Good Humor Radio Players present IceScream Halloween Show
Q. What do a haunted house, a headless horseman and the Tyler History Center have in common?
A. The IceScream Halloween Show, presented by The Good Humor Radio Players from Youngstown State University.
Performances are 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 30 and 31 at the Tyler History Center, 325 W. Federal St., in downtown Youngstown. The performances are free, but tickets must be secured in advance by calling the University Theatre Box Office at 330-941-3105.
Based in the Departments of Communication and Theatre and Dance at YSU, the project draws widely on talent from the Youngstown-Warren region. The Tyler History Center is the original home of the famed Good Humor bar.
The Good Humor Radio Hour features live actors on old-time radio microphones, including live sound effects and music, as a selection of dramatic tales for the ear are told. The Good Humor Radio Players is an audio theater production and performance company comprising actors, Foley artists, sound engineers and musicians.
Audio drama is performance of dramatic stories for a live audience by means of electronically processed sound alone. It usually involves voices, music and sound effects, plus technical support and operation. Modern audio drama audiences create the dramatic scene, populate it with people who display certain appearances and mannerisms, move characters around the “stage,” and see events take place. Audio theater is referred to as “Theater for your mind.”
During the 1930s and 1940s, American radio networks perfected the radio drama through a variety of half-hour productions such as Inner Sanctum, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Shadow, and the Lone Ranger.
“Audience members are invited to see the story only in their imaginations,” said Fred Owens, professor of Communication. “Like the theater convention of stage hands being ‘invisible’ during blackouts, audio drama actors and their equipment are supposed to be ‘invisible’ during performance. Of course, because normal room lighting is always on, the audience can watch the performance if they want to.”
Two scripts will be performed during the event: “The Ghost Behind the Black Door” by Roger Gregg, and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving.
Gregg is a Youngstown native who produces audio drama for RTE, the national broadcasting service of Ireland. He has written plays for Crazy Dog Theatre, Dublin Youth Theatre, The American National Audio Theatre Festival, Graffiti Theatre and The Gaiety School of Acting. His stage and radio plays have been produced professionally by companies in Ireland, Germany, Canada and Australia. He has performed as a voice actor in scores of commercials and animations such as “Eddie the Computer” in the Sony Award-winning HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy sequels on BBC Radio 4. He is currently recording his role “Glarg” for Disney’s animation series “Space Chickens.”
Limited free parking is available on Tyler History Center’s west side. For more information, call 330-941-2307.