Dramatic Reading Suggestions

[Salvationist]

I have been listening to the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle books in publication order, so far hearing A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four and am nearly finished with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes which is why I went to check the next (Memoirs) and saw no DR version, I am not familiar with four non-canonical Sherlock Holmes short stories. I don't exactly know anyone interested but since you have mentioned it here maybe someone who is will see it, the scripts being prepared already seems like half the battle. I might be interested in doing it myself actually, when my play collection is complete or at least further along

That sounds great! If you ever want to take on BCing Memoirs, just let us know. In the meantime, you are welcome to sign up for a role in the Sherlock Holmes play once I launch it, which should be in the next week or so.

[Inkell]

That sounds great! If you ever want to take on BCing Memoirs, just let us know. In the meantime, you are welcome to sign up for a role in the Sherlock Holmes play once I launch it, which should be in the next week or so.

Thank you! I will let you know, do you have an editor or DPL yet? I will definitely check out the play and see what roles there are, depends if it's PD outside of the US though

[ChuckW]

So... with The Third Violet finally wrapping up, I've started looking at a couple of other options for dramatic readings. Nothing concrete at the moment, but I wanted to get suggestions for an idea that I've been bandying around lately.

Recently, I started color-coding the script for Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers" for the DR Scene and Story Collection. However, in the process, I started poking through the collection where this story was first published and kinda thought... maybe it would be a worthwhile endeavor to create a dramatic reading of Hemingway's Men Without Women in general. Indeed, this is a canonical and phenomenally popular collection of short fiction and most of the stories are very dialogue-heavy (just look at "The Killers," "Hills Like White Elephants," "An Alpine Idyll," etc.). Heck, Hemingway even wrote a short one-act for the collection. It's perfect -- almost.

There are a few caveats I wanted to bring up though and get some input on, however.

1. While many of the stories would be tremendously well-suited for dramatic readings, one of two stories from the collection (like "The Undefeated" and "A Banal Story") are slightly less so. A dramatic reading of those wouldn't be awful, per se. And for the most part, I'd say abut 80%-85% of the book would be tailor made for this kind of project... but it's something to bring up.

2. A lot of these stories are Nick Adams stories and either feature this character as the narrator or a main character. So we'd have to find one reader who'd be willing to take on this role across multiple stories.

3. And, uh... if you couldn't tell by the title (and the fact that it's Hemingway), most of the stories are very male-heavy... with very few female roles. Hemingway probably has enough crossover appeal to attract a lot of readers, so maybe this wouldn't be an issue... but it would cause problems as we seek out volunteers.

Thoughts? I'm happy to launch this (and have already color-coded a few stories), but if this seems unfeasible we can table this idea to the side for now.

[Salvationist]

So... with The Third Violet finally wrapping up, I've started looking at a couple of other options for dramatic readings. Nothing concrete at the moment, but I wanted to get suggestions for an idea that I've been bandying around lately.

Recently, I started color-coding the script for Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers" for the DR Scene and Story Collection. However, in the process, I started poking through the collection where this story was first published and kinda thought... maybe it would be a worthwhile endeavor to create a dramatic reading of Hemingway's Men Without Women in general. Indeed, this is a canonical and phenomenally popular collection of short fiction and most of the stories are very dialogue-heavy (just look at "The Killers," "Hills Like White Elephants," "An Alpine Idyll," etc.). Heck, Hemingway even wrote a short one-act for the collection. It's perfect -- almost.

There are a few caveats I wanted to bring up though and get some input on, however.

1. While many of the stories would be tremendously well-suited for dramatic readings, one of two stories from the collection (like "The Undefeated" and "A Banal Story") are slightly less so. A dramatic reading of those wouldn't be awful, per se. And for the most part, I'd say abut 80%-85% of the book would be tailor made for this kind of project... but it's something to bring up.

2. A lot of these stories are Nick Adams stories and either feature this character as the narrator or a main character. So we'd have to find one reader who'd be willing to take on this role across multiple stories.

