[Old thread] Dramatic Readings of The Hardy Boys

[redrun]

Updated March 14, 2024

Future updates will be in the Dramatic Readings in Preparation thread.

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List of titles via Wikipedia
#1, The Tower Treasure - Completed, in the catalog!
#2, The House on the Cliff - Completed, in the catalog!
#3, The Secret of the Old Mill - Editing is in progress.
#4, The Missing Chums, now at Gutenberg! I intend to let this one wait a bit, until I've made significant progress on editing #3. I don't want two books waiting on me at the same time.
#5, Hunting for Hidden Gold, public domain
#6, The Shore Road Mystery, public domain
#7 and #8 to enter public domain in the US in 2025.
Additional titles then go 1 per year for quite some time.

Some readers have expressed a desire to reprise their roles, and I will certainly be very glad to have them back! But after giving folks a limited-time reservation on the second and third projects launched, I think it's time we reset expectations for book 4.

--- See edit date above for recency ---

I probably ought to have started with a post here, but I'm very excited to get to work on the Hardy Boys mystery series! This thread is for tracking and collaborating on dramatic readings of the Hardy Boys mysteries! I hope anyone who wants to will also do collaborative or solo readings, but I'm excited to do at least a few of these as DRs!

There is a limit of two Dramatic Readings per Book Coordinator, and that seems like a very good rule to have. I'm also a beginner, as these are my first dramatic productions as BC (I've done some editing and some PL). So this thread is partly for me to ask questions myself, and partly to have those questions answered for anyone else who might BC one of these in future. I promise, I won't be jealous if somebody takes #3 before the others are done! I'll just ask if I can voice a small part.

[redrun]

As mentioned, I have some questions! Or at least, I'd like to check and make sure I'm not barking up the wrong tree. I've read the guidelines, and seen a few done, and I think I know what will fly. And if "ask your MC" is the answer, that's perfectly fine, and we'll go from there.

Because this is a series - Reserving parts across multiple projects
I'm currently putting in the notes that folks are welcome, but by no means required, to reprise their roles in future DRs. I understand it's not great when all the parts are taken by the time the project thread is even posted, and there's always the question of folks disappearing, but this seems reasonable to me, and I'd like to hear any thoughts on it:
For #1 and #2, starting so close together and with me as BC for both, I'll honor those requests, and make a note of it in the first (or first-plus-one) post, so folks can see what's taken even before we have an MW for me to fill out.
For future projects I BC, I'll check back to see if those folks are still active, reach out to them if so, and mark the part as reserved during a grace period. Two weeks? What seems reasonable?

For convenience to anyone else BCing one of these, I'd list the part-requests in the first post of this thread, but it's the BC's decision how to handle that. No dictating others' books, I'd just offer this as a reference if it's desired.

General question for DRs without a Gutenberg text available - Labeled or color-coded scripts vs Archive scans
TriciaG found us a text version of #2 just as we were kicking off (thanks, Tricia!), but in case we don't get one for #1 soon, I'm thinking I can list out peoples' lines in each chapter, by page and first words.
For characters with few lines in a chapter, this list could go in the comments for that MW section. For characters with a lot of lines (like Frank and Joe), we could collect all their lines in a forum post, and link that in the MW.

This would let us continue the project without typing or OCRing the whole book, or waiting for someone else to do so. If it sounds like a lot of work updating MW sections, compare that to color-coding a text, if there were one available.

I'm all ears. I'm starting on the color-coded scripts for #2, and some enterprising volunteer may have a text version of #1 by the time I finish that, but I figured it was worth the asking.

[prosfilaes]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Secret_of_the_Old_Mill.pdf is a PDFed version of the Hathitrust images of the third book.

[redrun]

Thanks! I've updated the first post with both that and the HathiTrust original.

[gweeks]

https://archive.org/details/the-house-on-the-cliff_202301
https://archive.org/details/the-secret-of-the-old-mill

are my .cbz postings to archive.org of the scans I'm using for pgdp to put the books into PG. I'm still waiting on my copy of The Tower Treasure so I can scan it.

I'll post when I get it on archive.org.

Greg

[redrun]

Awesome, thank you Greg! Looks like we've got quality scans for all three, with the correct copyright year! We'll watch for those PG texts, as those certainly help in getting a script together.

[GregGiordano]

May I claim Fenton in this and any other books in the series?

Thanks!

Greg

[redrun]

And thank you, Greg! I've added you to the list. You can see how I'm intending to play this in post #2. It seems reasonable to me, but I wouldn't want to ask an MC to compromise if they feel this would violate the spirit of LV's policies.

If interested, you can see a couple opinions on this here: viewtopic.php?p=2138474#p2138474

[GregGiordano]

Has "The Tower Treasure" project been posted yet? I can't seem to locate it.

Thanks!

Greg

[redrun]

Not yet, but I'll post in this thread and edit the top post when it goes live.
I've been quite reasonably advised to get one project off the ground before starting the next, and if we get a text version while we wait, then all the better.

[GregGiordano]

Not yet, but I'll post in this thread and edit the top post when it goes live.
I've been quite reasonably advised to get one project off the ground before starting the next, and if we get a text version while we wait, then all the better.

Many thanks! I'm looking forward to working with you and the wonderful readers who join!

Greg

[gweeks]

OK, my book came in, so here is the last one for this year.

https://archive.org/details/the-tower-treasure

I'll be running this at pgdp.net to get it into PG.

Greg

[redrun]

Excellent! Updated, and thanks again.

[redrun]

For folks who are interested in Hardy Boys, m8b1 is also kicking off a collaborative reading of The Tower Treasure! The more the merrier, I say.

[InTheDesert]

Not sure if this is the right thread, but where did the birth and death dates in the catalog for a pseudonym come from?