We present two stories in this episode.
The first story we see a return of The Grey Whisper and Rusty in the beginning of a three part saga: Anthracite in Blue! Someone has stolen some fiber art from the fourth most popular fiber art museum in northern Massachusetts. Madeline Forthright and Rusty travel to Athol, Massachusetts and investigate!
Then, what would happen if a bunch of Bradys went to space? Find out in the Spacy Squad!
SHOW NOTES
We returned to the Grey Whisper character, our pulp hero. We noted that we had not completed a story “The Vampire Sloth” and that what was written was also the first part of a story and for a moment considered if it would be funny to only write the beginnings of the Grey Whisper Stories but decided we’ll definitely pay off each one, no matter how long it takes.
Further, what I had prepared was the concept of having at least two stories recorded for each episode and then have at least one of those stories have a cliff hanger and bring back the audience the following week.
So I had the Grey Whisper story prepared as a three partner. We’ve already recorded the first two (see next episode for part two!) and we’ll record the final chapter of this three part story tomorrow.
This episode marks the return of Conrad Sienkiewicz as our announcer and Caroline Sienkiewicz (who formerly portrayed Darly in our Daring Darling Darly episode!)
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Additionally, original cast member Kurt Boucher wrote a story of The Brady Bunch in space called the Spacy Squad. With some tweaking in the edits, we recorded the Spacy Squad on the same night and it worked out exceptionally well.
CREDITS
Episode was written, created and produced by J .Timothy Quirk and recorded at WAPJ Torrington Community Radio
What happens when an aristocratic layabout nephew becomes engaged to a werewolf “from the best of families”? Find out in part two in our conclusion of our loving parody of PG Wodehouse’s work in Giles and Brewster and the Zombie Apocalypse part two!
“Lord and Lady Chennington” Robert C. Fullerton and Olivia WadsworthJ. Timothy Quirk and Kurt Boucher
CREDITS
Nutmeg Junction, Season 2 episode 2
Giles and Brewster and the Monster Apocalypse (part 2) was written, created and produced by J. Timothy Quirk
The program was recorded at WAPJ, Torrington Community Radio
The program starred:
David Macharelli as Woodrow Brewster
Josh Newey as Giles
Lana Peck as Gloria Chennington
Shannon Sniffin as Gwenivere Chuttle
Jandi Hanna as Aunt Agnes
Kurt Boucher as Toppers
Robert C Fullerton as Lord Chennington
Olivia Wadsworth as Lady Chennington
And J Timothy Quirk as Butterby and Gussie Knitfottle
We begin Season 2 of our audio theater golden-age-of-radio style program by paying homage to the work of the great humorist PG Wodehouse in our loving parody that posits the question, how would the aristocratic world of a gadfly nephew and his gentleman’s gentleman handle an apocalyptic world filled with vampires, werewolves, zombies and more. The answer is found in our two part episode entitled “Giles and Brewster and the Monster Apocalypse” This is PART ONE
CREDITS
Giles and Brewster and the Monster Apocalypse was written, created and produced by J. Timothy Quirk
The program was recorded at WAPJ, Torrington Community Radio
The program starred:
David Macharelli as Woodrow Brewster
Josh Newey as Giles
Lana Peck as Gloria Chennington
Shannon Sniffin as Gwenivere Chuttle
Jandi Hanna as Aunt Agnes
Kurt Boucher as Toppers
Olivia Wadsworth as Lady Chennington
Robert C. Fullerton as Lord Chennington
And J Timothy Quirk as Butterby and Gussie Knitfottle
Additional music and sound courtesy of youtube royalty free music
Please tune in next time for the conclusion, part two of Giles and Brewster and the Monster Apocalypse
Season 2 we will continue to bring you more unique adventures including more of The Grey Whisper, Space Sentries, Tex Bijou and all of your favorite characters.
Until next time, we hope you enjoyed the ride and may all of your journeys bring you back to a happy home.
Episode 28 features an HP Lovecraft inspired story written by Lana Peck, the Corpse Conductor written and performed by Josh Newey and The Snarflepoofs return!
The Corpse Conductor introduces us to the stories and provides a wonderful bookend to the episode. For the third and final installment of Nightmare Junction (The October Halloween episodes) Josh brings it home for us and deserved a week off to rest the vocal chords!
