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Since I've started writing for radio theater, I've become a big fan of original radio theater, and have spent many an hour scouring the web for different writing resources and production outlets. I've been able to find many different resources thanks to different audio theater folks like Jerry Stearns at Great Northern Audio Theater, etc.
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Writing Resources
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AudioTheater.com |
THE clearinghouse for the audio theater practitioner. You want to know about contests, other audio theater groups, or audio theater news, this is the place! |
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BBC Radio - "Writing for Situation Comedy" |
Useful information for writing situation comedy (as opposed to sketch comedy) that would be usable by the BBC. |
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BBC Radio - Submitting Situation Comedy |
Writer's guidelines for submitting situation comedy to the BBC. |
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BBC Radio - Script layout |
Script formats the BBC uses for all of their scripts. These are available as PDF downloads, so just right-click (or click-and-hold for Macintosh) and "Save Link As. . ." to your hard drive. |
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Hints on Writing Radio Drama by Tim Crook |
Nuggets and tidbits on writing radio theater. Use this article before you start writing the same way an athlete warms up before workout. |
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Principles of Writing Radio Drama by Tim Crook |
Great article on fundamentals of radio theater writing. Excerpted from Cook's book, Radio Drama. |
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Interview with Yuri Rasovsky by Roger Gregg |
The biggest reason to write GOOD audio theater?: Yuri Rasovsky will say mean things about you to Irish radio theater guys if your writing is crap. Seriously though, a great article on the state of audio theater today, why it needs to be improved, and how it can happen. |
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Interview with Sue Zizza by Roger Gregg |
Sue (the director of the National Audio Theater Festivals) discusses her hopes and outlook for the state of radio theater in the US today. |
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Interview with Norman Corwin by Roger Gregg |
From the website: "Recorded Saturday 29 March 2003; Roger Gregg speaks to Norman Corwin on Radio Theatre. Hailed as radio’s ‘poet laureate’, NORMAN CORWIN is considered by many to be the America’s foremost writer in the medium." |
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Interview with Phil Proctor by Roger Gregg |
Phil Proctor is 25% of Firesign Theater. He is also the voice of Phil & Lil's dad, Howard, on Rugrats, as well as several Disney and Pixar characters. |
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Interview with Tom Lopez by Roger Gregg |
Tom Lopez is President of ZBS Foundation, and writer/producer of over 140 hours of daily radio serials and weekly series, including "The Fourth Tower of Inverness," "Moon Over Morocco," "Ruby," etc. |
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How to Write Radio Drama Cues - Tony Palermo |
A page from a U.N. seminar Tony taught in Manila (Phillipines) a few months ago. It details how to write clear radio drama cues regardless of script format. “I've found certain "good practices" in writing cues and adapted them for my uses. This is a detailed and as practical as you'll ever find about the mechanics of writing for radio drama.”
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Radio Drama Resources - Tony Palermo |
A series of Palermo's own articles on writing, scoring, sound effects, production for radio theater. Palermo is a well-known name in radio theater production, and his articles are worth reading. |
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Radio Drama Writer's Kit by Tony Palermo |
An example of the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) script format and an excerpt from an article on writing for radio. |
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Toward a Radio Drama 101 by Tony Palermo |
Excellent article written for anyone who wants to start writing radio theater. Compiled from posts to the Radio Drama list. |
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Radio College |
Dust off your old bookbag and put your baseball cap on backwards -- we're going to COLLEGE! This has some very useful resources on it. |
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Audio Dramatists' Lexicon by Yuri Rasovsky - |
A HUGE list of audio theater production terms compiled by Yuri Rasovsky. A must for anyone in audio theater. |
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Making Audio Plays by Yuri Rasovsky |
Great article about producing audio theater. Gets into the nuts and bolts of production, cast, personnel, gear, and all that jazz. Anyone writing for audio theater should have some inkling of what goes into this. |
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Manuscript Formats by Yuri Rasovsky |
If you're like me, you can drive yourself NUTS trying to figure out what is an acceptable script format, and what is not. The problem is there is no one right answer, but this article discusses some of the most common ones. |
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The Well-Tempered Audio Dramatist by Yuri Rasovsky |
Index to Yuri's collection of essays on audio theater. Why this book isn't actually published is beyond me, because the articles are some of the best I've found on the subject. Yuri's other three articles listed here are part of this collection. |
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Writing Audio Plays by Yuri Rasovsky |
The quintessential article on writing for radio theater. If you want to get into it, I definitely recommend this one, and Tim Crook's "Principle of Writing Radio Drama." |
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Radio Script Format by Jerry Stearns |
Jerry shows a great example of what a radio script should look like in -- what else? -- radio script format. |
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Advice from Alan Drury at Fen Farm 1994 - Andrew Whyner |
Some general advice on radio writing found on Andrew Whyner's creating writing website. Although it's geared primarily toward writing for the BBC many of the guidelines and ideas apply to anyone writing for audio theater. |
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Audio Theater Resources
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Great Northern Audio - Audio Theater on the Web |
Probably THE biggest listing of audio theater resources, audio theater groups, etc. You name it, it's here. Some of the links are expired though, but take some time and poke around. |
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Lodestone Media |
Huge catalog where you can buy original audio theater on cassette and CD. Since most bookstores don't offer anything but genre-based OTR collections, this will be one of your best bets for finding great audio theater works. |
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A note on radio theater vs. audio theater:
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Some people call it radio theater because that's where it started. Others call it audio theater because radio is not the only medium where it can be heard nowadays -- you can find it on cassette, CD, and the Internet (but if that's the case, why do we still call a DVD seen on a television a movie?)
Call it what you want, but the two terms mean the same thing: sound-only stories that are listened to, not watched.
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