| Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large |
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Congrats to The Radio Theatre Project and Matt Cowley for being awarded "Best Mixing" for the production of my script, "The Nick Files: Lost Claus" at the Atlanta Fringe Festival 2024! You can hear the episode and learn more here:
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The Florida Radio Project has posted their latest production of "The Nick Files," this week's file, "The Greek Squad." It's the story of love gone missing and Nick Flebber, PI, has to get it back! They did a great job with my story. And it's also being posted on the Nick Files Page, where it joins all other Flebber projects. Check them all out!
Here's the second part of my Christmas 2-fer. The Florida Radio Project produced my piece, "A Candy Cane Christmas." This idea has been bouncing around my head for ages. The Hallmark Christmas machine has gotten out of hand the last few years, churning these holiday rom-coms out to the extend that it's spilled over into 2 other cable channels. I like to think I was poking fun of it first, but the pop culture zeitgeist has definitely zeroed in on it, from SNL sketches to Comedy Central movie parodies and back to Hallmark, which has started to poke fun at itself in a couple of recent movies. The sketch had made the rounds to various comedy outlets, with little success (try finding a stage troupe that also does Christmas shows). I then incorporated it in to MY version of a holiday rom-com, a screenplay I wrote called "Merry Broadcast." The Florida group did a great job with it and the audience was onboard, so enjoy A Candy Cane Christmas:
Back in December, I had a 2-for of Christmas cheer. The Florida Radio Project did two of my scripts. First (second will be another post), they did a new version of "The Nick Files: Lost Claus." After having written a couple of radio adaptions of my Nick Flebber stories I took a look back at "Lost Claus" which was, to be honest, a glorified radio sketch that was a cross between my original screenplay and a comic story I made to parody my old K-mart job. So, I attempted to fill it out with some scenes from the original versions and beef up my page count/run time to 30 minutes. Then I sent it out. And it sleigh-ed the audience. Ha! Check it out for yourself:
The Florida Radio Project began its new season just in time for the World Series. And as part of the line-up, they produced my Nick Files script; Spell Check. It's the prefect blend of autumn, baseball and witchcraft! After performing it live before a studio audience, they posted the audio at Soundcloud, so I hope you can take some time out to give it a listen. It's a home run!
From the Author of "Abbott & Othello" and "Three Stooges of Verona" comes the latest uncovered Shakespeare play "The Nutty Merchant of Venice."
From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home 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 bit of weirdness; I've been forced to relocate my audio bits as the old website suddenly ceased to exist, taking all my material with it. Since a group I'm dealing with uses SoundCloud, I've started setting up shop here. As I was doing so, I realized I never posted one of my PHC bits.
It was October 2001. Garrison Keillor had heart surgery over the summer. It was now just a month after 9/11. This was the first show of the season. I had submitted a sketch sort of referencing 9/11, a Guy's Shoes bit I wrote about here. They did use a version of it. But, I actually got a second piece on the show, the one and only time that happened for me. I combined GK's heart surgery with his running bit about duct tape and he opened the show with it. This reminds me of the fact that GK never kept in touch with me. I spent the latter half of the summer checking the PHC website to find out when the show was back on the air. Especially this summer with his health and after 9/11. The show usually started in October and I don't remember if they pushed it back at all. But I know that no one had reached out to me to see if I was okay or to inform me if the show schedule would be changed. And I had to do that for the rest of each season, checking when it was on or where it was broadcasting from. Anyway, here from Oct. 6, 2001, is Heart Surgery and duct tape. 
From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home 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...
If memory serves, this is the last bit PHC bought from me. It's massively re-written as GK inserts his "tax & spend" liberal ideals into the bit to garder "clapter" (that's getting claps instead of laughter for something said. It's not a joke, just a declaration that everyone agrees with). It's just odd how I attempt to write a tight sketch, it gets unraveled into a meandering routine.
It's back on the old PHC website (they had shrubbed it after GK had his #MeToo Moment a few years ago), but I'm posting my audio file below, so you may compare and contrast. Post-State of the Union
From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home 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...
This is one of those bits I knew wouldn't get far. It was way too pop-culture for Keillor's tastes. But I thought it was a funny bit. The reality shows were taking over so, why not combine Survivor and American Idol, right? I'm sure all the mis-spellings in the draft I sent them didn't help either.
Audition Island
From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home 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 one of those submissions with a happy-ist ending. As I've mention before, I was always looking to write one of PHC's signature bits, not the big ones like the cowboys or the english major, but I tried his Guy Noir character (and got a line or two picked up for one sketch), I submitted for duct tape and ketchup to some success. But a many of my sketches had to pass through the GK-rewrite process.
One of my pet peeves is how we're inundated with Christmas music from Thanksgiving on and then somewhere around noon on Christmas Day, the radio station all go back to their standard playlists. I used the ketchup sketch to whine about that. But the folks latched onto the idea that music today sucks and people seem overly attached to 1950s pop music. It's weird how that's the premise they focused on. A version of my sketch was produced and there's a couple of my lines in their version. I got a check and an online credit. And enough confidence to continue submitting to the show for a couple of more years. I'm posting my version of the sketch, followed by the audio of the PHC Dec. 27, 2003 production (which they have in their archives, here Ketchup Advisory Board: Post-Holiday Blues |
Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. 
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