Sunday Showcase

This Friday, for our 75th episode, I thought we'd gather some folks together to talk ABOUT the medium. Especially because right now Artificial Intelligence is on so many people's minds - and it promises to impact audio storytelling like it's impacting so many other things.  We brought together eight very opinionated folks, plus one AI chatbot, so that you can "Meet The Creators." It's a panel discussion with some of best, longest-running modern radio-drama creators in North America -- one to get you thinking, starting from a wide-ranging and subtle discussion on what we should even call the medium. We also consider why we even find value in creating new audio fiction in the 21st century. What's the point in revisiting and continuing this old storytelling art form?  The 45-minute discussion was at different times lively, nostalgic, angry, funny, feisty, thoughtful, enthusiastic, even emotional. Our panelists ranged from coast to coast and both America and Canada. As Artificial Intelligence seems to be replacing human efforts in so many different aspects of life, how should we define the roles of both people and AI in creating twenty-first century audio-based stories. Not a fictional story this month -- but the story of why we make audio drama is well worth hearing... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where there's dark there's light there's hope. Jack, David, and the captive Zug make their way out of the Dark Nebula of Halloween in the Audioverse to explore "Half Hour Audio Hour" which is a monthly anthology of 10-30 minute audio drama scripts from a different playwright each month. This week we feautre: "Blag" by Victoria Morris and with a special chat about the show with "Behind the Blag" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Sunday Showcase! MONA brings Sonic Society #878- Halfway to the Light, and Project Audio brings a special episode talking about the state of Audio Drama with "Meet the Creators"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Barry M. Putt Jr. kindly comes in for an interview with Jack as they talk about his work with various playwriting, Richard Wade, US Marshal and the Audio Dramatist Resource Guide 2026-2027! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trying to find their way out of the Dark Nebula with the recaptured Zug, David and Jack feature the first episode of Partial Veil and another short from Darker Projects- "Brother's Blood". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the Showcase in the Fall and host Mona brings us two features with Sonic Society #877, and Sonic Speaks #707 and Barry M. Putt Junior! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Old-Time Radio Essentials returns with episode 53, and as we continue Season 5, we present Pete's pick, or rather Special Guest Programmer Jack Ward's pick, an example of the NBC Radio Anthology series NBC Presents: Short Story. Come for the old-time radio, stay for the scintillating (that's one way of putting it) discussion afterwards! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David has a brainstorm trying to locate the signal of the TORDIS and Jack at the same time with two favourite features including a remake of the classic "Sorry, Wrong Number" from Northside/Southside Radio Players and the very latest of Night Terrors "Letterman's  Jacket"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Host David brings us up to track with Sunday Showcase's double-feature this first week of November including Sonic Society #876, and OTR Radio Essentials Episode #53 with a familiar special guest! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Sonic Stage Players present the final trilogy of live horrors from the Bicentennial Theatre. Adapted and Directed with production by Jack J. Ward. Recording by Mike Miller and starring, Jack Ward, Betty Senger, Barb Moxom, Jim Warburton, Jason Pyett, Judith Thompson, Katherine LeBlanc, Wanda Candolini, and with Julia Moxsom providing practical sound effects. Our second act comes from "The Life of Riley" with "Haunted House"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Sonic Stage Players present the final trilogy of live horrors from the Bicentennial Theatre. Adapted and Directed with production by Jack J. Ward. Recording by Mike Miller and starring, Jack Ward, Betty Senger, Barb Moxom, Jim Warburton, Jason Pyett, Judith Thompson, Katherine LeBlanc, Wanda Candolini, and with Julia Moxsom providing practical sound effects. The first act is the classic Suspense tale: "The Hitchhiker". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Evelina Giles is a Witch who sells her magical talents, which often lands her in loads of trouble. In this episode, Evelina's one night stand and magical prank creates a Cosmic Horror that threatens the unsuspecting public! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, while walking through the shadowy dimensions that connect the audio drama of the Dark Nebula of October, David loses Jack in the dark! The twilights of a grotto brings us- "The Grotto"- a liminal horror audio drama series presented by Rusty Quill (The Magnus Archives) about exploring the lines between grief, pain, mourning, and loss. This week we feature the beginning with "Buried Alive" and "Stumble into You". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An incredible ending of October with Sonic Society #875 and four Transcontinental Terror shows with Captain Radio announcing the first and Jack Ward giving you a live three act show for the finale! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2 VERSIONS - In the sweltering heart of the Amazon jungle, a burned-out pilot and a lovesick dreamer race a ruthless tycoon to the legendary Fountain of Youth—but the jungle has secrets. What waits beyond the jungle wall isn't just a powerful drug—it's a hidden world of warrior women, ancient curses, and a war between love and domination. Featuring multi-character cinematic sound and thunderous 3D jungle effects, AmaZone will pull you in and never let go. Alternative: In the sweltering heart of the Amazon jungle, a jaded pilot and a lovesick dreamer chase whisper of the Fountain of Youth, hot on the heels of a cutthroat tycoon with blood on his ledger. But the vines hide horrors no map dares chart: a powerful elixir that cracks open a forbidden realm of fierce warrior women, ancient curses, and a savage clash where passion ignites into primal fury. Immerse yourself in AmaZone's pulse-pounding multi-voice ensemble and bone-rattling 3D soundscape—where the jungle's roar devours the soul, and escape is just a scream away. Strap in for 50 minutes of unrelenting dread that will haunt your every rustle in the dark. