Thursday, November 20, 2008

Well, I can finally reveal who the host of MYSTERY THEATER will be! I'm very proud and honored to announce that the host of MYSTERY THEATER will be the legendary film star Christopher Lee! Special thanks to Gemma Cox, Donna Cannatella and Juan from Mr. Lee's official website for helping make this possible. Mr. Lee's website is: http://christopherleeweb.com/

Last Thursday, Mr. Lee recorded the first month's scripts. He lives in London and London is 6 hours ahead of Chicago so I had to phone in at 5 am for the 3 hour session. We'll record approximately 10 sessions per year. At each session Mr. Lee will record slightly over one month's worth of scripts. He was absolutely brilliant and so very gracious and just wonderful to work with.

I think listeners will really enjoy MYSTERY THEATER, which will be a showcase for the best in radio mystery, detective and science-fiction. They'll love Mr. Lee as host, but they'll also be impressed with the quality of the radio episodes that we'll be presenting. Mostly the shows featured on MYSTERY THEATER will be from the 1940s and 1950s; shows like: Suspense, Escape, Sherlock Holmes, The Whistler, Johnny Dollar, X Minus One, Ellery Queen and so on but we'll also have newer mystery, detective and science fiction shows too. For example, we just licensed the Peabody award-winning series Bradbury 13 produced in 1984 by Michael McDonough. Bradbury 13 was originally broadcast on NPR and has never been broadcast on commercial radio - but you'll be able to hear it on MYSTERY THEATER.

I'm working on licensing many other "newer" radio shows as well. I'd very much like to include the great Himan Brown's CBS Radio Mystery Theater and although we do not have rights to include it at this time, I am in contact with Mr. Brown and hope that he'll allow us to do so in the near future. MYSTERY THEATER will launch March 2nd, 2009 and I'm hopeful that a radio station near you will carry it. If not, you'll be able to hear it streamed at our official website at www.mysterytheater.com (the site is not up as yet - it will go live in March 2009).

In other news, please look for THE NEW ADVENTURES OF MICKEY SPILLANE'S MIKE HAMMER starring Stacy Keach. It's at bookstores near you or click this Blackstone Audio link.

And THE WORD OF PROMISE NEXT GENERATION AUDIO BIBLE is in stores everywhere so I hope you'll pick up a copy. Here's Amazon's link to it: http://www.amazon.com/Word-Promise-Next-Generation-Dramatized/dp/1400313279

The next TZ show that Cerny American is working on is "The 16 MM Shrine" which stars Kathy Garver and Charles Shaughnessy. I'm hoping to hear it and make tweaks by next week as it airs in December. Well, that's all for now friends. Check back with me next week for MORE NEWS FROM THE ZONE!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

This week I received in the TZ radio episode "The Four of Us Are Dying" starring Eric Bogosian. Eric does an amazing job on this one, as he did previously for us in "Free Dirt." He plays FOUR roles and has to change his voice for each role and does so flawlessly. It airs this week so I can't wait for all of you to hear it. Matt Sauro at Cerny American Creative handled the Foley and sound design on this one and kudos to Matt for doing a brilliant job with it - thanks Matt!

On Wednesday of last week Martin Jarvis and his lovely wife Ros Ayres starred in the TZ radio episode "Passage on the Lady Anne" penned by Charles Beaumont and adapted for radio by our very own Dennis Etchison. "Passage on the Lady Anne" is, in my opinion, one of the best episodes of the series. It was one of the hour long TZ shows so it is seldom seen on TV.

Martin and Ros play Mr. & Mrs. McKenzie a British couple aboard a cruise ship who encounter an unhappily married young American couple (played by David Pasquesi and Ann Sonneville) who are taking the cruise from NY to England in the hopes of rekindling their marriage. The McKenzie's and all of the other passengers aboard the "Lady Anne" are elderly Brits and for some reason they seem to not want the young couple to sail with them. It's mysterious, moody and ultimately quite touching.

This one is tough to produce though because everyone other than the young couple and the travel agent (played by JoBe Cerny) are British. There just are not that many British actors (in their 70s and 80s) here in Chicago so this one has its share of challenges. We've managed to record most of the characters with British actors here but there are still a few parts that need to be recorded and I'm thinking we'll need to reach out to actors in LA or London.

I'm hoping that the new host of MYSTERY THEATER might like to play a role in this TZ episode as he is a mature actor and is British - not to mention one of the greatest actors of all time. Any guesses as to who he might be??? I am days away from signing an agreement with him for MYSTERY THEATER and will be able to reveal who he is very soon, sorry for the wait.

Well, that's all for now friends -- check back next time for more NEWS FROM THE ZONE!