The Call of the Trolley is the first full story segment written by a cast member and it’s wonderful. Created by Lana Peck, it was pitched at the time we were discussing ideas for the Nightmare Junction stories. David Robinson was cast to portray the character (a stand-in for Lovecraft) and Lana’s script gives two nods to two prior Nutmeg Junction stories.
We then conclude with Snarflepoofs-Snarfleween, the mandatory holiday special. Snarflepoofs are “America’s Most Recent Toy Branded Children’s Entertainment Product” and the idea makes fun of the types of shows that only serve to sell toys by having stories and situations that actually discuss concepts of substance. So Snarfleween allows us to talk about climate change and the environment by talking about an Apple bobbing competition all while the characters maintain their philosophical inclinations. We introduce Nick Bourne into the Junction team. Nick and Lana had worked together under the direction of Keith Paul for a staged reading show at the Warner! (note: I had the opportunity to work for Keith in a staged reading many years ago with, among many others, Lana and Kurt Boucher!) Nick will return next week with two roles as he acts in both story segments we present!
Once again, Jandi Hanna is the narrator for the Snarfle-poofs and has a few fun commercials for “Flattread Tires” and “Greedymine Bottled Water”. Melissa Gabehart returns as “Sneetchey” (Nietzsche) and Jeff Savage is Plato! The first joke in this story pays homage to a famous Jack Benny line (we just did it in our own way). Kurt is Renny (Rene Descartes), Olivia is Wollstonecraft and Lana is Simone. We decided not to keep the “Princess” joke going as it had been done already and it would be cumbersome to continue it. The actors like these roles so much, we might have to do a Thanksgiving special, a “not as loved as Halloween or Christmas but still mandatory viewing holiday special”. And Rich Cyr becomes a Snarflepoof-which one? Listen to find out!
Nutmeg Junction: Nightmare Junction Special #3
Was directed by J. Timothy Quirk and recorded at WAPJ Torrington Community Radio
The Corpse Conductor was written by and starred Josh Newey
Intrepid private eye Harriet Holmes meets an iconic detective duo to conclude her search for the Lost Episode of Nutmeg Junction. She locates the story of Trace Duggins: Crime Illustrator in a send-up to the golden age of radio.
SHOW NOTES
There used to be an old time radio program called Casey: Crime Photographer which was nothing more than a detective show with the protagonist who was a photographer for a newspaper. When creating a parody of that show, Kurt Moffett, who is himself a reporter for a newspaper as well as an integral part of the WAPJ radio station family, was tapped to play the lead.
That being said didn’t want to do a photographer and thought a crime “illustrator” had more appeal especially as the character to wax philosophically about the art choices and bake in to the story line a specific reason why the perpetrator would be caught through art. Since I wasn’t going to use “case-y” and thought Trace would be a great name for an artist.
Occasionally we’ll leave some moments of behind the scenes humor/reactions in the show itself. We do that at the very end of the episode courtesy of Rich Cyr!
The Trace Duggins story line is introduced as part of the Harriet Holmes mythology, or rather trilogy for this is the third and probably final part of the “Search for the Lost Episode” saga. To be sure, we’ll have Harriet Holmes in many more adventures but we’ve done three “lost episodes” shows and as it says in the script, three is a magic number. Olivia Wadsworth is wonderful in the role and her monologues have some of the better one-liners.
I’m excited that the show reintroduces Netta and Nathaniel Chance, our tip of the hat to the Thin Man series, and I absolutely love the way Lana Peck and Kurt Boucher channel the iconic era. These characters were recorded on our very first recording day (ever) of Nutmeg Junction and they deserve some more adventures!
The location of the Harriet Holmes section is in Broughton’s Meadow which was the original name for Florence, Massachusetts area in the Pioneer Valley. Their library is Lilly Library and the iconic and wonderful public park is Look Park. See if you can hear the references to these locations!
Also there are a few shout outs to Leominster Massachusetts! The show is heading to Leominster’s WLPZ on October 20th!
We continue our new way of creating Episode art-with photos taken via Kurt Boucher and myself (not sure who took which photos but it was a collaborative effort on the team). Jandi Hanna located a magnifying glass which we used during the photo shoot and in future episode covers it will probably be seen!
