Article from the Howard County Times, 9 Nov. 2006
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Air Fright

Prometheus company brings spooky theater of the mind to live audience

Scott Farquhar, left, reads while Eli Senter watches the Maryland Academy of Music during the Prometheus Radio Theatre, a Howard County "old-time radio"-style repertory company.

Howard County Times, 11/09/06
By Lane Page
Photos by Nick Adams

There was no live audience for the Mercury Theatre's infamous presentation of "War of the Worlds" that October night in 1938. But if there had been, it's not likely they would have had as much fearful fun as the folks who came out for Columbia's own Prometheus Radio Theater special holiday "broadcast" on Halloween weekend.

Nor, we suspect, would the cast.

The stage area at Maryland Academy of Music on Red Branch Road -- a far cry from the garage studio where the group produces the CDs and podcasts available on the Internet -- is set with multiple music stands and a grand piano covered with electronic equipment.

Some half-dozen actors assemble, clad in dark street clothes, sans makeup.

The audience is invited to sit back and close our eyes, because we're about to enjoy "the only visual medium to completely bypass our optic nerves: audio theater, the theater of the mind."

The imaginary curtain rises on a small Southern mountain community where "Dead Aaron," after whom the tale is named, has just been interred. That is, his coffin has been lowered, although the grave-diggers, lured away by the prospect of a memorial libation, have neglected to complete their job.

We're not about to give away the whole story; suffice it to say that this is where the table of sound-effects devices comes into play, mimicking a slamming door, a creaky floor, a rocking chair and dancing bones.

Cindy Schockey, AKA the Widder Kelly, says of her gig, "The best part is seeing someone sitting there with his eyes closed. I know he's with us."

The sound of rattling bones are made with sticks during the Prometheus Radio Theatre's production Oct. 28.

Prometheus founder and Howard County resident Steve Wilson composed the script based on the kind of ghost stories familiar from his North Carolina summers, combining folk humor and fright, the latter more for the play's characters than for its listeners. It's just the sort of thing to be told in front of the fire in a cozy cabin as the wind whistles around the corner and the little ones' eyes grow wide.

"I've always loved old-time radio since my uncle introduced me to it," Wilson says. "At every family gathering, we'd have the lights out and listen to 'Inner Sanctum,' " and other spine-tingling mysteries of that ilk.

Years later, running the Farpoint science fiction convention held in Hunt Valley, Wilson found himself with an hour of programming to fill.

"Maybe it was the year Bill Pullman did "It's a Wonderful Life" at the Kennedy Center and I thought 'I could do that,' " he muses. In any case, a novel he had unsuccessfully pitched came to mind, and he turned it into a "radio" script.

Soon after, he formed Prometheus Radio Theatre with Cindy Woods as producer, Scott Farquhar as composer and actor, and a rotating cast of 20 more locals. That was six years ago. He hasn't stopped with the scripts since, despite two day jobs as data manager for Howard County Fire and Rescue and information technology manager for the International Critical Incident Foundation in Ellicott City.

Nor has Wilson disconnected from sci-fi conventions, though he no longer serves in an executive capacity. How else to make contact with groups such as The Boogie Knights, a troupe of Elizabethan/pirate/disco-clad musical satirists also on the Prometheus program for the Halloween show.

The Knights aren't here to sing ribald ballads but cheery seasonal ditties such as "Come on up to Castle Transylvania," "Hunting Vampires Down at the Graveyard" and "Frankenstein" (to the tunes, respectively, of "Hotel California," "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" and "Soldier Boy") as written by Theodoric of York, medieval disc jockey, AKA David Keefer.

Although things that go bump in the night are not exactly the bread-and-butter of either Boogie Knights or Prometheus, both groups are certainly in the holiday spirit nonetheless.

And when the acting troupe next takes on "Three Skeleton Key," the tour-de-force of horror often associated with Vincent Price, their lower-key take on the tale of tropical mayhem and madness is at least as spine-chilling as Price's melodramatic version.

Maybe that's not surprising considering that their usual fare is science fiction. Wilson has authored the "The Arbiter Chronicles," whose fourth episode, "A Man Walks into a Bar," won the Mark Time Silver Award for Best Science Fiction Audio Production in 2003. He has since produced a novel based on it, while a brand-new series, "Superhuman Times," is currently in production.

Lady Dionne of Warwicke (Sharon Palmer), of the Boogie Knights, holds a wooden stake during one of the group's songs.

The Promethians customarily appear at Farpoint, Shore Leave and Balticon conventions, sometimes performing with guest stars such as George "Mr. Sulu" Takei. Boogie Knights members have traveled up and down the East Coast with their brand of fantasy and sci-fi-themed music for 24 years.

As for these live local performances, Wilson is thinking of doing them every three or four months.

Yes, but how can you hear them now?

Their six sci-fi and horror CDs, produced in Wilson's garage studio, are available on amazon.com, while soundsgood.com sells downloadable audio, and free regular weekly podcasts can be heard at prometheus.libsyn.com. Also check the Web site www.prometheusradiotheatre.com.

And keep up with the Boogie Knights at www.boogie-knights.org.

E-mail Lane Page at Lane Page@patuxent.com