Yes, you heard that right! On Aug 1-3 we got the opportunity to record with John Dryden, an independent producer whose work is regularly commissioned by the BBC.

John's impressive production credits include the Peabody-winning The Day That Lehmann Died, A Tokyo Murder, The Handmaid's Tale, and Fatherland.

The show this time is Severed Threads, a mini series which follows three stories - an investigative journalist uncovering child labor in India, a boy in the United Kingdom obsessed with violent YouTube videos, and a born again Christian in Minneapolis who's about to have his whole life unravel.

Each story was recorded in the continent where it takes place. In our case, we were recording scenes in New York City intended to take place in small town Minnesota - around a dinner table, in an office building, outside a church.

See some of the terrific actors we worked with during this scene, when Jim is sliced and diced by a television reporter:

The show will be airing on BBC Radio 4 in October, and we'll definitely let you know when you can hear it!

In the meantime, check out The Day That Lehman Died (BBC Radio Stream) for a taste of this documentary-style field recorded radio drama.

Killer artwork by Simon Adams

After several months of hard work, FinalRune is proud to release The Troll of Stony Brook, our first original title since the Ogle-award winning Waiting for a Window in 2008.

An awkward teenager, Jamie, is driving home one night from a party when he hits something - something big. His pushy co-worker, Rick, talks him into going back to the scene of the accident, where they find a creature pushed to the brink by human progress.

What follows is a startling and brutal experience - something that will change Jamie's life forever.

The show is available now as a free podcast and a paid download.

Wait, Why Do I Want to Pay for Something that is Free?

Good question. Here's how it works:

• To listen for free, simply go to www.finalrune.com/troll each Friday in July to download a new episode, or keep track of our podcast - either through RSS or through iTunes.
• That's it. Free is free. BUT, the catch - you only get to hear the show in 6-7 minute installments. There will be five podcast episodes altogether.
• If you don't want to wait to hear the end, you can buy the whole thing now for $2.99. Safe and secure through Paypal.
• In addition to the show, with the paid version you get two special music tracks - one long spacey jam by Barb Truex and a rockin' Bad Religion-esque tune from the Big Coffin Hunters - plus the warm and fuzzy feeling that you've made a meaningful contribution to independent art.

Killer artwork by Simon Adams

What would happen if a troll still lived in the diminishing wild around us?

To explore that question comes FinalRune's new show, The Troll of Stony Brook.

An awkward teenager, Jamie, is driving home one night from a party when he hits something - something big. His pushy co-worker, Rick, talks him into going back to the scene of the accident... and what they find will change them both forever.

This exciting story of what happens when nature is pushed to the brink takes place largely outdoors. So, in a true test of the field recording experience, the intrepid FinalRune cast and crew set out on a sunny spring day to record in the woods being Fred's off-grid homestead in Alfred, Maine.

As always, adventure happened - inevitable when you get a group of actors and interesting looking gear in random places.

We had kids looking on, were kicked off one prospective location, and even had a few people get lost as they made their way back from the woods! (For the record, Fred is not a registered Maine Guide).

Anyways, the audio is excellent, and in a bold coup there were even some scenes recorded in Bill Dufris' audiobook voice-over studio. Stay tuned for release in early June.

Here are some pictures (plenty more in our photo gallery):

The Troll (Bill Dufris) begs Jamie (Philip Hobby) to remember the wild things.

Reporter (Christine Marshall) and Sargeant (Christopher Price) at the scene of a horrific crime.

Fred giving direction at a car scene recorded in the woods.

The story's namesake - a new development in Southern Maine.

Like Window, Troll tells a somber story using wit, humor, and a bit of magic. It all starts when a teenager, Jamie, hits something in the woods while reaching for his cell phone. The creature runs off, but he can't help but return with a friend later to see what it was.

The result is a tragic and terrifying exploration of what happens when wild things are pushed to the brink by human expansion. Troll will be recorded on-location in early April 2009, and will be available as a free download later in April.

Want to know when this new show is out? Sign up for FinalRune Runescapes (our free monthly newsletter)!

The article, entitled "Return With Us to the Thrilling Days Of Yesteryear—Via the Internet," heavily focused on our signature field recording style and director Fred Greenhalgh's passion for reviving audio drama in an age of the iPod.