CREDITS
EPISODE 25: HARRIET HOLMES AND THE SEARCH FOR THE LOST EPISODE III WITH TRACE DUGGINS: CRIME ILLUSTRATOR
WAS WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY J. TIMOTHY QUIRK (C)2018
STARRING:
OLIVIA WADSWORTH AS HARRIET HOLMES/MS. SUSPECTON/MRS. GRIMLEY
KURT MOFFETT AS TRACE DUGGINS: CRIME ILLUSTRATOR
LANA PECK AS NETTA CHANCE/NARRATOR
KURT BOUCHER AS NATHANIEL CHANCE/MR. GRIMLEY
MELISSA GABEHART AS STRANGER ON A TRAIN/MAUDE PATTERSON
The story of this episode starts with Lana Peck, an original cast member and essential member of the Nutmeg Junction theater company.
Lana’s father Shelby Peck was a teacher and fiction writer with an interest in a particular pulp novel hero and he wrote fan fiction for a fanzine that discussed their favorite hero.
As we created Nutmeg Junction, Lana noted that the genre of audio theater we were creating fit her father’s stories very well so we set about putting them into our own world, in our own way. We changed names and added comic elements that her father would have approved of. We created “Golden Age Budget Conscious Adventures of…” as an interesting way to tell a story but in reality our show is at its best when there are more sound effects and music so as we continue to tell Doctor Keen stories, we’ll continually add more elements every time. This week had no music for the main story. When we return, we are thinking of bringing kazoos into the equation. By the time we do the character five times or so we may have the full orchestra style program.
Lana Peck in the foreground with Josh Newey preparing his lines in the back
This episode brought back nearly every member of the original cast (we were missing Conrad and Caroline Sienkiewicz) but we look forward to another opportunity to bring the whole original cast together soon!
This is the top of the author’s head; apparently we needed to show this.
Jandi Hanna portrays Michelle Smalls and Rich Cyr portrays Long John. We also had Kurt Boucher as “Knuckles” though he is the one taking the photos and not any of the at-microphone shots.
The villains of this story are portrayed by Josh Newey and Robert C. Fullerton
CREDITS
EPISODE 21: DOCTOR KEEN AND THE PHENOMENAL FIFTY IN THE WIZARDS OF GALLOWS HILL
STORY BY SHELBY PECK
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY LANA PECK AND J. TIMOTHY QUIRK
CAST:
LANA PECK AS THE NARRATOR AND SAMANTHA THE CAT
J. TIMOTHY QUIRK AS DOCTOR KEEN
KURT BOUCHER AS KNUCKLES
RICH CYR AS LONG JOHN
JANDI HANNA AS MICHELLE SMALLS
JOSH NEWEY AS PRINCE ASMODEOUS/SAM LORD AND SILENT LESTER
ROBERT C. FULLERTON AS THE WIZARD/MR. SEWELL
DOCTOR KEEN WILL RETURN NEXT MONTH FOR THE CONCLUSION OF “THE WIZARD OF GALLOWS HILL!”
A delayed trolley allows a father and son to reconnect over the memories of Saturday morning cartoons.
Jeff Savage and David Macharelli as “Dad and Jake” in “Looking Forward to It”
Jeff Savage and David Macharelli helm this featured episode hearkening back to when Saturday mornings were meant for a bowl of cereal and cartoons on the television. The story is really a contemplation about “time”. Starting out the second half of our inaugural season of audio-theater, Nutmeg Junction presents an episode that takes the anthology series to a different level.
Director Jandi Hanna, Lana Peck and Kurt Boucher in “Looking Forward to It”
Directed by Jandi Hanna (her prior directorial work for the show was episode 18 “Battle of Elsenorift”) this talented cast all have moments in the spotlight.
MUSIC
Of particular interest for this show is the music. Robert C. Fullerton, the official troubadour of Nutmeg Junction show, creates a special theme for Packy-Dermy-Poo, our miniature Elephant mystery.
Kurt Boucher created an ode to tort law the way “schoolhouse’ style public service announcements might present the topic with contributions by Lana Peck and Nicole Boucher.
