Contact: Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release February 16, 1999
Radio Theater: Lawrence Student Revives Classic Format with Humorous Drama
APPLETON, WIS. -- Josh Vande Hey's venture into live radio may not
conjure up memories of the "Lux Radio Theatre" or the classic "Mercury
Theatre on the Air" of the 1930s and 40s. The bloodlines of his weekly
program, "Drama Derangia," are more readily traced to the BBC's "Goon Show"
or "Monty Python's Flying Circus" of the 1960s.
Live theatre on the radio may be tougher to find on the dial these days
than AM Top 40, but Vande Hey is doing his small part to keep the
once-popular format alive. On Thursday nights the Lawrence University
senior from Krakow (Wisconsin, not Poland) takes a step back in time and
delivers a live 30-minute performance on WLFM, the campus radio station,
complete with character voices, home-made, in-studio sound effects and
commercial parodies.
Vande Hey writes, produces, directs and plays bit parts in the show he
calls "an audio comic book." The show also features several other student
actors, a sound technician and an organist who performs much of the show's
music.
With episodic titles such as "Revenge of the Killer Carp," which
recently took a humorous look at the effect of PCBs on the fish in the Fox
River, "Bumble Bee...Like Me?" and "Department Store Espionage: The Freak
of Aisle 5," Vande Hey's stories are delivered like a serial, played out
over the course of three weeks.
"I try to make the show work on different levels," said Vande Hey, a
1996 graduate of Pulaski High School. "It's geared to a whole gamut of
listeners. It's part bizarre, part silly, with a tinge of irony and a dash
of science fiction, but within the humor, it's meant to be a little
poignant, too."
"The whole purpose of the show is to be humorous and entertaining, but
I want it to be the kind of humor that makes listeners stop and think, 'why
was that funny,'" Vande Hey added.
The show is a labor of love for Vande Hey, who spends more than 10
hours of his precious free time a week writing the scripts for each show,
which can run as much as 20 pages of dialogue.
"An undertaking like this takes a tremendous about of energy," said
Fred Gaines, professor of theatre and drama at Lawrence and an accomplished
playwright. "Josh is a throwback. He simply loves radio. He's trying to
recapture the danger and excitement of live radio."
Although he did some acting while in high school -- Nathan Detroit in
"Guys and Dolls" and Conrad Birdie in "Bye, Bye Birdie" among his credits --
Vande Hey is more accomplished musician than polished actor and performs as
a member of the Lawrence University Jazz Ensemble. But "Drama Derangia"
provides the perfect outlet for blending all of his interests: writing,
music, acting and science fiction.
"I've been wanting to do a show like this for years," the music
performance major said. "Every year I've thought about it and talked about
it, but this year I just decided I would do whatever it took to get it off
the ground.
"As a writer and a performer, I love the challenge of creating a
three-dimensional visual space just through sound. I found a medium that
seems to fit perfectly with my personality."
More than a dozen new episodes are planned through the end of the
school year in June, although the toll of final exams at the end of terms II
and III will probably result in previous episodes being rebroadcast those
weeks. He's also working on lining up Lawrence administrators and
professors, President Richard Warch and jazz director Ken Schaphorst among
them, to appear as "guest voices" ala "The Simpsons." Vande Hey also is
exploring the possibility of airing the program live via the Internet and
distributing it to other college campuses.
"Drama Derangia" can be weekly heard on WLFM, 91.1 F.M. on Thursdays at
8:30 p.m. A public performance of "Drama Derangia" will be staged Friday,
March 5 at 10 p.m. in the Coffeehouse of the Lawrence Memorial Union.