We have three fun short stories to share with you on our trolley ride of imagination. Our first story is Justice Abby Trary. Order in the Court with “The Case of the State vs. Onus Culpritt”. Our second and third stories are shorts taking place in the land of Oz. There’s “The legend of Oz-fit” and “Lilith the Life Coach” Original music by J. Timothy Quirk.
The program stars Kurt Boucher, Jerry Crystal, Rich Cyr, Robert C. Fullerton, Melissa Gabehart, KJ Johansen, Kristin Moresi, Christiane Olson, Lana Peck, Jeff Savage, Olivia Wadsworth
LISTEN HERE
CREDITS Nutmeg Junction Season 3 Episode 6
Nutmeg Junction Season 3 Episode 6 was written, created and produced by J. Timothy Quirk
Abby Trary Theme, The Witch’s Theme, Fairyland Theme written and performed by J. Timothy Quirk
Nutmeg Junction 2020 Theme adapted by J. Timothy Quirk from the original theme written and created by Robert. C. Fullerton
Nutmeg Junction Theme instrumental by Robert C. Fullerton
Abby Trary Cast:
Judge Abby Trary Kathy Johansen
Flo Bono (for the Defense) Lana Peck
Prosecutor Petey Fogger Kurt Boucher
Bailiff Melissa Gabehart
Onus Culpritt Rich Cyr
Ms. Alibi Christiane Olson
Redmond Herring Jeff Savage
Foreperson Olivia Wadsworth
The Legend of Oz-Fit
Diamond Fluffernutter Kristin Moresi
Narrator Jandi Hanna
Dorothy Olivia Wadsworth
Scarecrow Rich Cyr
Tin Man Robert C. Fullerton
Cowardly Lion Jerry Crystal
Lilith the Life Coach
Lilith Christiane Olson
Wicked Witch of the West Lana Peck
The program was recorded at WAPJ Torrington Community Radio.
Inspector Trompe-Loieil and Mademoisellet Quossont return to Nutmeg Junction starring Jandi Hanna and Olivia Wadsworth featuring an all star cast in our who-dunnit called “Til Murder Do We Part” With theme music by Robert C. Fullerton
Narrated by Jack Sheedy, Inspector Trompe-Loeiel stars Jandi Hanna as Inspector Trompe-Loeil, Olivia Wadsworth as Harriet Holmes, Rich Cyr as Nibbles, Lana Peck as Aunt Maggie, Kurt Boucher as Sidney Danforth, Dan Willey as Bartholomew Trilby, Deborah Goodman as Ferrari Maneteau, AJ Lin as Portia Manteau, Kristin Moresi as Mavis Manteau, introducing Kayla Soule as the Concierge and Jerry Crystal as Alex.
Listen HERE:
CREDITS
Nutmeg Junction Episode 228 was written created and produced by J. Timothy Quirk
The program was recorded at WAPJ Torrington Community Radio
There are three “station stops” on the Nutmeg Junction trolley for this episode.
LISTEN HERE!
SYNOPSIS:
The first feature: Fanny and Fred and the Telephone Company. Your friends and mine Fanny and Fred from Locust Hollow have to contend with reaching a live person at the telephone company in this all too real scenario!
Starring Jandi Hanna and Jeff Savage as Fanny and Fred with Laurel Briggs, Kurt Boucher, Lana Peck and J. Timothy Quirk
The second feature: Thank Your Lucky Stars hosted by Jack Sheedy with Robert C. Fullerton. In What’s Kazoo With You, the world’s greatest kazoo club of Syracuse, NY entertain and inform. Starring Jack Sheedy and Robert C. Fullerton with Kurt Boucher, Olivia Wadsworth, David Robinson and Jandi Hanna
Finally the third feature is the first Nutmeg Junction “short” entitled “The Choice” starring Laurel Briggs and J. Timothy Quirk
CREDITS
Nutmeg Junction Episode 219 was written, created and produced by J. Timothy Quirk (c)2019 and recorded at WAPJ Torrington Community Radio
Introducing Malcolm MacDuff: Theatre Detective. Jeff Savage stars in the title role and with his faithful associate Concord (Dan Willey) investigates a plot that occurs within a Shakespeare Festival.
Then we continue the Space Sentries: Additional Lineage story The Vector Theorem Part II. On the Salisbury, Ensign Puffle, (Rich Cyr), Lieutenant Laurel Yanny (Lana Peck) and Security Chief Ace Grimsely (Olivia Wadsworth) must deal with the Space Brigand invasion (Robert C. Fullerton and Jeff Savage) with the assistance of Admiral Alx (Kurt Boucher) and Hologram Admiral Complication (Phil Hall).
