We’re breaking the mold for Midnight Audio Theatre in this episode. From sci fi to noir, horror to comedy: our featured dramas tend to be deep fiction if not outright fantasy.
Now that October’s episodes highlighting horror are past and we’re quickly approaching the end of the even bigger horror known as 2020, we thought it might be a good time to listen to some stories that are a bit closer to home. And by “home,” we mean real life. At least, they start there.
We’ll launch with the very first installment of The Cryptonaturalist. A podcast produced in our own environs of central Ohio, The Cryptonaturalist is grounded in nature…but things get profoundly weirder from there, with a focus on creatures you’ve never heard of before, such as asphalt-swimming salamanders and miniature whales. There’s fiction and poetry from guest contributors, plus field reports from lovers of strange nature. Frankly, it’s hard to classify; this is audio in a genre all its own. The Cryptonaturalist must be heard to be understood. We think you’ll be hooked within seconds; we certainly were!
Then, you’ll experience a real-life biography that’s been tweaked with a touch of imagination.
Ernie Pyle was a popular columnist in the Depression era. Beginning in 1935, he wrote of the real America. It was a travel column on the surface, as he and his wife journeyed from place to place, but underneath, it was a love story to the people who live here and – far more than any horn-tooting politicians – truly define America’s character and forge its destiny. He took that same approach later when he joined American soldiers and Marines on the front lines of World War II, becoming even more popular as he wrote of what life and death were really like in the trenches.
Our Indiana neighbors at WFIU pay tribute to their native son with The Ernie Pyle Experiment. It’s a series with each episode based on one particular Pyle column. The cast and crew imagine the details behind the column: what led Pyle and his wife to travel to that column’s location, and how their story wove into the stories of the people there. You’ll hear the first two installments of the series.
Get ready to get real (kind of)!
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