Theatre Radio

Theatre of the Mind

Radio Sound, emotion, drama, humor, suspense, conflict, imagination. What other advertising medium delivers the impact of radio at such a reasonable price? How better to draw people to your box office or Website than with a powerful 60- or 30-second play that captures the subject, spirit, and dramatic force of the stories told on your stage?
Over the past 15 years, Cyrano has created high-impact radio commercials at reasonable prices for clients like Seattle Rep, Portland Center Stage, and Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre Company.

Working with the theatres' marketing managers, we developed a budget-sensitive approach that reflects the description of radio as “theatre of the mind.” In some cases, actors from the production were hired as voice talent; in others, a single “voice of the theatre” was used throughout the season.

Existing scripts can be adapted for use by other theatres, and we can also create and produce new scripts for other productions Of course, we also create dramatic radio for non-theatre clients. Please contact us for rates and details. (The commercials are written and produced by a former ad agency creative director with 20-plus years of experience who is now a playwright.)

Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps
MAN: A mystery woman with a foreign accent. (Music stab!) A dead body falling into the hero’s lap. (Music stab!) An innocent man accused of...murder. (Music stab!) A mad race across Scottish moors...chased by villains...in a fog...handcuffed to a beautiful woman...with the fate of Western civilization in the balance. (Music stab!) (Big pause!) Gosh!... (Listen)

Snow Falling on Cedars
(A fogbound sea, at night. Water laps the side of a small boat. A distant, muted foghorn.)
SHERIFF: Listen: the gentle slap of water against hull. Now, there, where the fog thins, the sharp edge of a boat, powerless against the swell. Net trailing, weighted down by a terrible catch. The year: 1954. An island near Puget Sound. A place of farmers and fisherfolk, of people with histories as different as the shape of their eyes. Isolated place, where no one can afford to make enemies.... (Listen)

Frost/Nixon
(Sound: TV intro music.)
FROST: In this corner, the disgraced former leader of the entire Western world...the man who opened China, bombed Cambodia, and bugged the Democrats...Tricky Dick himself, Richard Nixon. In this corner, the world-famous chat-show host, jet-set master of the shallow interview, everybody’s favorite Brit...me. David Frost... (Listen)

Grey Gardens
(Sound: Solo piano.)
EDIE: Oh, hi, I’m Edie Beale. They called me “Body Beautiful Beale, East Hampton’s Ideal.” They can get you in East Hampton for wearing red shoes on a Thursday and all that kind of thing. It’s a mean, nasty Republican town. I was once engaged to Joe Kennedy. It’s true. I might have been in the White House instead of my cousin Jackie, but...things happened. What I got instead is this wonderful musical about me, at Portland Center Stage... (Listen)

Doubt
MAN: Listen... (A low-frequency rumbling, rattle of glassware: an earthquake.) This is the sound of doubt. The earth shifting beneath your feet. Everything you thought you knew...is wrong. Or is it? Seattle Repertory Theatre presents the most honored play of the past several years. It won the Tony. It won the Pulitzer. It made waves. Doubt, by John Patrick Shanley, directed by Warner Shook. (Cheat in plainsong, underneath announcer; distant bells.) Witness: a battle. On one side, Father Flynn. Modern. Popular. Full of charm. Over here, Sister Aloysius. Old school. Skeptical. Resolute... (Listen)

Blues for an Alabama Sky
(Music: Blues, coming from a distance.)
WOMAN: You hear that? That is the world famous Cotton Club. And just down the street...Adam Clayton Powell, preaching to 10,000 black folks. This is Harlem, honey. And outside it’s one big party... comin’ to an end. It’s 1930. Miss Josephine Baker went off to Paris, France, and everybody in Harlem is singin’ the Depression blues. But at least we’re still singin’... (Listen)

Dancing at Lughnasa
(Sound: A hint of wind. An increasing note, with music in it, as if blown by the wind.)
GRETCHEN: If you look with your mind’s eye just over that green hill there, perhaps you can see a thin wisp of smoke. And if you follow it down, you might see a small house carved out of the rocky land... (Listen)

The Imaginary Invalid
ANNCR: Seattle Repertory Theatre has asked me to say that our current offering, The Imaginary Invalid, in no way reflects our opinion on the medical profession of today. Indeed, we count many members of that profession among our dearest friends, who buy tickets, and on occasion, cure our ills. Nor does the title character resemble anyone of our personal acquaintance. These are merely the creations of a playwright who is French and who actually is dead...(Listen)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
ENGLISH CHAP: OK. You know about Hamlet, right? Melancholy fellow, moping about the place. "To be or not to be." Ghosts. Swordfights. Bodies all over the lot. Great stuff. All well and good, you say. But where are the laughs? Not to worry. Just come along to Portland Center Stage and see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. It’s about these two friends of Hamlet who spend the whole play trying to figure out what it all means—Where they fit in. (beat; aside:) Bit like my life really...(Listen)

The Road to Mecca
(Sound: Gentle whoosh of wind; the far-off "kyer" of a hawk.)
MAN: Wind scree-ing across earth. Kicking dust over dry emptiness. Over rocks red as rust, through long, eager finger-leaves of milk-bush. The Great Karoo. Land of thirst. Portland Center Stage invites you to South Africa as it was twenty years ago. Travel The Road to Mecca...to a house tucked into a crease of wrinkled land...(Listen)