"Live Radio Drama" with horror and sci-fi coming to Fairfield University's Quick Center for the Arts | Press Releases

Fairfield University's "Live Radio Drama" series celebrates Imagination with the third and final program of the season, "Vintage Horror and Sci-Fi." The popular old-time radio shows, at home in the Wien Experimental Theatre at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts, "broadcasts" on Friday and Saturday, March 9 and 10 at 8 p.m., and on Saturday, March 10 at a 3 p.m. matinee.

As the director of this season's "Live Radio Drama," New Haven's Daniel Smith pored through available scripts and designed the evening's program from the following gems that include a collection of unique, obscure and strange horror and science-fiction shows.

The "broadcast" begins with three short episodes of "Lights Out," a program known for gory sound effects sprinkled throughout the shows. Episode #1 is "Sub-Basement," a story that leads the audience into the subterranean loading docks and toward the unseen terrors beneath a city. Two more episodes follow; "A Day at the Dentist's," and "Slurp Goes the Amoeba." There is top-notch writing in "Zero Hour," an original and disconcerting radio play by the great Ray Bradbury. Next up, is a brief episode of the popular old series, "The Mysterious Traveler," and completing the evening is "Camera Obscura," the surprising and creepy story told by a killer that has a lot in common with Edgar Allan Poe's character in the "Tell-Tale Heart."

The often-shocking and cringe-inducing sound effects are invented and performed by the ever-creative Ted Powell of Stratford with help from the multi-talentedSmith, when he is not performing the atmospherically eerie music live on the organ or acting in the radio show.

The characters inhabiting the bustling world of a 1940s - early 1950s radio station, are portrayed by Rob Rocke and John Watson of New Haven, Joe Mango of Beacon Falls, Josiah Rowe of Cheshire, Geoffrey Gilbert of Stratford and Brianne Bresky of Easton. During those hectic early days of radio, the under-rehearsed actors frequently traveled between different stations throughout the day and arrived in the studio barely in time to pull shows together - with the help of over-worked technicians - for the live broadcast.

Tickets are $15 and are now available online at www.quickcenter.com or call the Box Office at (203) 254-4010. The toll free number is 1-877-ARTS-396. For more information, visit the website at www.quickcenter.com.