LISTEN HERE:
SHOW NOTES
One of the original ideas for Nutmeg Junction that I had yet to write was the Theatre Detective, a Detective that played in to the Theatre tropes of backstage shenanigans. with puns galore.
I finally had the opportunity to write the script and put, if not every Shakespeare pun, certainly everyone I could think of.
We then continued the story of Space Sentries. I asked which actors would be available and then tailored the second part of the story to include those characters.
CREDITS
Nutmeg Junction was written, created and produced by J. Timothy Quirk (c) 2019
The program was recorded at WAPJ Torrington Community Radio and is available to all
community radio stations.
Malcolm MacDuff Theatre Detective starred
Jeff Savage as Malcolm MacDuff
Dan Willey as Concord
Kurt Boucher as The Director
Olivia Wadsworth as Tamora
Rich Cyr as Nick Bottom
Lana Peck as the Prop Master.
and Robert C. Fullerton as Sampson
Malcolm MacDuff Theme Song written, performed by Robert C. Fullerton (c) 2019
Nutmeg Junction Theme Song written, performed by Robert C. Fullerton (c) 2019
Space Sentries: The Additional Lineage= The Vector Theorem part two
Starring:
Jeff Savage as Space Brigand II
Robert C. Fullerton as Space Brigand I
Dan Willey as the Narrator
Kurt Boucher as Admiral Alx
Olivia Wadsworth as Ace Grimsely
Rich Cyr as Ensign Puffle
Lana Peck as the Laurel Yanny
Nutmeg Junction: New Old Time Radio Show 2019 In Season 2 Episode 10 (air date 3/30/2019) Professor A: Adjunct Professor to the Multi-verse receives an assignment to track down Dean Hewland, the “Dean of Death”. A beacon from the pod that Hewland had previously used has been activated on a deserted planet Earth in a time line very close to the PRIME time line. Is Hewland still alive and if not, who has activated the beacon?
Listen to the program HERE:
SHOW NOTES
There are no photos during the recording of this episode as we recorded the Space Sentries story first. The Dean of Death is a two part story and Kurt Boucher had to record his lines remotely and Tiffy McKay recorded her narration remotely so when we recorded this story, we focused on the recording aspect only.
Jeff Savage appears as a character in part two of the story.
Professor A‘s adventures continue in Chapter Five: Borrower of the Night! Professor A and Ms. Gentry escape to the planet of an alien world in a mini-universe while Dr. Robere remains imprisoned in the “Welcome Center”,distracting the guard, “Officer Funston” for as long as he can.
SHOW NOTES
We continue the story of this multi-episodic Professor A adventure. Last week’s episode of Nutmeg Junction was Chapter Four and it ended on a cliff hanger. So does this episode!
The premise was established in Chapter Four-that the Uni-Ones came from a different universe and took over this world and began extracting its natural resources and then restricted all access to it from anyone else who tries to visit through the dimensional corridor.
In this episode we learn more from the native inhabitants of the world how the current state came to be.
Our principals (Lana Peck as Professor A, Kurt Boucher as Dr. Robere and Tiffy McKay as Ms. Gentry) return and they are joined by David Robinson, Conrad Sienkiewicz and Olivia Wadsworth.
Olivia was not present at the time of the original recording so Tiffy provided two voices, Ms. Gentry’s and B1067. We recorded Olivia after we had edited the show for radio release so there are actually two versions of this episode, the one with Tiffy playing B1067 and one with Olivia portraying the character. As the character will continue in the storyline, we’ve updated/edited the show with Olivia’s voice but Tiffy’s voice is preserved in case we do a “making-of” episode at some point!
David Robinson joins us for the first time and portrays “Bearnard (Bear) Sable/C9359).. Robinson is no stranger to stage and screen, and he was most recently in The Post (2017)
Conrad directs the episode and returns as a voice actor for the neighbor role which is nice because Conrad and I are neighbors in real life too! Conrad will lend his voice to a Harriet Holmes episode within the next few weeks.
