enjoy this superb performance, powerfully recreated by George Harland, exactly as it was done by Dickens over a century ago.

(From the annotated reading script, Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.)

Copyright 1994
110 minutes (Part I 60:00, Part II, 50:00)

An epic river story and suspense thriller. If Mark Twain and Aaron Copland had gotten together to create an American river story for radio, it would probably sound something like this. Richard Thomas gives a memorable performance as river pilot Jeb Hardy, hired to deliver 15 barges and 40 million pounds of coal upriver on the Ohio to a power plant above Cincinnati. What begins as idyllic rafting trip turns into a pilot’s worst nightmare, as the tow encounters a flash flood, a coal fire on the lead barge, and worst of all, a family of inexperienced motor boaters swept down river in the dark.

This highly produced program has been our most ambitious undertaking so far. It has a feature film feel to it, and a cast that includes river legends Capt. Edgar Allan Poe and John Hartford, as well as actors Stephen Russell, Annemarie Lang, David Wallace and Nicole Noel. The production includes awesome sound effects recorded on the river (including Cincinnati’s famous Singing Bridge before demolition). The fully orchestrated score by composer Mark Birmingham includes a stirring 2 minute overture.

Copyright 1991
48 minutes
Radio Thriller

It begins as static…then, you hear a voice, desperate, frightened, coming from a shack in the Cape Cod dunes, broadcasting his story to anyone who might be listening. He tells an unbelievable tale of missing persons and an unseen enemy that may already have conquered us.

Is he insane? Is he deluded? And most terrifying of all, is he telling the truth?

Some People Are Missing on Canal Street was written as an experiment to try to duplicate the same shock in the listener that was generated by The Mercury Theater’s legendary production of The War of the Worlds. In that production, near the end of the program, a lone survivor hides out in a shack, trying to contact someone, anyone. “2X2L…2X2L….isn’t there anyone on the air?!” Excellent for Halloween.

Copyright 1986
68 minutes
Radio Thriller

The unforgettable villain from The Caller on Line One returns. A serial killer records his murders and sends the tapes to the police. A young detective takes charge and enlists the help of a beautiful FBI agent–with a great set of ears–whose speciality is analyzing audio recordings. But will that lead them to the killer before he strikes again?

Copyright 1988
58 minutes
Satire

A mystery lampoon recorded live at the Woods Hole Community Hall, July 15, 1989. Hugo LeGrand, “The Great Hugo,” is determined to defy public opinion and be the first to help himself to the loot from the sunken Titanic. Together with his hapless pilot, Mr. Smalley, they discover a surprise much greater than teacups and saucers.

Copyright 1989
54 minutes

Bobby Winslow is a hard-on-his-luck, independent Cape Cod fisherman who takes a calculated risk venturing out to the Five Fathom Rip area of George’s Bank. His luck holds until the tide turns…one man drowns in the net, another is sliced dead-on-the-spot when a winch cable snaps. These accidents prove anything but accidental.

Now the suspense really begins!

Copyright 1987
55 minutes
Radio Thriller

Edward Wolcott is an innocent tourist abducted from his motel room, taken by boat, and strapped to a large sea buoy in the Woods Hole Passage. His strange night bobbing alone at sea turns into one of sheer terror, when he realizes the current is slowly dragging the buoy under.

An excellent Halloween story, this Pit and the Pendulum-style thriller places the listener on the buoy with Mr. Wolcott to experience the terror first hand.

Strap yourself to the sofa… we’re going down!

Copyright 1984
42 minutes
Radio Thriller

A comatose witness in the hospital is stalked by a fiendish killer. A compassionate psychiatrist must use the techniques of hypnosis to reach her in time before the killer does. A psychological thriller uniquely suited for radio. Told from the internal perspective of the comatose patient, it guides us through the twilight realm of the subconscious mind, where the real and the surreal coexist, where the past mingles with the present, and where the spectre of terror, once encountered, presents itself in its purest, most elemental form. An explosive climax.

Copyright 1984
49 minutes
Spoof/satire

A literary flashback combining the creations of Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol) and Erle Stanley Gardner, this courtroom melodrama poses the questions: What if Ebenezer Scrooge was murdered, found strangled in his bed with a bell cord knotted around his neck and a stake of holly driven through his heart? And what if the man charged with the crime was his own employee, Bob Crachit? Appearances are made by a youthful court reporter, Charles Dickens, and that most famous of English barristers… Sir Percy Mason.

Copyright 1983
36 minutes
A Radio Thriller

Tanya Macklin is the host of “Talk Line,” the weekly, advice-on-the-air radio program. Tonight, however, the problems of her listeners are about to take a back seat to one of her own…a problem so large, it will transform her normally sane world into a nightmarish world of terror.

A real-time suspense thriller in the tradition of “Sorry Wrong Number.” When first aired, it prompted a flood of frantic phone calls to the police and radio station and created a traffic jam outside a post office in Hartford.