Echoing over the airwaves, Carleton’s drama studies program is now airing their first radio play production in three parts on CKCU, the school’s campus radio station.
It features Carleton students Rachel Stanley, Jadi Genita and Drew Torresan, who virtually wrote, directed and produced the play, A Little Too Maybe. The first and second parts are now available on-demand through CKCU’s website, while the third part airs at 8:05 a.m.on Nov. 16.
At a time when in-person theatre wasn’t happening due to COVID-19, Carleton’s drama studies program coordinator Janne Cleveland led the switch to radio.
Cleveland said the class ENGL 4605 usually develops and puts on a play throughout a semester. Cleveland added that during an in-person winter semester, the class would not have run with only three students’ enrollment. Radio was the perfect solution to both problems.
According to Cleveland, the idea of a radio play came to mind after seeing a tweet about CKCU’s new executive director, Kwende Kefentse, who started in the position in Sept. 2020.
“You can do radio from a distance, right?” she said. “You don’t have to have a bunch of people in the same space.”
A Little Too Maybe explores the themes of feeling lonely when not alone, trying to find oneself while falling out of love and feeling vulnerable.
It follows the progressing relationship between the play’s protagonists, Katie and Jack, voiced by Stanley and Toressan, as they fall in and out of love inside their shared apartment.
The play isn’t specifically about the COVID-19 pandemic, but it deals with many feelings associated with it. Stanley, the lead female voice actor, said this separation of subject matter was very important to everyone involved.
“We didn’t want to talk about COVID-19 in the show because so much of our life was just consumed by what was going on,” Stanley said. “We wanted to find a way to channel our feelings and emotions rather than channel COVID itself.”
Stanley, Genita and Torresan developed the play from scratch from January to April under instruction of drama studies professor Rebecca Benson. They developed the show through improvising scenes and performing exercises, including crumpling trash bags to discover sounds that could help set scenes.
To do this, the students researched how a virtual theatre production works. They studied podcasts and improv recordings and looked into foley artists, the people who create sound effects for film, video and other media production types. All their work was done online via Discord chats, shared Google docs and live Zoom recordings.
The students also had a chance to collaborate with different professionals from Ottawa and Carleton. They received training from professional Canadian voice actor John Koensgen, original compositions from Carleton music student Diego Guzman and technical help from CKCU production manager Dylan Hunt.
A CKCU audio documentary about the play-making process and behind-the-scenes work with various professionals will air at the same time as the play in 30-minute segments.
Cleveland said she is excited about the future opportunities this production created.
“We now know that we can do something like this,” she said. “This doesn’t have to be a one-off. We can grow this and make it a really, really fun opportunity of learning.”
Stanley said the most rewarding parts of the experience were building a community to produce the play and connecting with different people. She said she hopes the play offers that sense of community and connection to listeners as well.
“I hope that people take away that they’re not alone,” Stanley said. “If you feel lonely and if you feel hurt, this will show others do too.”
Featured graphic by Sara Mizannojehdehi.
