As I’m sure you’ll have heard through the grapevine (or me…you’ll have probably heard it from me) Everything’s Rosie Radio will be releasing it’s first radio play, ‘Heartache’ by George Murphy, at the end of the month. I know, it’s all very exciting. This, of course, means that I now have experience in directing both radio and theatre plays. Granted, I have substantially more experience in one over the other, but everyone has to start somewhere. And I’m not only talking about directing, because yours truly is actually in this project. ‘Heartache’ is a has been in the works off and on in some capacity since I was in my third year of university three years ago (that’s a story for next week) so I think it’s safe to say that this is a piece of work that I am very familiar with. Even with all that in mind, this was still a little bit of a learning curve for me as, like I’ve said, this is not a medium that I’m used to working in. So, what are the differences? Well let’s run you through them.
I suppose we should get the obvious one out of the way, the venue in which you are working is entirely different – your theatre is a small, often stuff room with a curtain separating you from your fellow actors and your stage is the microphone staring you in the face. It’s a little daunting to begin with and you’re just standing there thinking ‘is this it?’ But really this is all you need. Something to record with, something to record on and a voice to actually record. This is why so many actors have recording studios built in their home offices, because they’re fairly cheap and easy to set up and it saves a lot of time and money having to actually hire a recording studio. But I digress. It’s so different from having to think about set and costume, entrances and exits, lighting and ushering. You still might have a few props and obviously you’ll need to consider sound effects but that’s still a much smaller list than normal. You might want to bring some of your own equipment as a back up if nothing else (the headphones provided were really uncomfortable) but mostly that will still only consist of a laptop and some audio software (we’ve been using audacity in case anyone’s interested). It’s a little jarring at first but also incredibly freeing. Especially when you start to realise just how much the microphone can pick up and you can really play around with what your voice can do.
Another perhaps fairly obvious difference is that, much like with film and TV, you have multiple takes to make sure that you’ve got everything just right. I mean, you don’t really have unlimited takes because you don’t have unlimited time and, yeah, that can maybe get a little bit stressful but that’s still loads of time to get everything that you need to get done finished and have multiple takes of everything. This was especially helpful as we didn’t really have a rehearsal period for this. Having said that, George and I did rehearse together when we were working on it before so it would mostly have been blowing off the old cobwebs. Going forward, for future projects I would certainly want at least a few rehearsals before getting into a booth but I would say that’s probably more preference than being necessary. But going back to the original point, this made me feel pretty relaxed about the whole thing to a degree that I don’t have when I’m backstage during a theatre piece. Obviously if something isn’t quite right then you can rectify it the following night, but there’s something nice about being able to fix where the stress is on that particular word right away.
It's very good that you have multiple takes actually because sometimes the rooms aren’t quite as sound proofed as you’d hope. People in theatre are generally a lot more forgiving of background noise, especially in small theatres, as there’s only so much you can do. During performances of ‘Thick as Thieves’ the road could be heard throughout, but we didn’t necessarily mind that. As far as I was concerned, it was a soundscape for an office building in a busy city that I didn’t have to make. And sometimes it was quite nice to hear sirens in the distance. However, when you’re recording a radio play, especially one that’s set in an isolated bunker, hearing heavy bass and drums in the background isn’t exactly ideal. It kind of breaks the scene and atmosphere a little.
A final, fairly large difference between working with stage and working with radio is that the booth can be too small to have more than one actor in there for an extended period of time. Granted there were a few moments where two of us were able to get in the booth together and it was cramped but alright, but these were only for small sections and always for specific reasons. It would have been difficult to have us in there together for a whole scene. We did have a mic outside the booth that linked to the actor in the booth so dialogue wasn’t stilted, and we could still react to what we were hearing but we didn’t get what I prize and find most helpful when I’m acting. We didn’t have eye contact. That’s not to say that we could still have a connection and that we weren’t still invested in the characters’ relationship, but a very helpful tool had been taken away. Perhaps next time we’ll have a look for a studio where we can have the actors in a booth together…. or maybe I could talk to my parents about renting the garage…
To sum up, these two mediums are vastly different, but I really did enjoy my time in the studio. I’m very excited to see what the future holds for the company and radio work. ‘Heartache’ is available to pre-order now at www.everythingsrosieshows.com/heartache so head over to get it as soon as it comes out! Until then, I hope you have a fantastic day.
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