3. And, uh... if you couldn't tell by the title (and the fact that it's Hemingway), most of the stories are very male-heavy... with very few female roles. Hemingway probably has enough crossover appeal to attract a lot of readers, so maybe this wouldn't be an issue... but it would cause problems as we seek out volunteers.

Thoughts? I'm happy to launch this (and have already color-coded a few stories), but if this seems unfeasible we can table this idea to the side for now.

I don’t have any objections to you launching Men Without Women as a DR, but the concerns you raise are valid. If you are up for considering an alternative text that doesn’t pose these difficulties, I’d love to see you reprise your role from The Film of Fear as Richard Duvall in The Ivory Snuff Box:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29852

[silverquill]

Chuck,
This looks like a wonderful DR project!

Are you thinking of doing the entire book as a single project?

1. I don't think there is an issue with any of the stories as DRs. A Banal Story has no dialog, but it is short and can be included in the completed project, for instance.

2. Probably you can find someone to take on the major character across the stories.

3. Mostly male parts may be more problematic. It is always nice to have a balance, but I think there are enough males interested in DRs that you could fill the parts. I'm not a big fan of "gender neutral" in most cases, unless the parts truly are gender neutral roles. But, look at the title of the book.

Just one man's opinion, of course.

[LCaulkins]

So... with The Third Violet finally wrapping up, I've started looking at a couple of other options for dramatic readings. Nothing concrete at the moment, but I wanted to get suggestions for an idea that I've been bandying around lately.

Recently, I started color-coding the script for Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers" for the DR Scene and Story Collection. However, in the process, I started poking through the collection where this story was first published and kinda thought... maybe it would be a worthwhile endeavor to create a dramatic reading of Hemingway's Men Without Women in general. Indeed, this is a canonical and phenomenally popular collection of short fiction and most of the stories are very dialogue-heavy (just look at "The Killers," "Hills Like White Elephants," "An Alpine Idyll," etc.). Heck, Hemingway even wrote a short one-act for the collection. It's perfect -- almost.

[. . .]

Thoughts? I'm happy to launch this (and have already color-coded a few stories), but if this seems unfeasible we can table this idea to the side for now.

Hi, Chuck. As David mentioned, I think you'd find someone who wanted to do all of Nick - sounds like this one would have two narrators, Nick for his and someone else for the others.

You could set it up much like Inkell with her Greek Myths book of plays. I think this would be a much longer-running project than that one, as it has the more limited casting scope if you're not going to let folks read out-of-gender. It's Hemmingway, though, so always worthwhile adding to the classics if you're not daunted from having a project on your hands that might take 2 years to completely finish.

If you do run it, I would stay consistent the entire way through and make each story DR instead of just having the low-dialogue selections recorded by narrator-only.

And even though this is a collection of short stories instead of a novel, how about I add this to the DR prep post. We can always take it off if you change your mind.

[ChuckW]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

Chuck,
This looks like a wonderful DR project!

Are you thinking of doing the entire book as a single project?

1. I don't think there is an issue with any of the stories as DRs. A Banal Story has no dialog, but it is short and can be included in the completed project, for instance.

2. Probably you can find someone to take on the major character across the stories.

3. Mostly male parts may be more problematic. It is always nice to have a balance, but I think there are enough males interested in DRs that you could fill the parts. I'm not a big fan of "gender neutral" in most cases, unless the parts truly are gender neutral roles. But, look at the title of the book.

Just one man's opinion, of course.

Yeah, for a project like this, gender neutral casting might be a tad dicey and inappropriate, especially since the entire thesis of the book is spelled out in the title. But like I said, this is Hemingway... and I kinda think we might have more folks crossing over from other sections to take on roles or narrate certain stories. And reading through A Banal Story, about half of it is internal monologue, so... maybe it could still kinda-sorta be made into a DR successfully?

So... with The Third Violet finally wrapping up, I've started looking at a couple of other options for dramatic readings. Nothing concrete at the moment, but I wanted to get suggestions for an idea that I've been bandying around lately.

