The unfinished basement in our three bedroom house was my personal place of refuge as the middle child of a two older brother and two younger sister household. Rows of bookshelves aligned every wall and a dresser drawer housed the “good” comic books, the classic Avengers. Batman and Spiderman comics owned by Patrick, the oldest of the boys. Granted we spent more than our fair share of time outdoors playing pick-up games of WiffleBall, football or street hockey and occasionally we’d walk up to the elementary school to play a solid game of baseball when we had enough players and could challenge kids from neighboring streets but when the weather brought us in and certainly when my brothers became involved in other activities, I found the basement to be the place where my creative energies flourished. Somewhere lost to the ages are pages of my handwritten tales of the Land of Oz, based on the 14 books by L. Frank Baum more than the movie version. When I wasn’t writing in notebooks, I was drawing my own comic books and comic strips and my parents eventually purchased a professional angled art desk and brought it downstairs, placing it in the center of the “library” section of the basement. After every Christmas or birthday, I brought my new Bristol Board paper and Speedball Super Black ink downstairs and created stories.

In the far end of the basement was an eclectic record collection my parents had gathered over the years before the children were born; there was the High Society album with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly, there was a Robert Goulet record I never listened to, and, perhaps the most modern item one could find was John Denver’s Greatest Hits. My favorite vinyl treasure by far was Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America Volume One from Capitol Records in 1961. It was a latter day take on old-time-radio programs and included humorous skits, parody songs interspersed with faux commercials for fictional products. Like many works of entertainment, a modern ear might find that some of Freberg’s content does not weather the test of time well but most of it does and at that age I devoured each humorous tale and song with a happy familiarity and appreciation for the form.

At a young age I discovered the classic programs of the golden age of radio that my father enjoyed. I possessed audiotape collections of The Shadow, the Jack Benny program and many miscellaneous programs including Burns and Allen, Fibber McGee and Molly and The Great Gildersleeve. My father sent away for an audio tape collection of The Cinnamon Bear and we listened to that series often around Christmas. With the stories on tape and my imagination I have a very clear picture in my mind of Jack Benny walking down the street at night carrying Ronald Coleman’s Oscar when he’s robbed and asked, ‘Look, bud, I said your money or your life!” and Benny replies, “I’m thinking it over!”

Audio entertainment was always important because it lent itself to the possibility of a personal entertainment experience. Tape players were portable and you could use headphones especially with a “walkman”.  Television and movies were more often than not a communal experience. For the longest time in the house we had one television, a thick tube-based stand alone piece of furniture in the living room. Until the advent of videotapes and Blockbuster stores, except for Saturday morning cartoons, the children did not have the final say as to what would be on that one screen, if anything at all.

On one occasion I had done something that deserved a punishment and was sent to my room and couldn’t watch Happy Days.  I kept the door open and listened to Mork From Ork face “The Fonz” and it was scary for me because it sounded like the intergalactic alien got the better of the coolest human on Earth. If I had watched the episode on the tv set I might have laughed and forgotten about it but I witnessed it instead only in my mind’s eye, and the event left a lasting impression. Such is the power of the theater of the mind. I have other stories like that but I’m sure you get the idea.

I told stories for 7 years in newspapers every day. My my first comic strip appeared in a newspaper, the now defunct Skaneateles Journal, in November 2010 and in February the daily comic strip printed in the Auburn Citizen. I added a few more papers into the mix but stretched myself a little thin because they were different stories in each paper every day.  I enjoyed it and a seven year run is longer than some professionals who were paid more than a few dollars a week if at all for the effort get to enjoy.

By 2017 I had radio experience with Nutmeg Chatter, story writing experience from the comic strips and a little theater experience, mainly staged readings which are enormously similar to audio theater radio. I put out to the world via social media a question on Dec 20^th asking if any of my friends

Joseph Timothy Quirk

December 20, 2017 ·

For my theater friends (directors and/or actors) as well as radio friends: If you see the idea of a modern “old time radio” style program ala Jack Benny/Fibber McGee and Molly/Allen’s Alley, etc, could have some public appeal, and/or if you think the structure of A Prairie Home Companion had some merit but you think it could be done better/differently could you please shoot me a FB message. I’d like to have a very informal (but fun) online chat!

 A number of folks liked the post but I spoke to two individuals who actually expressed interest in the idea, Conrad Sienkiewicz and Robert C. Fullerton. So on December 28^th, 2017, we met at WAPJ and Nutmeg Junction, the audio theater show was born.

More next week.

SHOW NOTES

Daphne’s Inferno was a script I had written in the early months of the program but found a home during the month of Halloween. The story was my take on Dante’s Inferno.

There’s a lot of foreshadowing in the piece-the “That was a HELL of a thing to do”…the fact they didn’t have good reception in the station, etc..lots of pieces in the beginning that set up the story that follows.

I think the script has the potential to be reworked at some point to bring some foreshadowing in about who Carl is (or his part in the story) but Dante’s Inferno itself is an allegory with tangents and explorations etc and so my piece doesn’t require more than what I wrote but someone down the road may decide that it might work in a different way and that’s understandable.

I sent the script out to the cast to see if there was interest in recording it and there was, so we set about the rehearsal and recording time. Originally I had the character of Carl and Drew being acted by the same person but it works better separate and Dan Willey was outstanding as “Drew” (T’sup, Drew).