Lana Peck and Mik Walker’s 1998 “Jellybean Stomp” was the perfect theme for the SNARFLEPOOFS!
And apologies all around to anyone who has the “Snarfleday Song” still stuck in their heads. It was created and performed on guitar by J. Timothy Quirk and sung by the whole cast.
STORIES
Regarding the main story:
Jake and his father speak with an understanding of the other’s knowledgebase and not everything said is spoken with words. During rehearsal we discussed where the father was going and why and the performance by Jeff Savage and David Macharelli demonstrated deep insight into the characters. As the writer, I’m incredibly proud of this piece and thrilled it came to life the way it did.
Regarding Snarflepoofs 1 and 2
It seemed there was a time when cartoons were created specifically to sell a line of toys. I won’t go into specific names. But whenever there was a large troupe of characters in a cartoon, it was usually (it seemed) because they were selling figures of each character and the cartoon was completely secondary to that effort. The cartoons usually told some generic and forgettable “lesson” about “friendship” or “sharing” or “being nice”. I thought it would be funny if a cartoon was used to teach something a lot greater, like general philosophy. So that’s the idea of how Snaflepoofs was created. We make references to Rene Descartes (Day Cart says, “call me Cogito!” Plato (who wants to go into my cave and stare at the wall?” and Nietche (Sneetchey steals the show here-nice work by new addition to the team “Melissa Gabehart”)
The song for the holiday song just made me laugh. It’s three chords, generic and infectious. During editing I added in the jinglebells, then expanded the guitar-work to fit the narration so that at the end of each narrated segment, we came back to the refrain.
The largest segment of the show is Packy-Dermy-Poo, the homage to the “teen mystery solvers with an animal” genre. The story nearly wrote itself. I enjoyed immensely the idea of a character specifically named Redmond Herring (red herring). Packy Dermy Poo may be a one-off parody but I loved the laughter at the end and included it in the audio. It fits within the framework of the cartoon but it also demonstrates the fun we have creating Nutmeg Junction.
Mister Tort Law is wonderful, a creation from the mind of Kurt Boucher. I reached out to the musical cast members about what they wanted to create for the show, giving free reign. Kurt came up with the idea of teaching the concepts of torts in the PSA format. Fantastic. We may do an entire tort episode and base it in Winsted where the American Museum of Tort Law is located and we’ll use that song again.
We had a separate PSA that was non-musical and was a parody of the “ad for a TV disguised as a PSA but instead of saying a generic lesson, we taught Einstein’s law of relativity. It was a good idea but there was no time for it once the foley was added to the other segments during editing.
CREDITS
EPISODE 20: LOOKING FORWARD TO IT”
Written, created and produced by J. Timothy Quirk (c) 2018
recorded at WAPJ in Torrington, CT
Directed by Jandi Hanna
Starring Jeff Savage as Dad in the main story, Plato in Snarflepoofs, Redmond Herring in Packy Dermy Poo
David Macharelli as Jake in the main story, Day Cart in Snarflepoofs and Chuck in Packy Dermy Poo
Kurt Boucher as Mister Tortlaw, Renny in Snarflepoofs and Simon in Packy Dermy Poo
Nicole Boucher as Mister Tortlaw’s friend
Rich Cyr as Beau in Packy Dermy Poo
Mellisa Gabehart as the Passenger, as Sneetchey in Snarflepoofs
Jandi Hanna the narrator in Snarflepoofs and Professor Culpritt in Packy Dermy Poo
Lana Peck as Chum in Mister Tort Law, Princess Simone in Snarflepoofs and Val in Packy Dermy Poo
Olivia Wadsworth as Princess Wollstonecraft in Snarflepoofs and Kristine in Packy Dermy Poo
The Battle of Elsenorift features an all female cast and female director in honor of our VIP guest, Marilyn Olsen who is a Board Member of The Lipstick Project (CT) that serves the purpose of supporting women artists especially in Theater.
Olivia Wadsworth and Jandi Hanna reprise their roles as Ava and Evelyn and conducted an interview with our guest in the same way that they conducted the interview with Nancy Sasso Janis in episode 11.
Jandi Hanna was an assistant director during a show I acted in (Twelve Angry Jurors in Goshen). Jandi stepped into the role of director and did a wonderful job working with our actors who had a wide range of theater experience.