Quick Link: The project featured in the story in the Joe Gunther Pilot

Listen to the FIRST EPISODE of this New Production:

Download the Joe Gunther Pilot! (MP3)

Reporter Barry Newman writes:

Radio drama, ranging from "Captain Midnight" to the high art of Orson Welles, thrived for 40 years in America. It was all but gone by the 1960s, killed off by television. Yet now that TV must contend with the Internet, the Internet has given radio drama a whisper of new life. It can't be called "radio drama" anymore, since hardly any of it gets on the radio. Mr. Greenhalgh settles for "audio drama," but the catchiest name for it is "mind movie."

Sue Zizza, a sound-effects artist who teaches at New York University, figures there are about 300 "true, quality audio dramatists" active in the U.S. She helps put on a one-week "audio theater" summer workshop that has lately been attracting 100 trainees. In 2006, one was Fred Greenhalgh.

"What amazes me is that audio drama just won't go away," Ms. Zizza says. "It's so primal in us. No matter how much we ignore it, there are still people out there like Fred."

He grew up on the Maine coast writing short stories. At the University of Southern Maine, unpublished, he rewrote one of them as a radio script, replacing sights with sounds, as in: "Storm increases with violent intensity until it unleashes a mighty burst of lightning."

Mighty bursts were produced in radio's golden age by shaking tin sheets in a studio. Now, mighty bursts are downloadable. But Mr. Greenhalgh can't afford studio rent and prefers not to buy (or steal) anyone else's thunder. He harvests lightning by walking out into a storm with a recorder and a microphone.

We have a ton of people to thank, in no particular order:

• Reporter Barry Newman who made the journey all the way to Maine in the midst of a snowstorm (remember those?)
• Marty Cohn and Archer Mayor of Vermont Audio Drama Podcasting (VTAD) for kick starting an amazing new project
• Mad Horse Theater Company for letting us use their space for the field recording
• The awesome cast and crew who showed what FinalRune is made of!

The Mad Horse Theatre Company and FinalRune Productions will present a night of BEAN SUPPER and LIVE RADIO DRAMA on Saturday, February 27, at Mad Horse headquarters, 24 Mosher St, South Portland, ME (Map).

The evening, running from 5-7PM (show at 6), promises the fare of a traditional New England bean supper followed by a series of plays performed in the style of old time radio of the 40s and 50s.

Programming will be a mix of new and old, featuring a riff on the classic Sorry, Wrong Number (With Christine Marshall returning as Mrs. Stevenson) entitled "Sorry, Wrong Cell Phone" and Waiting for a Window, written by FinalRune’s director Fred Greenhalgh, and winner of the 2008 Gold Ogle Award for fantasy audio drama.

Originally recorded on-location in South Portland and other locations in the Greater Portland area, Waiting for a Window has been revised to take advantage of live performance.

Dubbed a “nautical version of Waiting for Godot” by the SFF Audio blog, Window tells the story of Norman, a waylaid sailor who washes up on a strange island where no one ever wants to leave.

Admission is by donation, with a suggested donation of $10 at the door. Seating is first-come, first-serve, with a capacity of 50.

Here's an example of some stuff behind the scenes:

See the rest on YouTube or on our Halloween video footage page.

FinalRune is proud to announce the release of our third and final (for 2009!) installment in our Old Time Radio re-creation project with The Mad Horse Theater Company: Three Skeleton Key.

And what a doozy it is! Three men who tend the light at a reclusive island off the coast of French Guiana see a rogue ship adrift in the Atlantic. The reason for the derelict ship soon becomes obvious - it has been overrun by hundreds of thousands of ferocious ship's rats.

The rats land on the isle and soon we are in for a claustrophobic tale of terror as the three men struggle to keep their minds from cracking under the pressure of thousands and thousands of squeaking, scratching, hungry rats.

"Three Skeleton Key" is among the most famous of old time radio tales, learn much more about its history on the Escape and Suspense! Blog.

This production also brought FinalRune players to perhaps the most interesting field location yet: Goat Island Lighthouse off the coast of Cape Porpoise, Maine. Plenty of pictures up on Flickr (and note! The light is delightful and beautiful, acoustically perfect for this tale of terror but much better suited for a picnic lunch if you have your eyes with you).

