Picture from Wikipedia
In preparation for a meeting on Monday I spent most of my time today editing a script for an old radio play adaptation of A Christmas Carol. I want to remain a part of the canon so this year I am (hopefully) staging a radio play in front of a live audience. There will (hopefully) only be a small handful of performances and they will all be recorded to create a special download that will be available for free on Christmas Eve. This will rely on people paying to get in to cover costs and hopefully leaving something for myself, even though I insist on being the last person in line for the cash as seeing my work is reward enough. Having said that I have been thrown out of my local shop for trying to buy food with rewards and it cuts no ice, I feel sorry for musicians round here having to try and spend exposure, I hope they do better than I do as exposure is worth fuck all but it might be a higher level of fuck all than rewards. If this is even a break-even then I don't mind putting the download out there for free. At the moment I doubt that it will be filmed, part of me would like to have a visual reminder of it but then again it will take away from the 'radio' feeling of it.
The main task in editing the script was taking away all of the product placement. In the pre-television America radio plays and shows were extremely advert heavy, down to the shows being called The Campbell Playhouse and Lux Radio Theater among others. As a result of this the story-lines often come to a halt while the narrator has a conversation with a CEO about how white your clothes will be once you've used the programme's sponsor washing powder. I am going to replace these interruptions with live music instead, still an interruption but a little more befitting a Christmas performance.
This got me thinking about a possible angle to be able to produce more of these shows in the future. If this show works then I will potentially do another radio play next Christmas but if the seats find themselves with bums on them then there's no reason why they couldn't be staged during the year. It is possible that sponsorship along the lines of how Lux or Campbell's could work on a smaller, more local business scale. After all they would be potentially paying for an advert heard around the world and even if it means having to mention them a few times or having a 'commercial break' on stage as long as the shows were still entertaining it wouldn't lose too much momentum, providing these intermissions were short and sweet. One at the beginning, middle and end might be viable. It would mean that ticket prices could stay reasonable and would provide a financial boost enabling everyone involved to get paid for their work.
On the other hand I could mention how much exposure they would get.
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