Josh Newey plays both Virgil and the Corpse Conductor and it’s a real tour de force!  What’s even cooler is that Josh wanted to write the intro for the story as The Corpse Conductor, which was fantastic. Josh is an amazing cast member for Nutmeg Junction, taking on role after role with positive energy and voices that serve the characters in surprising and wondrous ways. And it should be noted that on our show many of our actors have a character (or two) that’s their recurring headlining role, and the Corpse Conductor is definitely a recurring role that’s all Josh’s.

This episode  marks a great turning point for the series because many on our team are now working on writing scripts or portions of scripts. Now it should be noted the first co-writing experience was in Doctor Keen and the Phenomenal Fifty in The Wizard of Gallows Hill where Lana Peck’s father wrote the story initially and Lana and I re-imagined it for our show. This is the first time a cast member penned their portion completely of the story start to finish and with one minor point, their script was the complete version that was recorded. There’s more of that to come!

EPISODE 26: NIGHTMARE JUNCTION 1

WAS WRITTEN BY J. TIMOTHY QUIRK AND JOSH NEWEY

DIRECTED BY CONRAD SIENKIEWICZ

STARRING

JOSH NEWEY AS CORPSE CONDUCTOR AND VIRGIL

OLIVIA WADSWORTH AS DAPHNE

LANA PECK AS THE BECCA/THE DEVIL

RICH CYR AS CARL

DAN WILLEY AS DREW

ENCORE PRESENTATION OF SERENDIPHISTORY-EDGAR ALLAN POE AND WASHINGTON IRVING

STARRING JANDI HANNA, RICH CYR AND JOSH NEWEY

THEME MUSIC WRITTEN BY ROBERT C. FULLERTON ©2018 AND USED WITH PERMISSION

In the thrilling conclusion of the story arc “Universe, Mine”, Professor A and Ms Gentry must break into the detention center to save Dr. Robere and Bear before helping the Vigents fight for their freedom. Not everyone survives.

SHOW NOTES

This concludes the first multi-episodic series of stories within the Nutmeg Junction universe. Professor A’s first story (Chapter One: The Fair Trade) was self-contained. A second story (Chapter 2: The Copenhagen Principle) was also relatively self contained even though the Chapter 3: My Brother’s Keeper” followed it loosely.  We learned how best to present this material because we released the first two parts of the story and then we did one-shot stories until we had recorded the continuation and then conclusion to the stories. In future, when we have a multi-episodic adventure, we will release them all successively until the conclusion, so listeners can expect the continuation of the story instead of having to wait a month for the end. So the last three weeks (episodes) finish the Professor A: Adjunct Professor to the Multiverse story arc and we’re extremely excited about how they came out.

So the story began with:

Chapter 4: The Welcome Wagon.  (Episode 16)

Chapter 5: Borrower of the Night (Episode 17)

and then we decided to put the remaining episodes back to back every week until the conclusion so Chapters 6 through 8 were as follows:

Chapter 6: Bold Plans  (Episode 22)

Chapter 7: Resist!  (Episode 23)

Chapter 8: Universe, Mine (Episode 24)

The title “Universe Mine” makes so much sense that I recognize the entire story arc will use that title.

The cast did not read the script until the day of rehearsal and for some, they had no idea how the story would end until we read it during rehearsal. The resolution of one character was an emotional one for many.

For the students, Ms. Gentry and Dr. Robere, there is growth which I felt was important for the evolution of the show. Ms. Gentry grows from a somewhat passive bystander of events, chronicling it but not really playing a part (especially in Chapter One) to a heroic participant in events, taking action-she’s an action hero by the end.  Further, Dr. Robere at the beginning is somewhat of a novice intellectually at the beginning of the Professor A series, for true he is a Professor at a University but the smartest intellectual in our world still has much to learn from Professor A from the multi-verse. But by the end Dr. Robere has not only used his cunning to stay alive, he is recognizing and understanding fundamental aspects of the multiverse.

Some of the most cinematic lines are said by the supporting cast. Olivia Wadsworth as Sa-rah has my favorite line in Chapter 8. “You can blame me” which in the context of what occurs is quite powerful.

David Robinson comes in as Bear and his dramatic scene of ” I stand for my people, I can do no other” has shades of Martin Luther in it.

It was wonderful working with Deborah Goodman again (she was in Battle of Elsenorift) and we’ll be bringing her back very soon!

Josh Newey once again plays “everyone”.  An accomplished actor, he took on the world building aspect of our show and fans of his work can look forward to October for he will be the featured host of our “Nightmare Junction” series.

CREDITS

EPISODE 24: PROFESSOR A: CHAPTER 8: UNIVERSE MINE

written and directed by J. Timothy Quirk (c)2018

STARRING

LANA PECK AS PROFESSOR A/OFFICER FUNSTON

KURT BOUCHER AS DOCTOR ROBERE

TIFFY MCKAY AS MS. GENTRY

WITH

DEBORAH GOODMAN AS B1067/DEE-NAH

JOSH NEWEY AS SUPERVISOR FRIENDLY/MINER/UNIONE2

J. TIMOTHY QUIRK: AS SECURITY DETAIL

DAVID ROBINSON AS BEARNARD SABLE

OLIVIA WADSWORTH AS SA-RAH

PROFESSOR A THEME MUSIC WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY LANA PECK (C)2018 AND USED WITH PERMISSION

NUTMEG JUNCTION THEME AND END CREDITS WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY ROBERT C. FULLERTON (C)2018 AND USED WITH PERMISSION