Recently, I started color-coding the script for Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers" for the DR Scene and Story Collection. However, in the process, I started poking through the collection where this story was first published and kinda thought... maybe it would be a worthwhile endeavor to create a dramatic reading of Hemingway's Men Without Women in general. Indeed, this is a canonical and phenomenally popular collection of short fiction and most of the stories are very dialogue-heavy (just look at "The Killers," "Hills Like White Elephants," "An Alpine Idyll," etc.). Heck, Hemingway even wrote a short one-act for the collection. It's perfect -- almost.

[. . .]

Thoughts? I'm happy to launch this (and have already color-coded a few stories), but if this seems unfeasible we can table this idea to the side for now.

Hi, Chuck. As David mentioned, I think you'd find someone who wanted to do all of Nick - sounds like this one would have two narrators, Nick for his and someone else for the others.

You could set it up much like Inkell with her Greek Myths book of plays. I think this would be a much longer-running project than that one, as it has the more limited casting scope if you're not going to let folks read out-of-gender. It's Hemmingway, though, so always worthwhile adding to the classics if you're not daunted from having a project on your hands that might take 2 years to completely finish.

If you do run it, I would stay consistent the entire way through and make each story DR instead of just having the low-dialogue selections recorded by narrator-only.

And even though this is a collection of short stories instead of a novel, how about I add this to the DR prep post. We can always take it off if you change your mind.

That would be great, thank you. Please feel free to add it. I'm still color-coding stories and will probably launch it once I'm closer to being done with The Third Violet (which is almost done... much to Todd's relief, I'm sure!).

So... with The Third Violet finally wrapping up, I've started looking at a couple of other options for dramatic readings. Nothing concrete at the moment, but I wanted to get suggestions for an idea that I've been bandying around lately.

Recently, I started color-coding the script for Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers" for the DR Scene and Story Collection. However, in the process, I started poking through the collection where this story was first published and kinda thought... maybe it would be a worthwhile endeavor to create a dramatic reading of Hemingway's Men Without Women in general. Indeed, this is a canonical and phenomenally popular collection of short fiction and most of the stories are very dialogue-heavy (just look at "The Killers," "Hills Like White Elephants," "An Alpine Idyll," etc.). Heck, Hemingway even wrote a short one-act for the collection. It's perfect -- almost.

There are a few caveats I wanted to bring up though and get some input on, however.

1. While many of the stories would be tremendously well-suited for dramatic readings, one of two stories from the collection (like "The Undefeated" and "A Banal Story") are slightly less so. A dramatic reading of those wouldn't be awful, per se. And for the most part, I'd say abut 80%-85% of the book would be tailor made for this kind of project... but it's something to bring up.

2. A lot of these stories are Nick Adams stories and either feature this character as the narrator or a main character. So we'd have to find one reader who'd be willing to take on this role across multiple stories.

3. And, uh... if you couldn't tell by the title (and the fact that it's Hemingway), most of the stories are very male-heavy... with very few female roles. Hemingway probably has enough crossover appeal to attract a lot of readers, so maybe this wouldn't be an issue... but it would cause problems as we seek out volunteers.

Thoughts? I'm happy to launch this (and have already color-coded a few stories), but if this seems unfeasible we can table this idea to the side for now.

I don’t have any objections to you launching Men Without Women as a DR, but the concerns you raise are valid. If you are up for considering an alternative text that doesn’t pose these difficulties, I’d love to see you reprise your role from The Film of Fear as Richard Duvall in The Ivory Snuff Box:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29852

Oh, wowzers. I'd actually forgotten all about that project!

Uuuuuuh, is there even any demand for me to reprise that role? Hahahahaha.

[Salvationist]

Oh, wowzers. I'd actually forgotten all about that project!

Uuuuuuh, is there even any demand for me to reprise that role? Hahahahaha.

There is from me! If doing another Richard Duvall mystery interests you, I’d love to see that happen. I would offer to script The Ivory Snuff Box and BC it, but my BCing slate is full at the moment. If you would like to reprise the role but you aren’t interested in BCing it yourself, I can put it on my list to start scripting eventually, although in that case we’re probably talking more than a year from now. You did a great job with that character and I think it would be lots of fun to hear you voice him in the whole trilogy.

