Friday, August 8, 2008

Last week I received the final version of The Twilight Zone Radio Drama “Third From the Sun” and I think listeners are going to be really pleased. Fred Willard is awesome as William Sturka and the rest of the cast is great too. Fred is such a talented actor and he’s so much fun to work with. He’s starred in four Zones now and is great in all of them. Listen for “Third From the Sun” to air on stations this month.

I also just received in a rough edit on “The Trouble With Templeton” starring Michael York in the role of Booth Templeton, portrayed in the televised version by Brian Aherne. Booth is an aging Broadway star who has lost his zest for life. Now cuckolded by a younger wife, all he has is a loyal valet and memories. Once he was married to the beautiful and vivacious Laura, who died long ago, as did his best friend, a playwright named Barney Flueger. Only their memories seem real. When he walks out on the rehearsal of a new play, he finds himself transported back to the 1920s. But he doesn’t fit in at all and therein lies the tale.

In the original TV episode, Sydney Pollack portrayed the “boy wonder” director of the Broadway play that Booth is to star in. He affected a faint Southern accent and spoke slowly and methodically with an air of humorless self-importance. I cast one of my best Zoners, Mike Starr, in this role and he plays it to perfection. What can I say about Michael York’s performance other than he absolutely and totally nails this part. He has the bulk of the dialog and at all times keeps the listener totally and completely on the edge of his words. Michael is a close friend and the Narrator of my Word of Promise audio Bible. Somehow Michael is able to make the difficult-to-pronounce names and places of the Bible sound effortless. I’m absolutely thrilled that he’s agreed to star in Zones for me. In this one he plays a good guy but in “A Piano in the House” he gets to switch gears to play a bad guy.

By the way, our Word of Promise New Testament audio Bible just won the 2008 Christian Book of the Year award. In the 30-year history of the award, neither a Bible OR an audio has ever won it. Click here for more info on the win. JoBe Cerny, who is President of Cerny American Creative is the amazing Director of The Word of Promise so kudos to JoBe! On the “Mike Hammer” front, we’ve recorded the first two shows and are now in the editing stages and bringing actors in for pick-ups. What I’ve heard so far is excellent – more on that later.

Well, that’s all for now, check back with me next week for more NEWS FROM THE ZONE!