The Duke Theater Studies Department, together with generous support from the Duke Center for Instructional Technology, proudly announces its first podcast: "The mp3ater Project." In the spring of 2005, the students in Professor Daniel Foster's theater course, "Radio: The Theater of the Mind," produced several audio theater pieces.  These pieces, together with some of Foster's own works comprise the first efforts of an ongoing experiment in digital theater, including comedy, drama, mysteries, and thrillers. New podcasts will be released as they are finished.

1. Subscribe to the RSS feed by putting this address in your agregator (iPodder, RSSRadio, etc.): http://www.duke.edu/~dhfoster/mp3ater.xml OR
2. Click on a title below to download the MP3. It should automatically open in your default media player (Windows Media Player, iTunes, etc.)

Bedtime Stories for Adults - June 29
Three well-known fairy tales are humorously transformed and updated for the 21st century. "The Three Co-Dependent Goats Gruff" re-tells the tale of a bridge, three goats, and the troll who would eat them. Listen to the revolt of the "porcinistas" in "The Three Little Pigs." And hear the pro-feminist/pro-wolf version of "Little Red Riding Hood." Each story stars and was produced by Maggie Chambers, Matt Hooks, and Alberto Mendoza.  

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar: The James Forbes Matter - July 13
This is a reconstruction of the 1950s radio noir series, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. Tune in as Johnny Dollar, "the fabulous freelance insurance investigator with the action-packed expense account," solves the problem of how a millionaire plummeted to his death. This episode was written by Blake Edwards, who would later go on to direct the Pink Panther movies. It stars and was produced by Suzanne Nussbaum, John Vickery, and Andrew Wallace.

The Most Dangerous Game - July 27
What happens when the hunter becomes the hunted? This question was famously answered by the Richard Connell short story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” which was adapted for radio and broadcast on the highly acclaimed suspense series, Escape, and starred none other than Orson Welles. This re-broadcast is performed here as a one-person show by Tiffany Chen.  Listen as she impersonates all of the roles in this radio show about hunting game on a deserted island.

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar: The Clever Chemist Matter - August 10
This more modern take on the radio thriller, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, includes an updated soundtrack and sound effects that perhaps share more in common with Pulp Fiction than 1950s noir. Experience a little cold war paranoia as, once again, we find Johnny investigating a suspicious death, but this time he begins before it even happens. This episode stars and was produced by John Howell, Rachel Lebron, and Jacob McCafferty.

Relish- August 24
Listen to this charming and alarming story of how a young bride mysteriously disappears and how the mystery is solved by an Upper East Side aristocrat and his nebbish of a sidekick, a traveling salesman for the “Num-Num” relish company. This is an adaptation of the play, “Two Bottles of Relish,” written by Lord Dunsany and originally adapted for radio by Edward Goldberger. In this one-person version, Daniel Foster not only played all the parts and produced the show, he also wrote the musical score.

Words and Music - September 14 - Piano Version

Words and Music - December 1 - Orchestral Version
Words and Music is a radio play written by Samuel Beckett in 1962. In this piece, two characters entitled Words and Music (or Joe and Bob as they are sometimes called) work together and against each other in order to produce songs, musical interludes, and lyric poetry. To some extent, they are led by a third character, Croak, who, as the name suggests, exists somewhere in between sound and sense. The lyrical nature of this short piece ranges from the melancholic to the gently comic. This is another one-person show with Daniel Foster playing all the parts and, once again, he wrote the musical score.  

Orpheus Against the Sirens- April 4
Orpheus Against the Sirens is a tone poem composed by Daniel H. Foster. It is based on a lesser-known myth about Orpheus and his encounter with the Sirens while journeying with Jason and the other Argonauts to find the Golden Fleece. Like the more well-known story of Odysseus and the Sirens, the story of Orpheus concerns the Sirens’ attempt to seduce unsuspecting seafarers with their beautiful voices and lure them to their doom. According to the Orpheus story, Jason and his crew heard the Sirens, were overcome with desire for them, and begin to steer their ship, the Argo, toward the Sirens and certain death until Orpheus, apparently unaffected by the Sirens’ voices, strung his lyre and played a tune that overcame the song of the Sirens and brought the Argo and its men safely away. That is, all but one sailor who was so taken with the Siren song that he jumped off the ship and tried to swim to them. Eventually the gods had to intervene to save him, suddenly snatching him out of the Sirens’ grasp and transporting him elsewhere to safety. The main source for this story is Apollonius Rhodius’ The Argonautica, book 4, lines 885-921, which is reproduced below:

Now when dawn the light-bringer was touching the edge of heaven, then at the coming of the swift west wind they went to their thwarts from the land; and gladly did they draw up the anchors from the deep and made the tackling ready in due order; and above spread the sail, stretching it taut with the sheets from the yard-arm. And a fresh breeze wafted the ship on. And soon they saw a fair island, Anthemoessa, where the clear- voiced Sirens, daughters of Achelous, used to beguile with their sweet songs whoever cast anchor there, and then destroy him. Them lovely Terpsichore, one of the Muses, bare, united with Achelous; and once they tended Demeter's noble daughter still unwed, and sang to her in chorus; and at that time they were fashioned in part like birds and in part like maidens to behold. And ever on the watch from their place of prospect with its fair haven, often from many had they taken away their sweet return, consuming them with wasting desire; and suddenly to the heroes, too, they sent forth from their lips a lily-like voice. And they were already about to cast from the ship the hawsers to the shore, had not Thracian Orpheus, son of Oeagrus, stringing in his hands his Bistonian lyre, rung forth the hasty snatch of a rippling melody so that their ears might be filled with the sound of his twanging; and the lyre overcame the maidens' voice. And the west wind and the sounding wave rushing astern bore the ship on; and the Sirens kept uttering their ceaseless song. But even so the goodly son of Teleon alone of the comrades leapt before them all from the polished bench into the sea, even Butes, his soul melted by the clear ringing voice of the Sirens; and he swam through the dark surge to mount the beach, poor wretch. Quickly would they have robbed him of his return then and there, but the goddess that rules Eryx, Cypris, in pity snatched him away, while yet in the eddies, and graciously meeting him saved him to dwell on the Lilybean height. And the heroes, seized by anguish, left the Sirens, but other perils still worse, destructive to ships, awaited them in the meeting-place of the seas.