KING SOLOMON'S MINES - JULY 1st

You can now pre-order our newest release, KING SOLOMON'S MINES, from Amazon. Here is a LINK

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

I am very happy to announce that The Colonial Radio Theatre will be doing THE PERRY MASON RADIO DRAMAS.We're still working out some final details, but the contract is done, and all looks good! This will be the first time the original books by Erle Stanley Gardner have been fully dramatized for audio theater, and let me tell you, they are exciting! We are starting with book 1, THE CASE OF THE VELVET CLAWS.

THE CASE OF THE VELVET CLAWS was the first Perry Mason mystery written by Erle Stanley Gardner and published in March 1933. For the first time, we meet Perry, his secretary Della Street, and his favorite detective Paul Drake. District Attorney Hamilton Burger and Lieutenant Tragg don't appear in this story. And most telling, there is no courtroom scene in the entire novel. CRT is doing the show as written, set in 1933!

The plot has to do with a mystery woman who calls herself Eva Griffin. She comes to Perry Mason claiming she is being blackmailed. She wants him to help her. But before things are done, she is accused of murder. And in turn, she puts the blame on Perry Mason himself! But Perry avoids being double-crossed, and valiently fights to see that she is cleared of the charges.

Diane Capen (Sandy from Powder River) stars as Della Street, J.T. Turner (Father Brown) is Detective Paul Drake, and yours truly is Perry Mason. Deniz Cordell adapted this book for audio, and it will produced by Chris Snyder. Expect to see it on XM very soon. A CD Release Date has not been decided upon yet. Two other PERRY MASON dramas are already in production.

New FATHER BROWN Release

CRT will be releasing a new FATHER BROWN MYSTERY this week onto Spoken
Network. THE ORACLE OF THE DOG stars J.T. Turner, Shane Clarke, Brian
Rust, Amy Sheridan, Elie Hirschman, Hugh Metzler, and yours truly.
Produced in high style by M.J. Cogburn, the music is by Kevin MacLeod
and the script was written by M.J. Elliott.

MEMORIAL DAY

I have very clear memories of Memorial Day from when I was 8 or 9. In those days, it was celebrated as the holiday it was - on the actual day - not a "long weekend." Our holidays have, in many ways, lost their meanings. I can remember going shopping with my Mom at Wilmington Plaza, and the vets would be selling poppies. I remember how special it was to buy one, and how I knew even then, what it meant. I wonder how many kids today know? I wonder how many know the meaning of this day? Very few, I would imagine. How sad.

Thursday already?

Taped another feature production of a new series (we will announce it in a couple of days), and just two days ago we recorded our 11th FATHER BROWN mystery. people seem to like this series, and M.J. Elliott in England has delivered 16 magnificent scripts. 5 more to record, and we should be finished in July.

KING SOLOMON'S MINES is due for CD release on July 1st. Did I mention that already? The trouble with this blog thing, is that when you are writing a new entry, you can't see your old ones, and once I am in here writing, I don't want to close out and open the blog to see what I babbled about before! What a problem to have, eh?

Now I need to finished the third script of a new series we start next week - taping on Thursday.

Where have I been?

Right here, but it just dawned on me that I haven't updated this blog in three weeks or so! Things have been busy for me. I've written two scripts in that time (a western, and the first episode of a limited run sit-com for CRT), and recorded a couple of new programs. I am planning on moving soon, so I have been dismantling the house where I live now and looking at new places (so far in Derry NH and a townhouse in Lexington); so it's going to be a hectic summer. Monday night we are recording our 11th FATHER BROWN MYSTERY program, and another show on Wednesday.

Also, I have been getting a lot of email lately asking about the future of POWDER RIVER. We haven't recorded a new "half hour" episode in almost two years, and although we did GUNS OF POWDER RIVER and POWDER RIVER AND THE MOUNTAIN OF GOLD last summer, fans of the show want more episodes. It's great knowing that people care enough to write to me, and that they like the show. It's funny how people tell me how involved they get in the characters, and the town of Clearmont (which I only visited once in my life and was not even a town when the series takes place). When I allowed two episodes to be released on a podcast, someone made the comment that the characters had no depth to them, and the story was shallow, or something like that. Well, that might true if you just listen to two episodes out of 60, and yet others write to me and tell me how real the characters are.
Funny how that works.
Still, all I can do is try, and hope for the best.

