Author: JabberAdmin

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News from the Tulgey Wood – Wookie Life Day Edition

(Note: this is from our email newsletter that comes out no more than once a month during our “off season” and weekly when we’re broadcasting shows. You can sign up for it to fall into your inbox here!)

According to certain very dedicated Star Wars fans, today is “Life Day,” a holiday first mentioned in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. Having seen it back before YouTube, when George Lucas had almost succeeded in eradicating all known copies of the program, well, it’s not something I can recommend. Some things that are seen cannot be unseen.

For some things to hear, however, we can heartily suggest some options. Both seasons of Quorum and the interludes are being broadcast Sundays at 3pm on WERA, plus we’ve expanded where you can hear our shows… 

Get All Our Podfeeds on Amazon Music/Audible 

In our continuing efforts to reach new listeners who enjoy our style of audio fiction, we’ve made sure all five our our shows are on Amazon Music and Audible, so if you regularly use the services or have a friend who does, you can check us out there:

Two New Individual Podfeeds for Existing Shows   

Many of you longtime listeners know we started with one single, all-in-one podfeed for all our shows, but a couple years ago, we broke out our most popular shows, Rogue Tyger and Quorum, into their own podfeeds. We decided it was time to give our two anthology shows a chance to shine and find more of an audience in their own podfeeds. If you haven’t checked out these dramatic readings and semi-full cast episodes, all with award-winning sound design, now’s your chance!

You can still hear just about everything we do audio-wise on our all-in-one podfeed, which, considering the season, you can think of as a sort of audio feast. (I say “just about everything,” because, of course, our Patrons get to hear some bonus behind-the-scenes goodies and a few exclusive full-cast episodes on Patreon).

Thanks for reading, thanks for listening and safe travels to all of you in the States who are venturing forth to see family and friends this Thanksgiving. We’ll be back with more  updates in December.

Regards,

Bjorn Munson
Artistic Director, Jabberwocky Audio Theater

P.S. As mentioned above, you can always hear us  Sundays at 3pm ET on WERA. You can also follow us on Podchaser, hear all of our episodes on our all-in-one podfeed, and naturally, the website — as well as a host of services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. (These links go to our all-in-one podfeed, we’ll be updating our links soon). 

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A Classic Collection of Vintage Radio for Halloween

For those of you who want something spooky to listen to versus watch — or if you just want something a bit more abstract horror rather than TV-MA-wow-the-prothetics-team-outdid-themselves than our previous mention, we have something that should cover your whole evening passing out candy to ghosts and goblins coming to your door.

We’ve long touted the wonderful audio resource that is The Big Broadcast, a four-hour collection of vintage radio fiction that’s been broadcasting on DC-area station WAMU every Sunday for decades. They do a great job of curating bona fide classic essentials along with hidden gems… and putting them all into context. Naturally, their broadcasts around holidays are especially good.

Halloween is no exception — and this past Sunday’s episode has some of the all-time greats that you should treat yourself to if you’ve never heard them. They’re also a delight to hear again.

This four-hour collection includes “The House in Cypress Canyon” from Suspense, a tale of terror that sweeps up a husband and wife in a way that mashes together so many ideas in such a fresh way, you won’t believe it was produced in 1946. We don’t want to say much more than that.

Then there’s Quiet Please‘s “The Thing on the Fourble Board,” — one of the all-time greats of audio horror. Don’t worry if you don’t know what a fourble board is. Both it and much more will become clear to you. This is a tale where you can know exactly how it will end and you’ll still get goosebumps when you hear… well, you’ll know it when you hear it.

From the lonely horror to noisy, chittering horror, we get scare maestro Vincent Price starring in “Three Skeleton Key” on Escape as he paints a perfect picture of an isolated lighthouse beset by ravenous rats.

They finish up the broadcast with what may be one of the most famous radio fiction episodes of all time: the 1938 Mercury Theatre production of “War of the Worlds” starring Orson Welles.

If that’s not enough, you can also listen to our modern, DC-specific version of “War of the Worlds” produced back in 2018, but don’t delay on this particular episode of The Big Broadcast. They’ll only keep the archive copy up for a few weeks.

Happy Halloween, listeners!

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Broadcast Unfriendly, but Very Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher

What with it being Halloween today, we’re thinking about all things spooky, so we wanted to to share some of the things we’ve been watching and listening to this season in the Tulgey Wood.

Given how many stories by the O.G. (original ghoulish) writer Edgar Allan Poe we’ve done for our series Through a Glass, Darkly, we decided to check out the new mini-series The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix.

Hold onto your cask of Amontillado, it was a lot.

It’s definitely not a version you’ll hear us do… or really anything on broadcast radio, but knowing that many of you enjoy some of the horror audio fiction that is similarly not safe on the radio, we share this. And the mini-series, which weaves together a whole host of Poe’s writings into a topical story of a perfectly horrid family that has parallels to the Sacklers and their painkiller empire. Of course, in Poe’s gothic hands, this family has many skeletons in their closet and bricked up behind walls. It’s just TV-MA with all the trimmings.

Really, we can’t understate how “TV-MA” the series is. They almost certainly had a sizeable special effects makeup team and all of them are doubtless exhausted from their extensive labors. Some of the characters’ dialogue isn’t so much sprinkled with profanity as soaking in it. And language isn’t the only vulgar thing. Still, fans of Mark Hamill taking another turn as a villain will be rewarded.

