Radio plays bring us back to the days when there weren’t the visuals of tv. Listeners relied upon their imagination and the skills of the ‘actors’ to make the story in their minds. In this they ought to have been successful, because when H.G. Wells’ radio play initial aired on Halloween in the 1930′s, it caused mass hysteria among listeners who were convinced that it was indeed an attack from further-terrestrial beings! Let’s make your radio play equally successful!
* A radio play is based upon a form of drama referred to as ‘reader’s theater.’ No emphasis is put on what the ‘actors’ look like, only on how they sound. There is absolutely nothing visual. So your play should center upon attention-grabbing sound.
* Write the draft of your play as you would a stage play. Every player has lines. Entrances and exits turn out to be verbal. There are no scenery props.
* Concentrate your dialogue upon the form of play you are writing: drama, poetic, comedy, melodrama. Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town’ is a very good operate to adhere to for drama. For comedy, you can’t beat Abbott and Costello.
* Create your characters by the way they sound. What word selections would they make? Do they have a regional dialect? Is their speech mannered in a vernacular? Do they use colloquialisms? Look at the writing of Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris and Edgar Lee Masters for some examples of nearby voices.
* Consider your characters’ temperament and personality. Are they rude, bossy, shy, arrogant, bumbling, silly, stammering, melancholy, strident? Create these into the dialogue.
* Concentrate upon how you want your readers to portray their characters. A character communicates innuendos, his attitude toward other characters, the topic, the scenario and himself with vocal patterns. These are specifically vital in radio plays, in which we depend on dialogue cues for our understanding of the production. The Prairie Property Companion’s Garrison Keillor is a great example! Think about:
Tempo. Use the ‘pregnant pause,’ interruption, hasty speech and slow speech.
Rhythm. Use interruption, characters speaking at the identical time and symphonic talking to display distress or concord.
Pitch. Pitch includes the timbre or degree of the voice. Large pitch can indicate nervousness, agitation or excitability. Reduced pitch typically indicates drama, secrecy, intensity and mystery.
Inflection — how individual words are stated. Use caps to indicate words of value. For instance, a detective could say, ‘Oh he mentioned THAT, did he?’
* You can generate a mood with tone of voice and delivery of lines. Indicate to your actors how a word, phrase or comment is to be mentioned. You can create in:
Irony – heavy emphasis on ironic concepts or words.
Sarcasm – add a sneer to the actor’s passage.
Understated humor — the actor helps make a comment with a lilt in his voice.
Tension — actor speaks gradually and immediately, in a quiet, low-pitched voice. Unsettling music is typically present.
Pathos — you can add ‘with a catch in the voice’ to your dialogue notes, indicating lines stated with sadness
Sympathy — ‘with feeling or warmth.’ It indicates to the reader that she has sympathetic quality. Touching music is often employed.
Bitterness — like irony, this sentiment is expressed by emphasis on words, but it has a defeated anger in the voice.
Defeat — dialogue spoken in heavy, dull, indifferent speech.
Worry – lines spoken in higher gasping voice, usually with oppressive music.
Malaprop – misspoken phrase that, if timed correctly, is uproariously funny!
* Use instrumental music to heighten all emotion. Music can undoubtedly develop an atmosphere. Prokofiev’s ‘Peter and the Wolf is ‘narrated’ by instruments of the orchestra. We identify characters by their instrument.
* Use sound effects. This is a place for true innovative genius! Popcorn in a pie plate sounds for all the globe like rain! Thunder can be simulated with a drum! Insert your sound effects exactly where important, and have enjoyable experimenting! ‘War of the Worlds’ relied heavily upon homemade sound effects to generate eerie effects.
* Preserve the story moving! In your plot, dead area kills a play. Pacing is critical in your radio play.
* Study gradually and obviously. It is less complicated to study as well rapidly than also slow. Reading slowly provides the listeners time to digest what is taking spot.
I adore great reader’s theater. I hope these guidelines help you to create an wonderful production that will have us on the edge of our seats! Break a leg!
Written & Directed by Todd Solondz – Starring Selma Blair, Mark Webber, Paul Giamatti, John Goodman, Julie Hagerty, Lupe Ontiveros, Jonathan Osser, Noah Fleiss, Robert Wisdom, and Leo Fitzpatrick – Cinematography by Frederick Elmes – Edited by Alan Oxman – Music by Belle & Sebastian and Nathan Larson