Anyways, this is a great production. Go to the Three Skeleton Key page to listen for free.

Stay tuned for the premiere of "Three Skeleton Key," the final installment in our summer project with The Mad Horse Theater Company, and for video footage of our live Halloween radio show.

There may even be a Cafe Press store coming soon - details to follow.

Art by Simon Adams

Hear this bone-chilling audio experience in its entirety:

See photos from this production.

The Stories in the Show:

• The Ghost Behind the Black Door by Roger Gregg
  A couple from the city moves to a mansion in the countryside only to find that things are not all as they expect... a spoof on the classic horror meme.
• Leaving You is Hell by Fred Greenhalgh
  A dark retelling of the myth of Orpheus inspired by the classic jazz tune "St James Infirmary." A man in New Orleans is doomed to keep falling in love with the same woman and seducing her to her death.
• Bone Lake by Mark LaFlamme
  The ice fishing's going well on Bone Lake, until a man comes from the winter's night looking for a very strange catch.
• Third Shift by Kevin Anderson
  A company will sell you very efficient workers at a bargain price. Just don't send the living to check out their work.
• H1NSane by Fred Greenhalgh
  It was all going so well until the zombies showed up. Don’t drink the agave nectar!

The Talented Cast:

• Announcer - John Hickson
• Representing WMPG - Dale Robin Lockman

Ghost Behind the Black Door:

• Payeur - Tom Power
• Colleen - Christine Marshall
• Herbert - Philip Hobby
• Ghost Man - Burke Brimmer
• Ghost Woman - Janice Gardner

Losing You is Hell

• Man - Burke Brimmer
• Woman - Christine Marshall
• Madame Genevere - Janice Gardner
• Lost Souls - John Hickson

Bone Lake

• Carlton - Tom Power
• Rupert - Burke Brimmer
• Joseph - John Hickson
• Tony - Burke Brimmer
• Everett - Philip Hobby

Third Shift

• Alan - Burke Brimmer
• Helen - Janice Gardner
• Customer - Philip Hobby

H1NSane

• Fred Greenhalgh - Self
• Joe - Burke Brimmer
• Voice from Crowd - Janice Gardner
• Sally - Christine Marshall
• Operator - Janice Gardner
• SFX Person - Paul Drinan
• Scientist - Philip Hobby
• Zombie Kid - Burke Brimmer
• Corporal - Burke Brimmer
• Navy Seal - Philip Hobby

Live Sound Effects and Music

Live sound effects by Paul Drinan and "Goober," computer FX by Michael Townsend, live music performed by Barb Truex.

Mixing: Dave Bunker. Additional production assistance by Dianne Ballon.

Special Thanks to WMPG

WMPG, Portland, Maine's community radio arranged for the venue and provided the live stream and radio broadcast of this show.

The show was a fundraiser for WMPG's PowerUP! Campaign, which seeks to raise $250,000 to upgrade the signal strength of the station's main transmitter and move it to a better location.

If you like this show, don't miss the chance to donate to WMPG! We hope to bring this show back in 2010.

Here's some info to help you get there:

• Date/Time: 7-9PM EST on Sat, Oct 31 2009
• Location: Talbot Lecture Hall (AKA Luther Bonney Auditorium) on the USM Portland Campus. On the 1st floor of Luther Bonney Hall
• Street Address: Around 92 Bedford St, Portland, Maine

Here, I've circled where it is for you:

Some More Good Stuff:

• Google Map of Portland Campus
• Map and Directions Page on USM's site

Driving Directions:

From I-295:

Follow I-295 to Exit 6B, Forest Avenue North. At the first traffic light, turn left onto Bedford Street. Enter the USM parking garage by taking the next first left onto Surrenden Street immediately after the Alumni Skywalk.

Getting Across Campus:

Parking will be directly in front of the Woodbury Campus Center. Head away from the campus center, up the walkway, which will lead you right to Luther Bonney. Follow signs and enter first flow - Talbot Lecture Hall is just on your left.