Jandi also portrayed the Queen and Olivia portrayed the part of Barbaria. When Olivia put on her voice of a slightly stuffy nosed (pretend cold) Barbaria we all cracked up. It worked so perfectly and I wasn’t expecting it.
For some background I had the enormous pleasure of seeing a production of Master Class about the life of Maria Callas starring Marilyn Olsen and which featured Deborah Goodman in a wonderful role as a student. This episode was a marvelous opportunity to reunite these actors.
Here’s Marilyn making Jandi laugh!
I had just interviewed Marilyn for the Nutmeg CHATTER program where she discussed the Lipstick Project (CT) and asked her if she’d be interested in doing the Junction program. Fortunately she said YES!
Deborah Goodman was on board and immediately “got” the Python-esque feel to some of the repartee between her character and Marilyn’s “Valkyria”.
Poet Patricia Martin was also a newcomer to the Junction team but she has an extensive resume of vocal work especially as an author/poet and the creator of the Speak-easy poetry reading series. So I had her character as “The Scribe” but it was almost unfair as her character has to set up the entire backstory with, as a hallmark of our show, some ridiculous words and phrases to say but with Jandi’s direction and with Patricia’s professionalism it worked out well and Jandi and Patricia had a nice ad-lib moment which made it into the final cut of the show.
Shannon Sniffin joined us as The Page and made remarkable work of a character who might have just slipped into the background in lesser hands. Her deadpan style of answering “I shall not tarry, my liege” was a better delivery than my script deserved. I enjoyed her work in Landmark Community Theatre’s production of “The Game’s Afoot” and it was great to have her join us and there will be more opportunities for Shannon and for all of the wonderful actors who worked on the show.
It was an honor to be in the room as they worked on this show and I thought how wonderful it would be if others could be there to see the show performed live for it was a rare treat.
I will absolutely ask each actor to come back and certainly, if they work together that theatrical alchemy that was created will be magical once again.
CREDITS
EPISODE 14: THE BATTLE OF ELSENORIFT (c) 2018
written, created, produced by J. TIMOTHY QUIRK
NUTMEG JUNCTION THEME MUSIC BY ROBERT C. FULLERTON (C)2018
STARRING
MARILYN OLSEN as VALKYRIA and as herself
DEBORAH GOODMAN as SUSAN
JANDI HANNA as THE QUEEN/EVELYN
OLIVIA WADSWORTH as BARARIA/AVA
PATRICIA MARTIN as SAGOPAZ
SHANNON SNIFFIN as THE PAGE
DIRECTED BY JANDI HANNA
Additional foley and music by YOUTUBE royalty free music or otherwise found in the field by J. Timothy Quirk
All characters and situations are completely fictional. Any similarities between anyone living or dead is completely coincidental.
This was a fun episode as we return to the idea of serendipitous moments in history otherwise known as “Serendip-History”. Our guest was Nancy Sasso Janis, the theater reviewer. As an interesting side note, when Conrad Sienkiewicz, Robert C. Fullerton and I met at WAPJ and sat at the table discussing the ideas for Nutmeg Junction the radio show, Nancy arrived at the tail end of that discussion as she and I had scheduled a Nutmeg CHATTER radio interview and she was early. So she got to witness the birth of the Nutmeg Junction radio show when it happened.
And I knew from our interview that Nancy had acted before but most of her time was spent reviewing and with such a schedule it would be difficult for her to take on a full production of a show but our show was different, needing a rehearsal and a recording time and they’re usually during off times (as often our cast are parts of other local productions! So I asked if she was interested in participating and she was and I had the perfect role for her: Harriet Beecher Stowe!
In addition I had the idea of a public relations person trying to sell Louisa May Alcott on a sequel to Little Women. I reached out to my friend, comedienne KJ Johansen who was my co-host on a prior radio program to see if she was interested in being the PR person and she was!
Olivia Wadsworth and Jandi Hanna were slated to be part of the show as Ava and Evelyn and I knew Olivia could portray Louisa May Alcott and Jandi’s character in Serendip-History is the narrator. This left only Samuel Clemens. Fortunately we have a Southern gentleman of distinction in our cast; Robert C. Fullerton!
