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Synopsis:

Guy who likes telling stories who's following his dream.

Worked up from the realm of podcasting to the front of the Wall Street Journal and gigs with the BBC. Doesn't think he's joking when he talks about a Radio Drama Revival.

Bio, the long story:

As he studied film in New Orleans he became entranced with the vibrant, melancholy, and exuberant local culture. Living in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood, he completed an independent project on the street culture of New Orleans.

After Hurricane Katrina, Fred returned to Maine feeling like he still had a lot to say about his adopted and beloved city. These ideas coalesced into his first radio drama (and senior thesis), Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead was released in May 2006, the same month Fred graduated USM with a BA in Media Studies with University Honors.

Having found his calling in radio drama, Fred continues to produce his own short stories and those of other fine writers as FinalRune Productions (see Why FinalRune? if you want the story on the name). He now applies on-location recording principles similar to what he learned in film school to audio drama.

Fred's pursuits to master the craft have brought him to the National Audio Theatre Festivals' week-long workshop in 2007, and then in 2009 to Ireland to visit his friend and mentor Roger Gregg. He has studied audio engineering with Dave Moulton at the University of Maine Augusta and taught sound design and radio drama at his alma mater, the University of Southern Maine.

With the publication of a front-page Wall Street Journal Article on February 25, 2010, FinalRune's work has been catapulted into the national spotlight. His current major endeavor is writing, funding and producing his original speculative fiction serial, The Cleansed.

Outside of his work with FinalRune, Fred is the online marketing manager at Maine solar power installer ReVision Energy. He lives on an off-grid homestead in rural Maine.

Audio Credits

• 2011
  Writer/Director/Producer: The Cleansed: Season 1
• 2010
  Writer/Director/Producer - The Cleansed: Pilot, The Troll of Stony Brook, Joe Gunther Audio Pilot
  Director - Live Radio Drama and Bean Supper, USM Theater Dept. Radio Drama Collaboration
  Sound Designer - Severed Threads for BBC Radio 4
• 2009
  Writer/Director/Producer - Begathon Shorts
  Director/Producer - Mad Horse OTR Project, Live Halloween Radio Show
• 2008
  Writer/Director/Producer - Waiting for a Window
• 2007
  Writer/Director/Producer - Fall of the Hero, Begathon Special
  Director/Producer - Tales from Williamsville
• 2006
  Writer/Director/Producer - Day of the Dead, The Blind Man's Confession

Awards

2010 Golden Mini Disc Award - Best Writing - The War on Poverty
• 2008 Gold Ogle Award for Best Fantasy Audio Drama - Waiting for a Window

Writing

• Some Road through the Desert
• Day of the Dead – The Fiction Story (Part 2 of 2)
• Day of the Dead – The Fiction Story (Part 1 of 2)

Poems

• I’m not religious, but
• Song of a Cajun

• February 15, 2010 - "Return With Us to the Thrilling Days Of Yesteryear - Via the Internet." - A4, Wall Street Journal - View online or Download Article PDF)
• April 24, 2007 - "The podcast's the thing to revive radio drama,” The Guardian, - View online, or Download Article (PDF)

Local/Regional Press:

• October 21, 2011 - "Maine-based Director Resurrects Audio Drama on New Stage: The Internet" - MPBN - Audio story, listen online
• October 17, 2011 - "Spooky sounds: North Dam is site of Halloween radio drama recording" - Journal Tribune
• October 19, 2010 - "WKIT to premier Mainer's horror radio play" - Bangor Daily News - View online, or Download Article (PDF)
• May 7, 2010 - "Alfred man at leading edge of radio drama's online revival" - Bangor Daily News - View online, or Download Article (PDF)
• March 17, 2010 - "Solar Powered Mind Movies" - Machias Valley Observer - Download Article (PDF)
• March 10, 2010 - "Making radio waves: Alfred man gets exposure for his audio dramas" - Current Publishing - View online, or Portland Press Herald - Download Article (PDF)

Speaking/Interview Appearances:

• October 27, 2010 - “Severed Threads: From Downtown Manhattan to Suburban Minneapolis” - BBC Radio 4 Blog
• July 1, 2010 - Upstage, CKUT in Montreal, guest and debut of Troll of Stony Brook
• March 25, 2010 - MyTechnologyLawyer Radio Show; Scott interviews Radio Drama producer Fred Greenhalgh - Archive Link or MP3 Download
• October 12, 2009 - Guest on The SFFaudio Podcast #039 - http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=12027
• September 27, 2008 - "Low Budget Podcast Production," Guest on Small Business Website Mailbag - http://www.jimdegerstrom.com/podcast/2008/09/low-budget-podcast-production.html
• October 31, 2007 - "Halloween Special," Guest on Portland Press Herald's NXT Generation Podcast - http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blog/blogs/nxt-next-generation/the-nxt-halloween-special

Our News:

• October 12 - FinalRune and AuralStage Studios Join Up for 2nd Annual Transcontinental Terror
• August 19 - Announcing: The Cleansed, Season One
• July 15 - RØDE Microphones Signs On to Support The Cleansed
• July 04 - THE CLEANSED wins Silver Mark Time Award!
• May 19 - Rode NT-4 + Rode Blimp = Love
• March 29 - Get FinalRune Stories on Your Amazon Cloud Player!
• March 20 - FinalRune Hosts Night of Apocalyptic Audio at Coffee by Design
• February 23 - Night of Apocalyptic Audio March 4 at Coffee by Design
• January 12 - Remaster of “Dark Passenger” Now Available
• January 01 - New Site Launches for Season One of The Cleansed

Producer/Writer/Director:

• Frederick Greenhalgh

Voice Actors/Actresses:

• John Hickson
• Christine Marshall
• Janice Gardner
• Burke Brimmer
• Toby Paradis
• CarlaRose Dubois
• Ed Patterson
• Kristi Deville
• Chris Newcomb
• Charly Duley
• Joe Duley
• Bill Dufris
• Philip Hobby
• Errol Murphy
• Mark Krasnoff
• Nathan Amadon
• John Coons

Crew:

• Paul Drinan
• Randall Farr

Musicians

• Barbara Truex
• Myron Samuels
• Primal Musik
• Claude Galinsky
• Anthony Michaud

NOW CASTING: We are looking for lots of talent to help with our upcoming production, The Cleansed: Season 1. There are 30 named voice roles and plenty of extras and crowd scenes, so many are welcome! Especially children, minorities and women.

What's in it for me?

You will get fed, you will make friends, you will be challenged and treated well. You will expected to show up, take direction, and put your heart into the work.

We're always looking for:

• Actors/Actresses
• Musicians
• SFX Wizards
• People to Schlep Stuff

Thanks for your interest!

FinalRune is generally not interested in unsolicited scripts. We've got too many projects and too little time already!

Breakthrough - Transformation - Day: Dagaz

Here is the final Rune belonging to the Cycle of Initiation. Drawing Dagaz often signals a major shift or breakthrough in the process of self-change, a complete transformation in attitude, a 180-degree turn. For some, the transition is so radical that they are no longer able to live the ordinary life in the ordinary way.

The Book of Runes by Ralph H. Blum

I stumbled across this bit of text years after I'd been using the moniker "Final Rune." It was a completely random set of words to choose, originally, but the phrase seemed to fit, was easily memorable, and no one else on the Internet was using it.

The more I've learned about runes and particularly Dagaz, the more the symbol fits with my ambitions as an individual artist and as part in creating an entity that will hopefully transcend me. Long before I thought about using radio drama as the means of my art, I was committed to stories that dashed off the beaten path of literature, flirted with the boundaries of genre and twisted the naive heads off the rules while they weren't looking. I enjoy fiction that is surreal, even psychedelic, yet rooted in mysticism, mythology, and folklore. "Final Rune" embodies a boundary between the physical realm and the mystical one, between history and future, between something ancient and the thoroughly modern. I attempt to create stories that dance this fine line.

Though I hope my work is not as misunderstood or lost in the annals of time as the true runes, I do reverently respect their mystery and hope that at times I can reach in that next realm to steal a nugget of wisdom. It is a risky dance, with cliche on one precipice and obscurity on the other, but conjuring one sublime moment to one person along the way would be more repayment than I might ever ask. In the meantime, I hope to entertain in the best way I can.

In addition to being really fun to both record and listen to, FinalRune's audio stories are produced using clean energy from the sun.

Producer Fred Greenhalgh lives a pretty unconventional lifestyle at a homestead in rural Maine.

When he's not writing or producing radio plays, you can often find him in the garden or milking a goat. His small off-grid house uses only about 2KW/hr of power a day, about the same amount as a regular light bulb if you left it in all day!

In addition to just really being psyched about living a sustainable lifestyle while doing what he loves, Fred also works as the online marketer for leading Maine solar power and solar hot water installer, ReVision Energy.

A low-impact, buy local, sustainable living and art philosophy is at the heart and soul of FinalRune.

The energy you're using to listen to it is clean, too, right?