Now, if you’re not up for something grotesque, or if you simply want to refresh your knowledge of Poe, you can check out our dramatic readings of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” “The Raven,” and “The Masque of the Red Death.” Frankly, many of these are disturbing and grotesque just in their original 19th century form… and animal lovers may want to steer clear of “The Black Cat,” but at least you will be responsible for the visuals as opposed to what will likely be a soon-to-be award-winning production team.

Stay spooky, dear listeners!

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News from the Tulgey Wood – Now Fully Fall Edition

(Note: this is from our email newsletter that comes out no more than once a month during our “off season” and weekly when we’re broadcasting shows. You can sign up for it to fall into your inbox here!)

Autumn has come full force here in the Tulgey Wood. The leaves are changing. The days are shorter. The nights are cooler…  but the creative fires are still burning here at Jabber-HQ.

In addition to continued work on season three of Rogue Tyger, writing continues on season three of Quorum, and we’re working on a comprehensive website re-design, with some expanded sections — including a web store with merch we hope you’ll find frabjous. 

Get Your Binge Listening On with “The End” 

One of the sections we’re going to build up is resources, both for listeners and for fellow podcasters. We’ve benefited greatly from knowledge shared between colleagues in the audio fiction community, so we plan to do our part to point out great sites like The End. 

We were happy for Rogue Tyger to be featured in their issue #52, as the first two seasons of our space opera have a complete story arc, but if you are an avid listener of audio fiction –and by all indications, many of you are– you can find a whole host of great podcasts to fill up your podcatcher. 

Wrapping Up Rogue Tyger Bonus Content, For Now…   

Speaking of Rogue Tyger,  we have been putting up bonus, behind-the-scenes audio segments all summer for our Patrons on Patreon. We’ve finished the re-broadcast of the first two seasons of Rogue Tyger on WERA, so we took the opportunity to do one last segment this past week. If you’re interested in becoming a backer on Patreon, you can do so for as little as a dollar a month. Higher levels give you additional benefits including bonus full-cast episodes of some of our shows like Quorum.

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Rogue Tyger: Wrapping Up Story Threads with “The End Run”

We did a whole host of bonus segments for our Patrons this past summer that originally played on WERA between episodes of Rogue Tyger.

This is technically the bonus segment that would have played during the 2023 re-broadcast of Rogue Tyger, going between part 4 and part 5 of “The End Run.” The only thing is: those episodes were long enough so we didn’t need a bonus segment… but then we thought about it and decided we needed to “complete the set” as it were.

In the segment, writer/director Bjorn Munson talks about how “The End Run” was structured to give what is hopefully a satisfying conclusion of the plot through the first two seasons as well as giving a few ticklers for seasons to come.

Listen to it now by backing us on Patreon!

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Rogue Tyger: Hraggedor, the Odd System Out in the Core Systems

We’ve been posting bonus segments for our Patrons all summer long that originally played on WERA between episodes of Rogue Tyger.

This is the bonus segment from our 2019 broadcast of Rogue Tyger, which played between part 2 and part 3 of “The End Run.”

In the segment, writer/director Bjorn Munson talks about how the third core system to be settled by humanity, Hraggedor, was not the most hospitable. There’s also a brief mention of wrapping up story threads.

Listen to it now by backing us on Patreon!

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Resource: The End Newsletter & Podcast

This is the first of a new series of posts we’re doing to share cool resources for the audio fiction community, both for avid listeners as well as creators. Because not only are people doing a lot of cool stuff out there, people are doing cool things that help you make and learn about that cool stuff.

The End seeks to scratch a straightforward itch: where can one binge listen complete audio fiction series? Or at least whole seasons?

Energetic curator Evo Terra releases a new issue weekly and has just gone past the year milestone with no end in sight… and that’s a good thing. You can subscribe to the newsletter or easily check out the archive on the website… and there’s even a companion podcast.

We were very thrilled for Evo to reach out to us about including Rogue Tyger in issue # 52 and we know a lot of you have told us you wait until you have a full season of our shows to listen to you, so if you need something new to listen to, be sure to check out The End.

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Rogue Tyger: The Poet Borellio (Patreon Bonus Audio)

We’ve been posting bonus segments for our Patrons all summer long that originally played on WERA between episodes of Rogue Tyger.

This one comes from our 2019 broadcast of Rogue Tyger, which played  between Part 5 of “Cat and Mouse” and Part 1 of “The End Run.” 

In the segment, writer/director Bjorn Munson talks about the origins of the poet Borellio whom Aidan quotes in the last part of “Cat and Mouse” leading to a rare non-cliffhanger ending.

You’ll eventually hear what bits of ancient Earth culture did make “the crossing” as Imperial citizens refer to those ancient times, but part of the world building was establishing artists and writers and poets whose whole life was in that corner of the galaxy.

Listen to it now by backing us on Patreon!

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Rogue Tyger: Houses, Seals, and Real History (Patreon Bonus Audio)

We’ve been posting bonus segments for our Patrons this summer that originally played on WERA between episodes of Rogue Tyger… and there’s a few more to go.

This segment is from our 2019 broadcast of Rogue Tyger, which played between Part 4 and Part 5 of “Cat and Mouse.”

In this segment, writer/director Bjorn Munson goes into some classic sci-fi influences on the names of the places and things in the Tygerverse, as well as some real history.

Listen to it now by backing us on Patreon!