I am writing a new sit com at the moment. Aside from THE DIBBLE SHOW, I don't get much of a chance to write comedy. This has been a very sad and difficult two years for me, and comedy writing is a good diversion. We have some very talented kids at CRT, and they don't get many chances to perform at the microphones (but wait till you hear them this fall in THE HALLOWEEN TREE - which is, I think, our best show to date), so I thought I would write this comedy series to give some of them a chance to take center stage. Plans are to start recording in a couple of weeks, and I am hoping to do 5 to 10 episodes. They should air on our XM Radio Show sometime in the fall.

BUCK ALICE

What a great weekend! On Saturday night, Deniz Cordell and I had dinner with STAR TREK legend Walter Koenig in the haunted Gordon Room at the incredible BEDFORD VILLAGE INN in Bedford NH. It was great to able to meet with him before we record BUCK ALICE AND THE ACTOR-ROBOT this coming August, and to be able to tell him our ideas and to hear his. For those who know him only as Pavel Chekov in the original STAR TREK series and the movies that followed, you should really check out some of his other work, especially his newest movie, INALIENABLE, now available for internet viewing. We talked about how he made this new picture, and also how he makes a great bad guy! He told some very funny stories, and we had a great time. I am SO looking forward to this production, and I know it's going to be a good one! A classy gentleman, very gracious, a fellow Yankees Fan, and a dinner I will not soon forget.

KING SOLOMON'S MINES ARRIVES

Starting Monday, April 28th, XM Radio's SONIC THEATRE will begin broadcasting our brand new production, KING SOLOMON'S MINES! This will be the first time the program will be heard ANYWHERE! The CD release will be in June, and I think we are holding off on download release until that time as well.
It has been edited for broadcast in 10 episodes, so the run will last until May 9th. The final episode is a first for us, as it contains interviews with the cast, and bloopers! XM listeners will be able to come "behind the scenes" at a recording session and see how we record a show. This special feature will also be on the CD release.

Tonight I'm off to Bedford NH to have a dinner meeting with Walter Koenig about our upcoming production, BUCK ALICE AND THE ACTOR-ROBOT! He's in town for the weekend, and we thought it would be good to meet and discuss the script before we tape in August. I never thought that I would ever get a chance to meet Star Treks Mr. Chekov! He wrote a great story, and I can't wait to start production on it! More later.

Kate Phillips, 1913-2008

I was very sad this evening to have heard that my friend Kate Phillips had passed away on April 18th.

In Hollywood in the 1930's and 40's, she was known as Kay Linaker. She appeared in 50 motion pictures, and worked with the likes of John Barrymore, Jack Benny, Ginger Rogers, Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, Claudette Colbert, John Ford, and on and on.

The stories she would tell! Talking about screen legends who she knew only as her friends; helping Bing Crosby after a drinking binge when his wife was dying; babysitting for Jack Benny, shooting in a difficult location (when Technicolor cameras were the size of a car) for DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK.

I first met Kate when she came to our Christmas Show THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1946, which we were performing at the Claremont Opera House in NH. In that play we performed a Jack Benny Christmas skit, and after the show I was told there was a lady who wanted to meet me. Turns out it was Kate, a spry 89 year old lady with more energy than I had! She told me how she had worked with Jack Benny, and wanted me to know how much she enjoyed our performance.

I met with her many times after that, and met her a few times for lunch at the Lane Hotel in Keene NH. The stories were incredible. She also recorded with us, in a show that, unfortunately was never released.

In 2004 she joined me onstage after a performance of William Luce's play BARRYMORE, for a talk-back with the audience. That was a great night and I shall never forget it.

She always asked for my Dad, who was going through such difficult medical issues during that time; I had told her how he was a big Buck Jones fan in his youth, and she had made a picture with Jones. I showed it to my dad, and he couldn't believe I knew the leadnig lady! When she asked how he was doing, I could tell she really cared - she wasn't just saying it.

In just the last couple of weeks I was thinking I owed her a call, as it had been a few months since we spoke. Why didn't I.

It was a priveledge to have known such a wonderful person. The world is a sadder place to all those who knew her.

CRT APRIL PODCAST

The April podcast for CRT is now available. This month, it's two episodes of THE DIBBLE SHOW from 2003 (Flippin' Flapjacks and The Great Bank Robbery). Even if you heard these before, you might check them out as they have been re-edited with added sound effects. Also in this podcast, Jack Ward interviews Dibble himself, in what I think has got to be the most revealing chat fest with the star to date! You can here it HERE