John Barber and freelance actors find art in live action radio
Living in the digital age, young people find themselves having new music, tv shows, podcasts and current news constantly at their fingertips. When current technology upholds popularity within a new generation, older forms of media like radio become a thing of the past. However, John Barber, professor of creative media and digital culture at Washington State University Vancouver, has found a way for radio to come alive again.
Re-Imagined Radio, created and hosted by Barber, is a live production and theatrical performance of contemporary radio shows occuring four to five times a year. Each show displays a set of stories that are all developed under the same topic, whether it be romance, the wild west, hijacked airplanes or even aliens.
Barber started Re-Imagined Radio in 2013 while he was teaching a course on digital storytelling. One of his assignments was for students to take voice content from a famous radio drama titled ‘War of the Worlds’ and develop content to create their own 10-minute narrative of the story.
“The plan was for students to develop a backstory connected to this story of earth invaded by beings from planet mars. They could use any form of social media to develop this, but part of it had to be sound,” Barber explained.
He then wanted to link his student’s work to the larger Vancouver community and through this process, developed connections with Kiggins theatre to take this love of radio and sound to the stage.
The last Re-Imagined Radio performance “Affairs of the Heart with Lonesome Gal” premiered on Valentine’s Day. The production included five romantic dramas inspired by the decades of 1940s and 1950s, each dealing with romance and other affairs of the heart. Each narrative was lead by voice actor and executive director of Metropolitan Performing Arts, Barbara Richardson, who played the role of ‘Lonesome Gal’ a 1940s seductive radio character who cooed to “lonesome guys” over her broadcasts.
Richardson commented on her favorite aspects of her lead character.
“I think it’s really fun to dive into those old radio dramas from the 40s and 50s. I enjoyed listening to the Lonesome Gal… It’s fun to play a sultry voice,” Richardson said.
Barber explained that the purpose of the event and how Re-Imagined Radio is different from a normal broadcast is it’s appeal to modern culture by engaging the audience with visual content.
“[Re-Imagined Radio] focuses on the power of radio drama to elicit our imagination and involve us in immersive worlds that is all based on listening. However, we’re a visual culture and we want to see things. So, my project involves recreating radio dramas as live performances in front of an audience,” Barber expressed.
He hopes his project can impact students at WSU Vancouver and bring performing arts and culture to the university to impact the campus community as a whole.
“I look at Re-Imagined Radio as a performing arts community culture program. It’s for the purpose of bringing a form of performing art to the community for not only entertainment, but also for education.”
-John Barber
Through Re-Imagined Radio, professor Barber will continue to share his knowledge and expose his students and community to not only the behind the scenes look of radio, but behind the curtain in the world of performing arts.
Emily is a senior studying integrated strategic communication at WSU Vancouver.