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Playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett says two Christmas stories were burned into his brain as a child: O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" and Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl."
For "Yuletide," Plan-B Theatre Company's 11th radio hour, Bennett drew upon those two sentimental tales. He also added a third tale with a darker twist, inspired by a macabre French-German myth about a black knight, a kind of anti-Santa Claus satanic figure. For "The Black Knight," he invented a frame story about Jacob Grimm collecting stories for an anthology of folk tales, when he comes across a woman who reveals her own dark domestic drama. Bennett gave himself the task of writing a psychological thriller "without slipping into gore."
"Yuletide," co-produced with KUER's RadioWest, is directed by Cheryl Ann Cluff and features the vocal cast of Jay Perry, Teresa Sanderson and Doug Fabrizio, with original music by Dave Evanoff. The show will be broadcast live on 90.1 FM at 11 a.m. Thursday and rebroadcast that night at 7.
The show's varied sound design is matched to each tale, with whimsical sounds for "Magi," more meditative notes in "Match Girl" and more straightforward effects for "Black Knight." "I want to make people feel like they are inside that farmhouse when the door is busted open by the Black Knight," Bennett says.
Radio theater asks listeners to disconnect from visual stimulation. That's evident in the way Cluff chooses to direct with her eyes closed or with her back turned to the actors. "I'm trying to hear what the audience at home is going to hear," she says. "If I look at them, I'm letting visual stuff influences what I hear, and I can't hear as clearly."
Bennett adds: "In live theater, you can sit there and be worked on. But in radio, you kind of need to be worked with."
Perry, a Utah-based actor, has performed in all 11 of Plan-B's radio shows, including last year's "Otherwhere," where he played an increasingly unhinged author of a book on paranormal activity being interviewed by RadioWest's Fabrizio. At the time, some listeners called in thinking the drama on air was real, à la "The War of the Worlds."
Cluff says there's some kind of indescribable secret sauce in Perry's vocal versatility. Perry says he has long been intrigued at the imaginative and physical work of creating different characters with his voice, drawing upon his childhood fascination with comedians such as Robin Williams and "Saturday Night Live" cast members.
Audiences and actors together "get to imagine a world that is just as big as your imagination can create," he says. For actors, "when the world starts to come alive in your mind, if you start to see streets and things, then you know you're doing something right."
Radio scripts require actors to change characters, vocally, on a dime. "Sometimes you have to answer yourself in a different character's voice," Sanderson says. "It's just such a great exercise for an actor to find the characters just through the voice."
In "The Match Girl" segment, Sanderson has the additional challenge of creating a character who speaks very few words, but instead is represented mostly through reactions, sighs or laughter or tears.
Fabrizio says he likes the live element of radio theater. "Because I gave up acting a long time ago, I don't have any illusions about my chops or my gifts, but it's something I really love," says Fabrizio, who acted at Viewmont High and studied theater at the University of Utah before turning to radio. "What I do anyway is kind of a performance, but this is completely legitimate acting."
In past Radio Hour shows, Fabrizio has voiced parts in "Frankenstein" and "Sherlock Holmes and the Blue Carbuncle," but he appreciates in this year's show the rare chance to play a villain, creating the "scumbag husband" in "The Black Knight."
Stories, classic or new, have a particular appeal at the holidays, say Fabrizio and RadioWest producer Elaine Clark.
"In the media landscape, the talk landscape that we are in, it's easy to forget how much power radio can have as an art form, beyond communication," Clark says. "I think stories can be an oasis in the clutter. It's storytelling in a different way, which is always invigorating for us, but I think something the audience responds to. We're storytelling creatures. It's who we are."
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Radio Hour Episode 11: Yuletide
Plan-B Theatre Company presents radio theater, with stories written by Utah playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett and voiced by vocal actors Jay Perry, Teresa Sanderson and Doug Fabrizio, with direction and sound design by Cheryl Ann Cluff, music by David Evanoff, and sound by Jennifer Freed.
When • Thursday, Dec. 8, 11 a.m.; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.; live stream (or podcast) available at planbtheatre.org or radiowest.org