Interview with LATW's Susan Loewenberg

"After the first two days, I am strictly on headsets."

L.A. Theatre Works is enjoying a busy surge of activity: it's celebrating its thirtieth anniversary in production, and just began a tour of its latest show "The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial" (about which, the Wall Street Journal noted, "[given the fact that the right to teach evolution in the public schools is so hotly debated once again in America] LATW couldn't have paid for this publicity!"). In February they begin their 17-city tour of their grammy-nominated "Prisoner of Second Avenue" and are already booked nationwide for their radio version of "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" and Noel Coward's "Private Lives."

PRX:
How did LATW transform from a prison theatre project to radio?

SL:
Actually, there were several interim steps before we got to our radio stage (as it were)! We began as Artists in Prison, doing theatre workshops and eventually full blown productions with incarcerated adults in both federal and state facilities. We then expanded our activities and our name (Artists In Prison and Other Places) and began creating plays with diverse groups in the community at large - Japanese-American men, Latina women, etc. In 1980 we changed our name to L.A. Theatre Works and made the transition to a fully professional theatre company with an emphasis on producing new, highly theatrical plays from the United States and abroad.

This continued until the early nineties when we completely stopped this kind of production and transitioned to a full time stage play recording company with both broadcast and audio publishing divisions. We started on this course around 1985, having started a company with 34 very well known actors including Richard Dreyfuss, John Lithgow, Edward Asner, Helen Hunt, Julie Harris and others. We decided to record plays for our local npr station KCRW. The first recording, (a completely crazy and ambitious project, considering we had no idea what were doing), a 14 1/2 hour word for word recording of Sinclair Lewis' "Babbitt," with all 34 actors playing over 90 parts, put us on the radio map and started us on the path that has now produced over 380 recorded stage plays, a weekly 2 hour radio show, "The Play's The Thing," and eventually, an audio-publishing arm that sells our recordings to thousands of libraries, bookstores, and to other buyers via our own catalogue, amazon and many other outlets (we are even downloadable in iTunes).

Fortunately, having no radio background, we had no idea that the mantra the majority of program directors is "the best time slot for radio drama is 1937," or we might have never emabrked on this glorious venture. But the program gurus are wrong and we are right; we just need to convince them that audiences are hungry for this great programming.

PRX:
What is the process for a creating a LATW show? How much time goes into each play?

SL:
We do the shows we are touring this year, The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial and Prisoner of Second Avenue, in dressed up radio theatre format, mikes, script in hand, sound effect artists on stage, but we have costumes and light and a semblance of a set. In LA where we record 10 plays a year strictly for recording purposes but before an audience, each play is recorded five times, no sets, costumes and lights - just the great performances and the actors making love to the microphones, aided by our sound-effects artist and state-of-the-art recording techniques. And a lot of post-production.

Each show takes one week to rehearse and record. Prior to that, our sound designer (working with the director and sound effects artist) creates the sound design. We rehearse the play for three days and then we record the show five times before audiences on a Wednesday through Sunday schedule. Each day we make corrections and add additional lines or sound if something is not clear.

After the first two days, I am strictly on headsets and never look at the actors on stage because if I look I can't really tell what is working on audio. I try to edit on paper during that process and within a week after the show, after conferring with the director, I give detailed notes to the editor for the first edit. Then I and my radio producer, Mark Ward, listen to the first edit, make adjustments possibly sweetening more in post, then we listen to the final edit and usually we are good to go as far as the play is concerned.

Then we make the radio show. We have a two hour time slot, so depending on the actual length of the play, we may do an interview with one of the actors, director or playwright, or with either an expert on the subject, or a biographer of the author or we even do features, like "backstage at the cast party," with Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe, for example. At any rate, the idea is to make the listener feel that they have the best seat in the house at a broadway show AND then they get to go backstage and "behind the scenes" to meet the artists. We do (hopefully) thoughtful introductions to the plays, setting the scene, giving a pithy history of the work and the author, etc. We try not to change the words in the play at all, except for adding the occasional ID . Our goal is to use sound to fill in the gaps that the visual elements of the play supply.

It is a difficult task, given the fact that most of our plays are not recorded in a studio, to attain the all-important feeling that this play is being performed for only the ears of the listener, while retaining the spontaneity of a performance in front of a live audience. We succeed to a large degree in attaining a good balance, but it is not easy. For the actors it is a challenge to reconcile their desire to please the live audience, knowing that their ultimate goal is to make a great recording. We have worked with over 2,000 actors in the past 20 years and I like to think that we have helped them learn a new technique - the art of performing for radio.

PRX:
Is there a general goal/philosophy you hope to achieve with the production of each radio drama?

SL:
Our mission is to promote and make widely accessible fine dramatic literature by making it available through the magic of radio and other newer technologies that represent the way people currently access information. By choosing what we hope are the best plays in the American canon and by presenting them in a format that recognizes the ascendancy of the internet, podcasting, digital download, satellite radio and other advances that allow people access to entertainment wherever they are in the world, we hope to keep great dramatic literature alive and relevant in the 21st century.

PRX:
Why tour with a radio show?

SL:
We wanted audiences around the country to get to know us and experience what we do to create what they are hearing.

PRX:
What is your favorite aspect of radio as a medium?

SL:
I love being able to access the high quality information I can get on public radio while I am also doing other things, ie. driving, cooking, returning emails. For my particular specialty, listening to a really well-performed play with great production values is often far superior to actually watching the show in the theatre because the listener's imagination is fully engaged and the essential elements of a great play - the language, ideas and performances - are thrillingly realised just for you, the listener.

PRX:
When will "The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial" be available on PRX?

SL:
The show will be available by April or May, 2006. We are recording it in Los Angeles in our Radio Theatre Series at The Skirball Cultural Center, March 1-4, 2006.

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