‘Sam Spade’ and ‘A Radio Play Disaster’ are some names that students have been saying within the West Albany halls. These are the titles of WAHS’ upcoming radio plays. A radio play is a dramatized performance that relies on dialogue, music, and sound effects.
A radio play is no ordinary school play in fact when compared, it is much different.
“The set is very minimal, we are portraying characters using primarily our voices as opposed to our whole body,[and] there is no blocking involved,” Drama and Choir director Cate Caffarella said. “The actors are able to play multiple characters, so in the ‘Sam Spade,’ we have radio commercials. The actors are doubling as actors in the commercials as well.”
‘Sam Spade’ is a play based on the original ‘Sam Shovel’ from the 1940s. It’s a murder mystery film noir, about a detective investigating a string of murders; while ‘A Radio Play Disaster’ is a parody of the original broadcast ‘War of Worlds’.
“It’s about aliens taking over a small town, and invading the world. So what we are doing with ‘A Radio Play Disaster’ is [recreating] that mass chaos and everything that came with it,” Caffarella said.
These plays will be showcased back-to-back with an evening performance on Oct. 11 at 7 p.m., and a matinee on Oct. 12 at 2 p.m. “If [people] want to come [just] know that, we aren’t taking ourselves seriously,” Caffarella said “It’s not a traditional radio play. We are just standing at mics and talking, and we’re making it more fun and interactive with the audience.” Along with being interactive with the audience, the play also heavily relies on the students. “They are making their own costumes, composing the commercials, and even composing and playing the music for ‘Sam Spade’,” Caffarella said.
Even though the upcoming radio plays don’t have as much in the visual department because of minimal set design, they are still skillful works of theater, and the students and staff at WAHS alike have been putting much effort into them. So while they may be different from the average fall plays, they offer an experience we haven’t seen at WAHS before, and show the creativity of the people involved.
