Radioactive

From top: Ed Dennis, Mary Reuter, Randy Church, Jan Dennis, Russ Howard, Cathie Howard.

You’ve seen them onstage, but now you can enjoy their performances from anywhere in the world.

The Radio Players are a new extension of the Sun City Theater Company, and their show, Vintage Voices, debuted its second season on Huntley Community Radio this month.

According to director Jan Dennis, Vintage Voices is “Sun City’s best-kept secret.”

Dennis explained that “today, we mostly have music and talk shows on the radio,” but the radio of the 1930s through the 1960s featured entertainment shows. The Vintage Voices actors perform using radio show scripts from that era. They recorded and debuted its first season in April 2016, performing the “Easy Aces” series, a reboot of the classic 1930s radio show.

While last year’s season focused on comedy, this season centers on mysteries. Dennis likes to theme the shows in a season for continuity.

“We do twelve shows in a row to stay in the mindset of the creation of an atmosphere,” she said. Each show is a standalone, thirty-minute piece.

The Vintage Voices team includes behind-the-scenes members as well. Tech-savvy Sun City residents edit the footage and layer in the necessary sound effects to mirror the original shows.

Dennis sees radio show performance as an excellent way for veteran actors and new performers to join together, since recordings put everyone on even footing and allow for do-overs.

“We will make mistakes, and there will be bloopers, and at the radio station you can stop and take a moment and recover,” she said.

Along those lines, Dennis is always on the lookout for additional members. The cast increased from 25 to 37 members in the past year, and Vintage Voices is not done growing.

“We are always looking for new actors. I believe it’s a great way to get involved in theater. It doesn’t involve line memorization or a live audience,” said Dennis. Interested applicants can contact her at jan@living-voices.us.

With its second season soon to air, what is in the future for Vintage Voices?

“I’d like to do another complete year. We also want to make sure we have diversity of shows,” said Dennis, listing a few new genres to explore, “such as westerns or crime dramas.”

While Vintage Voices airs every Sunday at 11 a.m., it’s never too late to tune into the show. All of the performances to date are archived at www.huntleyradio.com/hcr/vintage-voices and can be enjoyed at any time.

The next season debuts with “The Blackness of Terror” in March on Sundays at 11 a.m. on 101.5 FM.

Vintage Voices ensemble rehearses upcoming season script. (Photo by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)

---

---