ANNOUNCER: The Coast News is pleased to bring the reading public this issue’s article on Monarch Radio KTGY-LP 107.9 FM and the Monarch Dunes Media Club’s recreation of several radio teleplays from eras gone by.
SFX: the general cacophony of a cocktail party, laughter, several conversations at once
SCENE FADE IN: The stage set is the living/dining room and attached kitchen of a modest but well appointed home in the Trilogy housing project on the Nipomo mesa.
Approximately 18 players mill about with glasses of wine and a few nonalcoholic beverages.
Our hosts for the evening, Linda and John Sardi, make sure that food is placed out and that Buddy the Dog stays out from underfoot.
Mike Stephens, sound engineer, checks that the microphones with cables snaking from stands across the room are indeed feeding into his laptop on the built in table at the granite topped kitchen-island.
CUE ARTICLE READING:
ACT 1: Players Introduction:
“Monarch Dunes Media is a club of the homeowners association here at Trinity,” Stephens explains to a reporter invited to drop in on their event, “We got the idea to start doing the plays when we applied for the 100 watt broadcast license. The FCC told us, ‘look there’s another group asking for the same spot, why don’t you share it.’”
KTGY-LP was officially launched in April 2016, sharing the 107.9 FM band with KYXZ-LP Excellent Radio, the local United Way nonprofit’s reboot of Grover’s old pirate radio station. With both officially licensed, The Monarch Club had 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. to fill, and “old-time” radio productions became a staple along with politician interviews and broadcasts of the association’s local meetings.
Not bad for a group of mostly retired and semi-retired folks that have shared interests in professionally hamming it up a bit while serving their community.
“Who would have thought, I mean I wouldn’t have believed, you’d get to take part in something big and fun like this when you retire,” noted Allen Larson, who played the roles of both Al Nunheim and ‘Cabdriver’ in the evening’s production of The Thin Man.
Adapted for Monarch by Director Howard Wishner, with scripts selected and prepared by Maureen Wishner, The Thin Man was first a Dashiell Hammet novel before a series of films based on the characters became film noir staples in the 1930s. This latest incarnation was a modified Lux Radio Theater production originally broadcast live in 1936.
ACT 2: Review with Purpose:
The Wishners did something interesting with this production as well, casting married couple Bill and Karen Steves to embody protagonists Nick and Nora Charles.
Through the magic of audio editing and filling in one’s own mental images, listeners might have remained unaware of the tongue in cheek humor of a scene in which Nora feigns jealousy at Nick concerning the arrival of the production’s young ingénue.
In character at as Nick, Bill describes his petite blonde wife as a lanky brunette with a wicked jaw.
The play is also a curious product of its time in that during a struggle with an assailant, Nick is portrayed as accidentally knocking his wife “out cold” in the mayhem. Something played for comic relief but not very modern in tone. Never fear, in reality the actors were across the studio from one another wearing lapel mics. Karen is, as far as we know, concussion free.
Readers and listeners alike will be able to catch on to some of those details for themselves in person on Dec. 5 when the dramatic radio performers present their interpretation of the classic Miracle on 34th St. Final casting has not been made public, but at least two of the ensemble will be taking on the roles made indelible in the minds of generations by Maureen O’Hara and Edmund Gwynn in the 1947 film.
Act 3: Conclusion of Context:
Unlike this recreation of The Thin Man, the Christmas radio play will be recorded with a live audience in one take at the Monarch Club of Trilogy Monarch Dunes’ Avila room. Capacity is about 150. Doors open at 6 p.m. with the play at 6:30 p.m. Admission is $10, cash only, with children younger than 16 free.
They’ve done something similar before, last November the Club staged War of the Worlds, an ambitious recreation of Orson Welles’ 1938 broadcast. That event included 21 speaking parts and live special effects.
The event is a fundraiser for the club, but they do have a goal in mind for the funds.
Like the KYXZ station, which the Coast News profiled back in June, the folks at Monarch haven’t been reaching as many people as the frequency allows. While their current transmitter, mounted on top of a swimming pool cover at the clubhouse can reach Arroyo Grande and Nipomo, they need about $1,000 to get it moved to the top of the “water tower,” the highest point they can reach from Trilogy.
With the move they estimate a coverage area all the way to Santa Maria and Shell Beach.
ANNOUNCER: For more information on the topics discussed on this page seek out the website monarchradio.org. Audio archives of the Monarch Radio productions can be found through a “SoundCloud” account at soundcloud.com/monarchradio.
By Camas Frank
