From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...
Here's a piece from my Cynical Period. Nah, just kidding, I just drift in and out of cynical phases. But this was an early one. It's one of those bits where I take a charming and innocent premise and just pepper it with adult angst anchored by a cranky old fart. It's a pretty solid premise and I did for a workshop. And I thought a fairly easy bit to rework for radio.
That was the one thing about radio, I just saw it as dialogue-driven but I never let the words lead the listener along. I rarely used dialogue to introduce another character or weave a visual gag. People would talk and if someone new entered the scene, they would just start talking. I think I started to realize with this bit that I had to walk the audience through the scene aurally.
Plus, I found myself writing almost a whole 'nother routine to set up this one as a radio bit. All the mentions of other radio shows were new for the lead-in. Rule of three and all that. And I got to play with sound effects again. But, as is often the case, the sketch leaned too heavily on TV shows and that may have doomed it. And, perhaps, the cast size. Also GK, who was old then, had just had a kid, and I made mention of it; which could have gone either way. Though the idea of GK describing an episode of the kiddie show Teletubbies would have been so funny.
That was the one thing about radio, I just saw it as dialogue-driven but I never let the words lead the listener along. I rarely used dialogue to introduce another character or weave a visual gag. People would talk and if someone new entered the scene, they would just start talking. I think I started to realize with this bit that I had to walk the audience through the scene aurally.
Plus, I found myself writing almost a whole 'nother routine to set up this one as a radio bit. All the mentions of other radio shows were new for the lead-in. Rule of three and all that. And I got to play with sound effects again. But, as is often the case, the sketch leaned too heavily on TV shows and that may have doomed it. And, perhaps, the cast size. Also GK, who was old then, had just had a kid, and I made mention of it; which could have gone either way. Though the idea of GK describing an episode of the kiddie show Teletubbies would have been so funny.