The letters and numbers actually correspond to elements of the story
CREDITS
EPISODE 17: PROFESSOR A (CHAPTER FIVE: BORROWER OF THE NIGHT)
CREATED, WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY J. TIMOTHY QUIRK
DIRECTED BY CONRAD SIENKIWICZ
PROFESSOR A THEME MUSIC WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY LANA PECK (C)2018 AND USED WITH PERMISSION
NUTMEG JUNCTION THEME WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY ROBERT C. FULLERTON (C) 2018 AND USED WITH PERMISSION
STARRING:
LANA PECK AS THE PROFESSOR AND OFFICER FUNSTON
KURT BOUCHER AS DR. ROBERE
TIFFY MCKAY AS MS. GENTRY
DAVID ROBINSON AS BEARNARD (BEAR/C9357) SABLE
OLIVIA WADSWORTH AS B1067
CONRAD SIENKIEWICZ AS THE NEIGHBOR
REHEARSED AND RECORDED AT WAPJ TORRINGTON COMMUNITY RADIO
In which the crew of the space ship “Salisbury” arrives at the Vermilion system to pick up First Op. Gillard who had been on shore leave. But how will the Space Sentry Central Command rocket powered transport vessel dock with the Salisbury’s docking station if there’s no engineer to guide the way? Can Ensign Puffle learn the assignment in time?
SHOW NOTES
In Episode 6 we introduced the idea of Space Sentries which is loosely based/parody of the old sci fi shows that had to substitute techno-babble jargon in the place of a budget for appropriate sci-fi ambiance. Additionally there is one golden age of radio program that certainly hawked a number of products and incorporated them into the stories.
With that in mind, this show is dedicated for the story tellers who learned to utilize the gift of storytelling through toys and imaginative play. The visual on the episode picture is loosely based on old action figure sets of the 80’s so it gives the impression of them without actually looking like any of them.
Once again Space Sentries stars Rich Cyr as Ensign Puffle, Kurt Boucher as Commander Alx and Phil Hall as Admiral Complication. Joining the episode is Dan Willey as First Op. Gillard.
And for a fun treat we also had three more actors join the cast as the voice of their respective “action figures”, Lana Peck voiced “Laurel (Locksmith) Yannie, Tiffy McKay voiced “Jenny Snips the hair stylist” and Sharon Waagner voiced the enigmatic Dr. Woolf saying the character’s most popular catchphrase.
This episode was tricky to edit as there were four separate audio tracks.
Dan and Sharon both rehearsed with the team on rehearsal night but unfortunately had other obligations for recording day so we recorded them separately (on a Wednesday night).
Then I recorded Lana and Tiffy separately as their action figures only had a few phrases. Well technically Lana’s toy only says one phrase and Tiffy’s figure says one phrase but at the hair salon play set there’s an additional sound that has Jenny Snips say “I’m going to need a bigger comb!”
In my formative years I enjoyed the Star Wars action figures and I can assure you, Hammerhead had greater adventures in my charge than he ever got in the movies.
But in this episode there’s a reference to the old MEGO toys because I refer to a vinyl play set like I used to have with the Star Trek bridge and my sister had with a Wizard of Oz play set.
On the day of recording Rich came off work later than expected so i had to record HIM separately.
So this is one episode where during recording, to help everyone know the pacing of their lines, I voiced every single character from the announcer (Conrad) to Puffle, Alx, Gillard, Complication as well as Yannie, Snips and Woolfe and yet no one will ever hear my versions of these characters as I edited myself out and put in the proper voice in.
In total the editing process had four separate vocal tracks then I added the music and sound effects.
For the main recording day, I had help as Rich Boucher manned the controls and ensured the levels of the performers were in the correct range. We look forward to his work in the future if he chooses to join us on future adventures!
Side note: in the future no one will really get the Laurel Yannie reference. Suffice it to say that for a minute in 2018 facebook blew up with people hearing either Laurel or Yannie in an audio file. Given what we were doing with audio files, I felt this is entirely appropriate to name the character Laurel Yannie.
So we will continue to tell Space Sentries stories and build the crew of the “Salisbury”. The ship is named for a town in the broadcast range of WHDD which plays our program Nutmeg Junction on the multiple stations of the robinhood radio network.
Everyone who was involved in this particular episode enjoyed working on it. We’ll be bringing Dan and Phil back on more adventures in different roles.
We have a big summer planned.
CREDITS
EPISODE 15: SPACE SENTRIES II (c)2018
created, written and produced by J. Timothy Quirk
Directed by Conrad Sienkiewicz
Sound Production by Ray Boucher
STARRING
RICH CYR AS ENSIGN PUFFLE:
KURT BOUCHER AS COMMANDER ALX:
PHIL HALL AS ADMIRAL COMPLICATION
CONRAD SIENKIEWICZ AS THE ANNOUNCER
DAN WILLEY AS FIRST OP GILLARD:
TIFFY MCKAY AS JENNY SNIPS
LANA PECK AS LOCKSMITH LAUREL:
SHARON WAAGNER AS DR. WOOLFE
Nutmeg Junction theme song by Robert C. Fullerton all rights reserved to the performer and used with permission.
Foley and additional music courtesy of Youtube royalty free music
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 