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Project Audion recreates a lost script from a nearly-forgotten radio mystery series of 90 years ago. In this episode, the series' genuine director and announcer are sent out for a remote broadcast from the Conference House on Staten Island New York, an old home which is supposedly haunted. The series' fictional detective, Dan Cassidy meets them there. The plan for the broadcast is to listen for ghosts and broadcast any sounds they produce. But things don't go according to plan… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A spoof of H.G. Wells "Food of the Gods", in which science creates gigantic, intelligent critters who threaten all of mankind, starting with waste disposal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this award-winning queer fiction podcast, an eldritch narrator follows the increasingly connected residents of the forest at the end of the world. This week it's Episode 1: Keys and Episode 2: Dogs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Sunday Showcase! This week we have Sonic Society #874 and another trilogy of Transcontinental Terror 2025 from Captain Radio! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"It will come for her... come to collect its debt." On the haunted moors of 19th century England, blood and legacy awaken something buried and long forgotten beneath the dreaded House of Whitmore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Disc Jockey Smiley Smith has the reputation for pulling some pretty interesting stunts, but when he offers to stay all night in the infamous house called, “the death trap,” he may just get more than he bargained for. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Moving into a new home is a time of joy for David and his little son. But things take an odd turn when they find something apparently left behind by the previous tenant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Old-Time Radio Essentials returns with episode 52, and as we continue Season 5, we present Paul's pick, an example of the BBC Radio comedy series Hancock's Half-Hour. Come for the old-time radio, stay for the scintillating discussion afterwards! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jack and David wander through the dark nebula of October's audioverse it's Camp Havenside – Sunday from Hemophobia! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Thanksgiving on Sunday Showcase with Sonic Society #873, OTR Essentials Ep. 52, and Transcontinental Terror week two hosted by Captain Radio! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A 2012 TTE Classic Encore: Trying to establish a colony on an alien world is hard enough, especially when the planet doesn't yield its bounty easily. Without the Wreath Portal, all would have come to naught; because of it the colony has prospered. Now there is another threat to our emerging civilization—who are the Sky Tribe and why are so many leaving the colony to join them? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A mysterious series of hauntings sets The Shadow on the trail of a vengeful killer who cloaks his crimes in ghostly illusion. With the aid of Margo Lane, The Shadow unmasks the true evil behind “The Three Ghosts.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A young woman finds herself kidnapped and held in a room with nothing but a phone. She receives calls from a mysterious man who claims he is also trapped in a similar room. Their desperate conversations unravel a terrifying experiment where reality and sanity are pushed to the breaking point. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Town Whispers is a weekly folk horror anthology podcast. The Town Whispers is a narrative Horror podcast set in a town named forte where eldritch terrors and folk horror meet. Humble, kind, tiny and terrible, Fort sits nestled in the curves and the swirls of fog that climbs through thick woods and jagged, monstrous hills. What stories are hidden there, in the rain and the trees and the fog? Each week, chapter by chapter, something unravels, revealing the sinister workings of a mysterious cohort of entities called the Long Shadows, and their grip over the town. Why are the LaPonte family doomed? What hides behind the walls of the sanatorium? Who (or what) rests in the mausoleum built for those who just don't die? Listen to every episode to discover the fate of the townsfolk of The Fort, and the terrifying destiny that has been in motion since the first town boundaries were drawn. This week it's Chapter 1 and 2 performed by Cole Weavers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to October in the Showcase! Beginning with Sonic Society #872, and then Captain Radio™ introduces the 2025 Transcontinental Terror train! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you noticed that recently Westerns are making a bit of a comeback? I'm not speaking directly about the most recent Oscar buzz of "Brokeback Mountain", but rather the successes of shows like Colonial Radio Theatre's "Powder River" which is getting rave reviews and thunderous applause from all quarters. XM Satellite radio can't seem to get enough Powder River, and Jerry Robbins is now working on season three of the hit series. On televsion, even science fiction takes a turn moseying along with the "wagon trains of the stars". Gene Roddenberry claimed to sell Star Trek in the 60's with that phrase, and Joss Whedon's pre-empted triumph "Firefly" along with its followup movie "Serenity" leans heavily on that age of old west. While I'm well aware that genres weave in and out of popularity, I'm more interested in why cycles occur rather than suggesting that they somehow have a regular pattern- if they did, wouldn't it have been time for a big 30's pulp movie like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow? How long has it been since we've had a new renaissance in that genre? I think there's something about the world we live in today, and the values that the Old West represented- simplicity, even a clearer sense of what's right and what's wrong. In today's complex society, there's a real yearning for a tangible way to make a better life. Later we'll finish our interview with Schlock Audio's Bruce Humphries, and end this meeting with a little... Wasted Tape. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to Mutual Presents. This week, we're back again with The Mysterious Traveler! This week's double feature is Mind over Murder" and "Death Is the Judge"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

