What's in a name?

I was asked in an interview why we call ourselves Colonial Radio Theatre, and not the Colonial Audio Theatre.

To me, Radio Theatre is a classic term. It is instantly identifiable. "But it sounds old" Well, in 15 years we have not had a problem selling them - and I get MANY letters and emails from grade school, middle school, High School kids saying how they enjoy this 'n that (and Dibble gets even more fan mail); so that's not really a worry. If they like the show, they will listen. If they don't like the show, they wont listen, not matter what you call it.

Radio Theatre has a classic sound to it. Audio Theatre sounds like something you buy at Wal Mart for your DVD set-up. So, we call ourselves Radio Theatre. It's not dead, it's not old, it's alive and kicking and not stuck in the 40's or 50's. Bottom line, it's not about what you call yourself - it's about keeping the listener listening.

BUCK ALICE RELEASE

We had a GREAT opening day on Amazon with WALTER KOENIG'S BUCK ALICE AND THE ACTOR-ROBOT - selling out in the first day! The Amazon site is now saying new copies available in 1 to 2 months, but that is a standard posting - they should have new copies by the end of the week - so if you want to order - JUST CLICK RIGHT HERE!

It's also on most of the main download sites, and also Barnes and Noble and Borders. You can still hear the trailer on the CRT website.

What an honor it was to have been able to work with Walter - a Star Trek, Babylon 5 Legend - a wonderful writer, and a great guy!

*Illustration by Ron Boyd

PERRY MASON on CD

FINALLY we are going to be releasing our PERRY MASON series on CD with a dramatization of the very first novel, THE CASE OF THE VELVET CLAWS. Although we recorded this production in 2008, I wasn't happy with our publisher at the time, and decided to hold off giving it to them for release - I didn't want this series to be buried in thumbnail size on page 35 of a 36 page catalog, not to mention zero publicity or the slightest acknowledgment of its existence - so we put it up for sale on a couple of download sites, thinking that once we had a few more titles they would give it a bigger push. Well, other circumstances came along, and we are now with an awesome publisher who rocks! With that, we will be releasing a new PERRY MASON case every other month, starting with THE CASE OF THE VELVET CLAWS - now for pre-sale on Amazon, with a release date of WED. DEC. 15th.

Here's hoping for a long run with the incredible PERRY MASON stories!

M is for MILLIGINIAN!

Yes, in just three days the Milliginians,from the planet Milligan, will invade Earth with Walter Koenig's BUCK ALICE AND THE ACTOR ROBOT! You can get the CD and downloads pretty much anywhere, including Amazon, i-tunes, Audio Editions, Audio Bookstand, Audible.Com - and many more. There will also be copies on the shelf in bookstores (if yours doesnt have it, they can order it for you!). This is a picture of the character I play in the show, Imhor. Ron Boyd did the drawing for the poster. Fun stuff!!

We were originally going to run it over seven consecutive nights, but we now will be running on Wednesday nights for seven weeks, starting November 17th at 7pm EST, followed by an encore broadcast (that's the new word for re-runs) each Saturday at 6pm.

Also, we got a schedule change today for THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER which was to run on Thanksgiving Day. There is going to be a "storytelling marathon" on the station for the entire day, so we will now air on FRIDAY, NOV. 26th. The time will be announced soon. This production will be released on March 16th.

This weekend we'll be adding a new COLONIAL RADIO TALK episode to the website and i-tunes; in this episode I got to speak with SAM DONATO about his time on Powder River, The Dibble Show, Buck Alice, and his years on television in Rex Trailers BOOMTOWN! This is a longer than usual podcast because we were having such a fun time! Sam lives in Florida now, but he was up in Beantown for a week and got to record a VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS episode with us in studio. Good times.

That's all for now! ~JR

ZORRO hits the streets and BUCK ALICE is in the wings

Our production of ZORRO AND THE PIRATE RAIDERS is now available - you can get it on Amazon, and every other place that sells CD's and downloads. It sold out at Amazon the first day, but new copies should be in in just a couple of days. We're all set with the sequel as well, ZORRO RIDES AGAIN, which will be released FEB.15th.

Walter Koenig's BUCK ALICE AND THE ACTOR ROBOT will be released next Monday - Nov. 15th! This is a different kind of show for Colonial; very much a black comedy, and our second that would carry the rating R if it were a motion picture (the first being BARRYMORE).

It's a fun show, with some really great performances. We had over 50 performers in this epic, headed by Walter Koenig himself, who flew into Boston for the recording sessions.

Sirius XM will run it as a 7 part mini-series, starting the 15th. I'll post the times as soon as I get them.

Walter will be a guest on Maggie Linton's COVER TO COVER show on Nov. 16th at 3pm EST, and then on WBZ radios THE JORDAN RICH SHOW, Nov. 19, at 1AM (10pm Pacific). Both shows are live.

More later. cheers

Busy day, but wanted to do a quick update. We're getting BUCK ALICE AND THE ACTOR-ROBOT ready for broadcast (starting Nov. 15th for 7 nights), and MJ is editing the final three JARREM LEE episodes.

This week we record the final 4 episodes of PROJECT-X, which we will announce soon. This will go on the air in January, on weekends. We did 36 episodes in just a little over three months, so I think we'll have a wrap party to send this one on its merry way to editing land. Congrats to Deniz Cordell for cranking out 36 scripts (well over 1,200 pages) since early July. Quite amazing.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL is now in release! Our first release with Brilliance Audio. This is the first time it has been available on CD (except for a box set with three other Dickens titles) and we're hoping it does well in retail.

Check out the incredible new cover art illustrations from Jeff Hayes (Guns of Powder River, Father Brown, Prince and the Pauper, Treasure Island) Jeff, along with Ron Boyd (Buck Alice), are creating some great covers for our upcoming releases!

Got some really great emails from folks who said they enjoyed the VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS episodes we ran over Halloween weekend! We'll be recording a few more this month, and we'll most likely run them on our Sirius XM show late winter or so. We are hoping to have a set out on CD in early Spring.

Our new production of Mark Twain's THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER is scheduled to be broadcast on Thanksgiving Day. We're very excited about this production, and the music is outstanding. Headlining the cast are Anastas Varinos, Isaac Bean, JT Turner, Joseph Zamparelli Jeremy Benson and Shana Dirik.

We recorded our annual Christmas Special for our show on Sirius XM back in September, and we're getting it ready for broadcast. Music legend Neil Sedaka granted us permission to perform some of his new Christmas songs, and they are fantastic. Can't wait till you hear them (they are also on his Christmas CD - check it out!) My guests on the show this year are Shonna McEachern (one of the best voices in Boston), Anastas Varinos (not only can he act, he's a great singer too!) and Dibble (we needed a third guest and he was all we could get).

Thats all for now! cheers ~ JR

NOVEMBER AND A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Well, as Marjorie Main said, "Another Halloween and we're all a year older!" Thanks to everyone who emailed me, or wrote on my facebook page about the VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS broadcast this weekend. Lots of great comments and it seems folks enjoyed it! We will re-run them late winter on our Sirius XM show along with two new episodes in the series. The series is literally just getting under way, so it will take some time to ramp up with episodes - but we're working on it!

TODAY is an exciting day - our CD of A CHRISTMAS CAROL is released! Our first release by Brilliance Audio. It's in stores, and online everywhere.

Our new production of THE PRICE AND THE PAUPER will air on Sirius 117, and XM 163 on Thanksgiving Day! Hope you tune in! It has a March release on CD. Great poster by Jeff Hayes. The show stars Anastas Varinos and Isaac Bean as the Prince, and the Pauper.

This'n'That

We've done A LOT of recording in October, 10 episodes of a new PROJECT-X series, 4 episodes of VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS, and a segment of a new PROJECT X. Looking forward to next weeks release of A CHRISTMAS CAROL from Brilliance. We did the show six years ago, but its only CD release was in a set of 4 Dickens stories; so this is the first time it has been out on its own. It's priced great for mass retail so we're hoping it does good biz. J.T. Turner is our Scrooge! Those of you in the Boston area can see J.T. on stage in the role of Fezziwig, in the spectacular production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL at the NORTH SHORE MUSIC THEATER in Beverly, opening the first week in December for 28 performances.

Jeff Hayes and Ron Boyd continue to produce the best cover art we've ever had! Right now Jeff is working on the cover art for POWDER RIVER AND THE MOUNTAIN OF GOLD that will be released on April 19th, and Ron is illustrating an amazing cover for THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ that hits the stores on Jan. 15th. These two artists are really amazing and at some point we will make prints of their art available on our website.

