OUT OF AFRICA

Tonight we wrapped on KING SOLOMON'S MINES, and the CRT microphones have left Africa for now. I am very happy the way the vocal recordings turned out, and if the completed first episode is any indication, this could be one exciting show! Editing is on schedule, and so is the music scoring. Plans for a May release are still on green light!
Many thanks to a great cast, and a great post production team!

MOONFLEET GOES INTO PRODUCTION

Now that KING SOLOMON'S MINES is wrapping up recording, we are gearing up for our next production, MOONFLEET. Set in the fishing village of Moonfleet during the mid 18th century, the story concerns a 15 year old orphan boy, John Trenchard, who becomes friends with an older man who turns out to be the leader of a gang of smugglers.

It's an exciting adventure in 10 episodes that we plan on airing on XM in June or July. Deniz Cordell dramatized the novel by J. Meade Falkner. The book was extremely popular among children worldwide up until the1970s, mostly for its themes of adventure and gripping storyline. In recent years it has fallen from popularity, possibly because parents thought that smuggling and other immoral activity should not be encouraged. As always, we will tell the story as it was written in 1888. We have not assigned a producer yet, and we are just now starting to line up the large cast. More details later!

FATHER BROWN / THE WIZARD OF OZ

Our FATHER BROWN MYSTERIES will be released in a 4-CD set this April from Blackstone Audio! J.T. Turner stars as Father Brown in this series that has quickly become one of our most popular downloads. 8 episodes are included in this set, titled "Vol.1." Eight more episodes are in production.

This summer, Blackstone will release our WIZARD OF OZ stories! We have produced five in all (a sixth remains unreleased), and this will be the first time they are available on CD! In 2000 we won the Parents Choice Award for these productions in their original release on audio cassette.
THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ
THE MARVELOUS LAND OF OZ
OZMA OF OZ
DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD IN OZ
THE ROAD TO OZ

Both these releases will have brand new cover art from the amazing design team at Blackstone. What you see here is the cover art for the downloads.

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK

Join the CRT group on FACEBOOK!

Scripts and Snow.

Well, the script for BUCK ALICE AND THE ACTOR-ROBOT is really something! Deniz Cordell is penning this one, and I gotta tell you it's a hoot! Walter Koenig read the first 86 pages (thats all we have at the moment) and was impressed! He had a few suggestions, which will be added to the draft, and I think the whole thing should be finished by the end of the month. This will be unlike ANYTHING Colonial has produced before. It's a black comedy, theater of the absurd, and our first time doing sci-fi. The characters are great, and the story is very original. You won't listen to it and say "Oh, this is like ...." Walter will headline this, along with the Colonial Radio Players.
We'll be recording this in the summer, and depending on post-production, we hope to deliver it late fall.

KING SOLOMON'S MINES has been plagued with recording cancelations due to good old New England Ice. Most of the country is going through rough weather, and we are not exempt. I had to cancel two sessions due to my coming down with the flu, and then had to cancel two more due to snow storms. We're trying again next week!

When we taped POWDER RIVER SEASON TWO three years ago we had the same problem. I remember the Custer episodes were canceled twice due to snow. But two years ago, when we recorded CAPTAIN BLOOD from Feb-April, we had NO problems with snow; and I think we had eight sessions for that one.

I'm starting to think about the cast for MOONFLEET. I am hoping to start this one in March.

So much to do!

HALLOWEEN in FEBRUARY

Yes, that's what it feels like around here with our production of Ray Bradbury's THE HALLOWEEN TREE in full swing! The show has been in post production for a while, and we are all thrilled with how it is turning out! I might even venture to say that it is possibly our best effort to date! In just a couple of weeks you'll be able to get an idea of what I'm talking about when we release a teaser for the show. With Chris Snyder working his wonders in the editing department, Jeff Gage turning out a magificent score (with three songs to boot!), and the story by the great Ray Bradbury ... who could ask for anything more? So keep checking the CRT site in the next couple of weeks .. we will post the trailer in the marquee on the home page!

Well, I have been taken out of action with the flu, since last Friday! I've been sick before, but never like this. I had to cancel Monday nights recording session for KING SOLOMON'S MINES, although we did a short 15 min. session for some re-takes that were badly needed for THE HALLOWEEN TREE, so J.T. Turner was here, did his takes, and then I did mine, and each line brought on a coughing fit to die for (I kindly waited for JT to leave before I attempted the lines). But, it's done and now editing can continue!
Feeling a little better today, and in the next couple of hours I'll see about the session scheduled for tomorrow night ... hopefully we'll get it done.

CRT heading for SPACE!

In all the years we have been producing radio plays at CRT, we have never done science fiction. Even the three productions we have done with Ray Bradbury were not quite sci-fi ... more fantasy I would say.
Well, that will change this summer! I am VERY excited to tell you all that we are going to produce BUCK ALICE AND THE ACTOR-ROBOT. This was a book written by Walter Koenig in 1988. Walter played Pavel Chekov in TV's STAR TREK, as well as in seven of the motion pictures. He also is known for the role of AlfredBester in Babylon 5.

Mr. Koenig will be joining us when we record the program, and will also be appearing in it. We are really looking forward to bringing it to life with the CRT Players, thousands of sound effects, and one of Jeff Gage's brilliant scores. Deniz Cordell is writing the audio script from the original novel, and Chris Snyder will do post production.

I've been a great Star Trek fan for many, many years, and this is just an amazing chance to work with one of the "Original Series Cast members," and also to thank him in return by producing his book BUCK ALICE and pulling out all the stops to make it into a first class audio production he will be proud of.

more recording

Another Monday! We recorded episodes 2 and 3 of KING SOLOMON'S MINES. Good session (and a few re-takes for THE HALLOWEEN TREE which is in final edit). I'm very happy with the results of KSM so far, and I think it will be a good one! It should see a release on CD (in a full feature length version) and also on XM Radio's SONIC THEATER (should be on in May or June). Hoping for a hit in Barnes and Nobel and Borders!

We will record next Monday and Thursday, and then the master vocals for this production will be complete.

Deniz Cordell has completed the script for our upcoming production of MOONFLEET, from the book by J. Meade Falkner. I am very excited about this one, and thinking about the casting. We'll move on it quick as I want it out for the summer. This will be a 10 episode series on XM, and will have a CD release as a continuous program (note the cool poster from the 1955 MGM film, based on the book)

4:30 AM. I gotta stop these crazy hours.

JOIN THE CLUB!

Some of you who read this blog may not realize that we have TWO CRT fan sites! We are in YAHOO GROUPS , and brand new on FACEBOOK. So far, Yahoo is much more interactive and our fans sure do have a lot to say! It's a lot of fun and the place to go for the latest CRT news. We have 70 members and it would be GREAT to get a whole bunch more!

Not sure I understand FACEBOOK yet, and there isn't too much interaction at the moment; I guess the site has to grow a little.

Many of the Colonial Radio Players are in these groups and I know they would love to hear from you!

Hope to see you there!