Conrad Sienkiewicz directed and it was great that he had some “book end” narration which held the story together.
This was an episode that we rehearsed and recorded on the same day which, when we only have one episode to record, works out fairly well.
The story of Louisa May Alcott and Virginia Wyles worked as I already had the punchline in my head before I wrote it.
The Harriet Beecher Stowe and Samuel Clemens story was based on a recollection of a tour I had either at the Twain Center or at the Stowe center. I couldn’t find any reference to it online, but I recall hearing of a time Clemens met Stowe on the grounds and discussed something and then later sent up his suit. It’s a particularly peculiar idea that I do not know if it’s true or if my memory is flawed but I thought it was a story worth fictionalizing. The dialogue however are often quotes attributed to both authors at different times and contexts.
Credits
Episode 12: Serendip-History Part Two
Written and created and produced by J. Timothy Quirk (c) 2018
Directed by Conrad Sienkiewicz
Starring
Olivia Wadsworth as Ava/Louisa May Alcott
Jandi Hanna as Evelyn/Alice Dare Crook
KJ Johansen as Virginia Wyles/Waitstaff
Nancy Sasso Janis as Harriet Beecher Stowe and herself
Robert C. Fullerton as Samuel Clemens
Conrad Sienkiewicz as Announcer
Nutmeg Junction Theme written and performed by Robert C. Fullerton and used with permission.
All other music and sounds from youtube royalty free music or otherwise found in the field by J. Timothy Quirk
As it was mentioned in Episode 5, we had worked on three chapters of the Professor A: Adjunct Professor to the Multi-verse saga and of course we had the intention to do more. But I found when I edited the show that it sounded best with the chapters at approximately 15 minutes in length (at least for the first two) so we had an extra chapter recorded but not shared with our audience yet.
Secondly, when Olivia Wadsworth came on board I had pitched to her the idea for HER character to be Harriet Holmes. It’s always been my intention for each actor to have a signature role. Some actors may have more than one but I’d like each actor to have episodes where their character is the star. Anyway at the time I envisioned a London tale of Harriet being an actual sibling to Sherlock but found that the tv show SHERLOCK had already put out a story where there was a sister character for Sherlock and it would have seemed too derivative if I tried that too, no matter how I played it.
But as it turned out I also wanted to do a tough as nails Detective character. I have many uses for that character and certainly hard boiled detectives are so ubiquitous in Old Time Radio I’ll have many detectives on the show voiced by many different actors.
Ok, and here’s the thing. I wrote the detective story, finding the lost episode of Nutmeg Junction with a detective without a name. I wasn’t sure what we would call her.
I wrote the opening soliloquy the night before recording and posted it on facebook. This helped Olivia work on and find the voice for the recording session. I finished the story the following day, which was the day of recording, with the final pass completed 15 minutes before i left for the radio station. It’s a tight script that flows very well and there’s very little (if anything at all) I’d change about it.
I cast Jack Sheedy in the role of Lenny Snitchwell. Jack is a writer, an author and editor of a newspaper (Catholic Transcript), and the idea of an “English Major” is a call back to another show that for many years carried the torch of Old Time Radio. Jandi reprises her role of Nonna Hanna.
While we were at the table read, we discussed the fact that the detective didn’t have a name. I believe it was either Jandi or Olivia who brought up the idea of Harriet Holmes. i can not take credit for that at all. But the name fit perfectly and I asked Olivia if she wanted the detective character to be called that. She did.
So that’s how we have Harriet Holmes as a “modern” private eye, not beholden to any Sherlock but understood on her own terms.
Jack did a remarkable job as “Lenny”. He knew the character instantly and gave the right flourish.
The Professor Episode was a lot of fun. This one felt had a lot of comedy thanks to all of the actors in the cast. Everyone has a good line or two including Josh and Jandi as the two humans: Freddie and Alice (which they performed in a cockney accent).
There is only one slight editing mistake I missed in this portion of the show but I will fix it in future editions of the show.
Listeners can expect MORE of Harriet Holmes (she will undoubtedly return in Search for the lost episode part two, and more of the Professor. I plan to have scripts written and recorded this month.
Nutmeg Junction 