SPEAKING OF WEBSITES - we will be updating ours soon. It's on the list of things to do. The original design of the site was done by Sean Timberlake, 15 years ago. It was less crowded then as we had about 10 titles at the time. Now we have over 300 and we really need to make it easier to find them; so yep, we're working on it!

ALL READY FOR HALLOWEEN? I went to "Spookyworld" with my friend Curly a couple of weeks back, and it sure was SCARY! I think it's rated one of the top 10 horror theme parks in the county. Lots of fun.

As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend we air two episodes of our new series,
VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS on SIRIUS XM. The CD release is not until the spring, but how could we let Halloween sneak by without airing a couple of episodes?

LAST but not least, we have created a youtube channel for Dibble. We will be youtubing episodes of THE NEW DIBBLE SHOW on rotation; the shows won't be up for all time - just a week or two. You can see the channel at

http://www.youtube.com/user/dibblestaa

First up is Dibble's Halloween Show from 2005.

My Maple tree hasn't changed color yet!
What's up with that?

That's all for now.
cheers

COLONIAL RADIO HALLOWEEN

CRT has certainly produced a fair share of programs fit for Halloween listening, and this year we add two more to the list.
Our collaboration with Bluewater Productions on the VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS series will be heard for the first time on a SIRIUS XM Book Radio Special Halloween Weekend.
Broadcast times are SAT. OCT. 30 at 5AM and 5PM, and SUN. OCT. 31 at 8PM - all times Eastern. Both these episodes were dramatized for radio by MJ Elliott and produced by Bryan Rothrock. Jeff Gage composed the music.

JARREM LEE WRAPS

On March 30, 2009 we recorded the first episode of JARREM LEE - GHOST HUNTER, and tonight, we recorded the final three episodes. In that time, we had three co-stars in the role of Arthur Bennett. The first, David Ally, got a tv series in Hawaii after we recorded episode 6. He was then replaced by Jeremy Benson, who played the role to Episode 12, when he was cast in the lead role of MacBeth on stage. Joe Caliendo Jr. took on the role for the final episodes. Many of the CRT Players appeared in the series, and it was a lot of fun. A big thank you to Gareth Tilley in England for creating the series and turning out 24 scripts! Our Producers were Bryan Rothrock and M.J. Cogburn.

The end of a very busy day. Hard to believe that after many, many months, our first Brilliance Audio release is only 4 weeks away! A CHRISTMAS CAROL will be our first release. So far, this has only been available as a download or in a 4-CD set from our previous publisher - but now it's gone solo! Also in November, Zorro is ready to cross-swords with some pirates, and Buck Alice will be plotting against the Actor-Robot in Walter Koenig's new release: BUCK ALICE AND THE ACTOR-ROBOT

Q: How cool was it for CRT to work with a Star Trek Legend?
A: Pretty damned cool.

What else? OH - next week on our Sirius XM show on Book Radio, they will be broadcasting OLD IRONSIDES AND THE BARBARY PIRATES and OLD IRONSIDES - ESCAPE TO THE WIND.

SPEAKING OF WHICH

Many years ago, at an Officers Mess Dinner at the Billionaires Boys CLub (AKA The Lannam Club in ritzy Andover - and no, I am not a billionaire, we just looked that way in our dinner jackets) I was sitting next to the then Captain of the USS Constitution - Old Ironsides, the oldest commissioned warship in the world. Every year tug boats pull it into the harbor to turn it around in its berth (so it weathers evenly).
So, I asked this Captain (his name escapes me) if the ship was capable if being under sail - for real - with no tugs.

"Yes" he replied.

I took another swig of port (and I hate port, but that's what you do at the billionaires boys club before the cigars come out)

"So, why doesn't it sail?" I asked.

He then said something amazing. "Because" - said he - "No Captain wants the responsibility, should something go wrong, of being the commander who lost Old Ironsides."

I looked at him and said with astonishment - "Huh! That's too bad."

Well, low and behold - some time later, it was announced that Old Ironsides was being rigged for sail.

I - kid - you - not.

Special riggers were called in from the Coast Guard, and the crew of the Constitution was drilled in setting canvas and all that is required of sailing under sail.

In July of 1997 she sailed under her own power to Marblehead, Ma. before returning to Boston. What an amazing site it was. What was more amazing was that it was her 200th Anniversary.

I often wonder if it all started with a glass of port.

How 18th Century that would be.