[ChuckW]

Oh, wowzers. I'd actually forgotten all about that project!

Uuuuuuh, is there even any demand for me to reprise that role? Hahahahaha.

There is from me! If doing another Richard Duvall mystery interests you, I’d love to see that happen. I would offer to script The Ivory Snuff Box and BC it, but my BCing slate is full at the moment. If you would like to reprise the role but you aren’t interested in BCing it yourself, I can put it on my list to start scripting eventually, although in that case we’re probably talking more than a year from now. You did a great job with that character and I think it would be lots of fun to hear you voice him in the whole trilogy.

Oh, I'm glad that one is still enjoyable to listen to... and I'd actually forgotten that that was the first part of a (still unrecorded) series. I'd consider reprising the role, if the demand was there, but am not sure if I'd be able to run it anytime soon (full disclosure: I just picked up two plays I want to run as my next dramatic projects). I could also help out with the editing.

[Salvationist]

Oh, I'm glad that one is still enjoyable to listen to... and I'd actually forgotten that that was the first part of a (still unrecorded) series. I'd consider reprising the role, if the demand was there, but am not sure if I'd be able to run it anytime soon (full disclosure: I just picked up two plays I want to run as my next dramatic projects). I could also help out with the editing.

Sweet! I’ll put it on my list of texts to prepare as scripts. It will be a while before I get to this one, but knowing that you might be willing to edit as well as reprise Duvall pushes this text higher on my list. I generally sign up to edit the projects I BC, but editing is one of my least favourite tasks on LibriVox. I’m excited that this DR trilogy might continue someday!

[ChuckW]

Oh, I'm glad that one is still enjoyable to listen to... and I'd actually forgotten that that was the first part of a (still unrecorded) series. I'd consider reprising the role, if the demand was there, but am not sure if I'd be able to run it anytime soon (full disclosure: I just picked up two plays I want to run as my next dramatic projects). I could also help out with the editing.

Sweet! I’ll put it on my list of texts to prepare as scripts. It will be a while before I get to this one, but knowing that you might be willing to edit as well as reprise Duvall pushes this text higher on my list. I generally sign up to edit the projects I BC, but editing is one of my least favourite tasks on LibriVox. I’m excited that this DR trilogy might continue someday!

Oh, I'm a fundamentally broken person -- and I kinda think the editing is the best part. I find it relaxing.

[victoriaalicebell]

Is anyone interested in A Swiss Family Robinson DR?
Anyone who is willing to PL or edit is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,

[IonaMuirgel2002]

Is anyone interested in A Swiss Family Robinson DR?
Anyone who is willing to PL or edit is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,

Would you be doing the BC?
I am thinking that I might PL for it, but the only downside is that I have never PL-ed before, and am not quite sure how to do everything. (I know I could figure it out though)
I know that there is a first time for everything, and I might as well jump in neck deep .
Another thing is, if I PL for it, I probably would not get to read for any characters because I would not have anyone to PL for me, correct? But what if I got a friend (who is a LV volunteer) to listen to my recordings, would that be acceptable? Because the reason I wanted to do a dramatic SFR was so that I could read for one of the characters, namely Jenny Montrose .
-Iona

[redrun]

I am thinking that I might PL for it, but the only downside is that I have never PL-ed before, and am not quite sure how to do everything. (I know I could figure it out though)
I know that there is a first time for everything, and I might as well jump in neck deep .
Another thing is, if I PL for it, I probably would not get to read for any characters because I would not have anyone to PL for me, correct?

Typically, the BC is the one to PL the proof-listener's role, but that's not a requirement. So yes, another volunteer can PL your lines.

It may be a while before someone is willing and able to commit to editing this project, so I'd very highly recommend getting some PL practice in the mean-time. PL is very important on these DRs, as readers won't all be around by the time the editing begins. Twelve hours of audio is a lot to proof-listen, so I'd also recommend you find out whether it's for you, before you sign on for so much!

[IonaMuirgel2002]

Thanks! I will look into other PL needed roles.
-Iona