MONA back at the Mutual Audio Network building is tripped when Jack and David haven't checked in, in time. Concerned they are lost in Audiospace she sets off a well-known tent-post of Audio Drama- that being the Wireless Theatre Company. Written by Stuart Price, editing by Matt Blair, music by Tom Hicox the signal from the live comedic feature "2010 Space Commander" will hopefully bring our heroes home? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Sunday Showcase! MONA is on the job while Jack and David are MIA in Sonic Society #871, Mutual Presents #6.20- Mysterious Traveler, and special Classic Sonic Society #28! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're back in the theatre again with our Monday Matinee for the Mutual Present's addition from the Mutual Broadcasting System's classic shows. This week we continue Orson Welles, incredible seven part performance for Mutual of "Les Miserables"! And now, Part Two! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An ancient signal from a long-past artefact grabs Jack and David's attention as the TORDIS lands on the first episode of- The Penumbra Podcast by Harley Takagi Kaner and Kevin Vibert, As they seem to discover the nature of the signal during 1.01: Juno Steel and the Case of the Murderous Mask (Part 1), can the TORDIS escape, once grounded?! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on the showcase we've got a double-feature of Sonic Society #870 and Mutual Presents #6.19: Monday Matinee's Les Miserables- Part 2! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're back to Sunday Showcase's Mutual Presents as we introduce another favourite from the Mutual Broadcasting System, our spiritual forefather to the Mutual Audio Network- Welcome to "The Crime Club"! The Crime Club aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System as a half-hour weekly radio series, beginning on December 2, 1946 and continuing until October 16, 1947, a run of 47 episodes. It aired on Mondays at 8 p.m. through December and then on Thursdays at 10 p.m. It was also heard on Wednesdays and Sundays on some stations. Each installment was introduced by the series host, The Librarian, portrayed by Barry Thomson and Raymond Edward Johnson (who was perhaps better known as the host of Inner Sanctum Mysteries). The series featured murder and mystery dramas, some of which had already been published by the Doubleday Crime Club. A new Crime Club book was made available to the public each week and distributed though local newsstands and bookstores. Each show in the series began the same way. The telephone rings and the Librarian answers "Hello, I hope I haven't kept you waiting. Yes, this is the Crime Club. I'm the Librarian. (name of the program)? Yes, we have that Crime Club story for you. Come right over. (The organist plays a creepy tune). The doorbell chimes. "Ah you're here. Good. Take the easy chair by the window. Comfortable? The book is on this shelf." (The organist plays a scary chord). Here it is - (name of the program, the author and a very brief summary). "Let's look at it under the reading lamp." The Librarian begins reading the prologue for the tale, and another Crime Club offering begins. This week we start things off with "Death Blew Out the Match" and "Mr. Smith's Hat"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A terrific premiere is here! A lost episode from one of the greatest audio dramas to come from Radio's Golden Age -- "Gunsmoke."  Gunsmoke is the show that single-handedly created the "adult western" series drama genre...the show that moved the genre from the kid-centered "Lone Ranger" into darker, more mature themes... the show that ran for 10 years and nearly 500 radio episodes, and 20 years and 600 more chapters on television.  A handful of Gunsmoke audio recordings have been lost for seven decades, and Project Audion is recreating one of those missing episodes - in fact, Gunsmoke's second-ever show from May 3, 1952. Only the first seven minutes of the show survive as a recording, so this will be the first opportunity to hear this great early episode in 73 years! Tune in when our cross-country cast brings Marshall Matt Dillon, Doc Adams, Chester and others back to life in our live Zoom recording of Gunsmoke, a dark drama entitled "Ben Thompson." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finding a clue from their last episode, David seeks out the connective thread of "Alice Isn't Dead" from Welcome to Nightvale Presents and Joseph Fink. A truck driver searches across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead. In the course of her search, she will encounter not-quite-human serial murderers, towns literally lost in time, and a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman. The Episode: "Part 1, Chapter 1: Omelet" leads Jack and David deeper into the mystery! They take a moment to release the new Mutual Audio Network website! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Sunday Showcase! As MONA provides the rundown of this week, Jack is busily working on the soft Beta release of the new Mutual website. Our trilogy is Sonic Society #869, Project Audion #74: Gunsmoke, and Mutual Presents- Crime Club #6.18! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Summer's over and we're back with the Man of Steel in honour of the recent Superman movie. Saturday Story Circle presents our next grand Superman serial and it's a doozy! Join us for "The Adventure of the Counterfeit Money"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices