Category: Audio Play

Like any good theatre town, Seattle tends to lavish plenty of hype on the inaugural production of a new company when that company is made up of talented veterans who have proven themselves on other stages around town. Pressure mounts on the new ensemble to make their kick-off show one of the best audiences have ever seen, thus assuring crucial momentum for the future. Of course, the inherent danger lies in forgetting that no matter how earth-shatteringly brilliant your first play is, the primary law of show business remains as immutable as gravity: you are only as good as your last gig.  A company that can never live up to the promise of its premiere production is a company destined to be loved like a first crush: fondly, but weakly, and with an ardor that fades even as the intervening years serve to burnish or blur the memory of love-at-first-sight’s luster.

Happily, through luck, hard work and great leadership, the Sandbox Artists Collective has managed to escape that fate with its quarterly audio offering, Sandbox Radio Live. Don’t get me wrong. We had a great initial outing, back in July of last year with our first show.  And lots of delicious hype to go with it. But I don’t know anyone who would argue we couldn’t do better.  And better we did, with the second iteration, a horror-themed show turned out just in time for Halloween.

With this third episode, however, every member of the team— writers, actors, musicians and production crew — stretched out into strong new strides: going beyond what we had done before with a confidence that surely grew out of our prior successes and failures.  Everyone seems to agree that Episode Three, “To Hell With Love” was our best show yet.  And best of all, now that the podcast is ready, you can listen and decide for yourself by clicking here.

For me, the evening did not contain a single clunker.  I loved every segment, from Anita Montgomery’s hilarious plumbing of the particular hell that is on-line dating in “F- You, Cupid!” to Elizabeth Heffron and Leslie Law’s stirring tribute to the great radio drama talent, Norman Corwin, in the show’s finale, “Corwin on Corwin.”  And I will never forget when Elizabeth Heffron’s delightful sex romp in space “T-Minus” gloriously dissolved into an Offenbach duet sung by Law and the shimmering soprano Heather Curtis Mullin.  As Heather herself will tell, you it’s no great accomplishment that this brought me to tears.  I’ll cry at a cell phone commercial.  But that doesn’t diminish the welling of awe I felt witnessing that unrecoverable moment of live theatre.

Wait!  What did I just say?  “Unrecoverable?”  Bullcrap!  Due to the greater glory of Sandbox Radio you can go and recover it right now, here!   (Act I, 52:50).

And here’s a list of all the evening’s pieces:

Episode 3, “To Hell With Love”
recorded at West of Lenin on January 23, 2012

Act 1

@1:55 “F-You, Cupid!” by Anita Montgomery
@13:28 PSA-Coal Free Washington by Vincent Delaney
@16:45 “Lost Love Blues” by Charles Leggett
@22:53 “Markheim: Episode 3” by Paul Mullin
@37:30 “T-Minus” by Elizabeth Heffron

Act 2

@0:00 “Angry” by Charles Leggett
@2:48 “Charlotte Doesn’t Clean Here Anymore” by Scot Augustson
@17:55 PSA-Communities in Schools of Seattle by Vincent Delaney
@21:08 “Corwin by Corwin” by Elizabeth Heffron
@40:03 Finale/Credits

True to the night’s pattern, my own piece, the third installment of the noir angel series, Markheim, was the best one yet.  If I can modestly say so, I am really starting to find the action of the story.  And the actors, foley artists and musicians have modulated the series’ unique and tricky tone to pitch perfection.  As always, I’m providing the script for Episode Three below the fold.

(more…)