The Search for Appropriate Period Music

That's the cast of the upcoming JTMF production of It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, December 3rd through the 5th. Part of the proceeds from the four performances will be donated to our newest beneficiary, The Trevor Project, a charity near and dear to Uncle P's heart. In the photo, from left to right: Sean McGrath; Glen Calhoun; Damian Gaeta; Judi Parrish; Sarah Stryker; Jennifer Barron and John Maurer.

Part of the fun of doing a staged radio play is having a live Foley team, creating sound effects with physical props (tiny doors; cornflakes on a cookie sheet; a hand-cranked wind-machine). Joe Landry's script has plenty of opportunities for that kind of thing, but also calls for incidental music, underscoring and scene transition music. There are 20-odd scripted music cues, some of which I managed to judiciously cut, leaving me with exactly 20. The company that holds the rights to the show offers the show's original score on CD, but charges an outrageous royalty fee to use it. So, I am now scouring my (thankfully large) CD collection for public domain music that is appropriate for our needs (I'm listening as I type this, actually), a time-consuming task, to say the least. But one which I have done for plenty of shows I've directed and is usually quite effective when the right piece of music is found.

Luckily, rehearsals for the show (which only runs about an hour) are shorter than most, and I get home relatively early at night, so I should be able to finish by tomorrow night, giving our sound technician (not our Foley team) Tuesday night to burn the disc and Wednesday and Thursday to rehearse with it (I hope). 

And since the show opens Friday, my posts here will drop off a bit towards the end of the week, but I will be posting every night over at the JTMF blog, if you really need a fix. I'm off to listen a bit more prudently (nothing on this particular CD is hitting me, so far).

If you are in the greater Trenton, NJ area, we'd love to see you at the show. Tickets are available by calling the Kelsey Theatre Box Office at 609-570-3333, online at www.kelseyatmccc.org or at the Kelsey Box Office one hour before curtain. If you're unable to attend but would still like to help, you can make a safe, secure donation via Paypal at our website, www.jtmf.org. And don't forget to search for "James Tolin Memorial Fund" on Facebook and become a member. Okay, today's Shameless Self-Promotion is over and out.

More, anon.
Prospero

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