The event, co-sponsored by WMPG and featuring members of the Mad Horse Theater Company, will feature 5 original radio plays by Fred Greenhalgh, Mark LaFlamme, Kevin Anderson, and Roger Gregg. Similar to the old time radio plays of the 1940s, the live show will also be broadcast and sound effects and music will be created live.

"Different groups have been doing this type of show around the country and I thought it was time to bring it to Portland," said Fred Greenhalgh, Director and Producer of FinalRune Productions and DJ at WMPG, "I'm trying to raise the ante by featuring a range of challenging and exciting original stories. The show will be packed with both thrills and chills and showcase the power of 'the theater of the mind.' It will be a really fun night."

The stories range from the darkly funny to the terrifically dark: a city couple moves to a country mansion to find that all is not as it seems, a man finds himself doomed to fall in love with the same cursed woman, ice fisherman in Maine get an unexpected chill one winter's night, and a company will rent you laborers at a firesale price... just don't send any of the living too close to their work.

Radio drama consists of three basic parts - actors reading dialogue, sound effects, and music. The cast for the Halloween production are experienced local stage and voiceover actors, including members of the Mad Horse Theater Company, who recently collaborated with FinalRune Productions in the re-creation of three "Golden Era" radio plays. Sound effects will be created manually in the style of shows such as Prairie Home Companion and original music will be performed live.

Tickets for the show are $10 general admission and $5 for USM students and children, and are available for purchase online: http://halloween09.eventbrite.com/. Proceeds benefit WMPG's PowerUP! Campaign, which seeks to raise $250,000 to upgrade the signal strength of the station's main transmitter and move it to a better location. The power increase and antenna relocation will dramatically increase the number of potential listeners in the station's signal range, from 35,000 to 185,000.

The show can also be heard broadcast locally on 90.9 and 104.1 FM, and on WMPG's live internet stream: http://www.wmpg.org. The show will also be available for download on FinalRune's website, http://www.finalrune.com.

About FinalRune Productions

FinalRune Productions is dedicated to producing compelling original audio drama. Since their creation in 2006, FinalRune has released nearly a dozen works, including the Ogle-Award winning "Waiting for a Window," and more recently, the critically-lauded re-creation of "The Most Dangerous Game." Downloads of plays, production photographs, and articles on the craft are available on FinalRune's website, http://www.finalrune.com

Recording the opening scenes of "The Most Dangerous Game"

In this story, wealthy big-game hunter Sanger Rainsford falls off his boat in the middle of the Caribbean and finds himself on a curious island. He finds the mansion of General Zaroff, a Cossack who has a taste for the hunt, and will go to any extreme to keep himself interested...

On September 13 FinalRune completed field recordings for our latest effort, a re-creation of classic OTR tales done in collaboration with the Mad Horse Theater Company... And it was rad!

FinalRune's dedication to field recording sent us to some interesting locations on this one... "The Most Dangerous Game," a story of a hunter who becomes the hunted, was recorded at Mad Horse's new theater space in South Portland and in the woods behind producer Fred Greenhalgh's house. "Sorry, Wrong Number" was also produced at Mad Horse's space, using a large room and an improvised sound booth. The classic tale of terror, "Three Skeleton Key," was recorded on-location at Goat Island Light, a charming lighthouse just off the coast of Cape Porpoise, Maine.

Tons of photos of the shoot are available on FinalRune's Flickr Page. Look for the first of these productions to be released on September 24!

The 2-hr live radio event will feature original work from writers Fred Greenhalgh, Mark LaFlamme, Kevin Anderson, and Roger Gregg.

The stories range from the darkly funny to the terrifically dark: a city couple moves to a country mansion to find that all is not as it seems, a man finds himself doomed to fall in love with the same cursed woman, ice fisherman in Maine get an unexpected chill one winter's night, and a company will rent you laborers at a firesale price... just don't send any of the living too close to their work.

The show will be held from 7-9PM EST on Halloween and is being performed as a benefit for WMPG's PowerUP! Campaign, which seeks to raise $250,000 to upgrade the signal strength of the station's main transmitter and move it to a better location. The show will be performed before a live audience, and simultaneously broadcast and offered as a live internet stream. The show will also be archived in podcast format on Radio Drama Revival.

For more information, or to make reservations, contact FinalRune or check out the event on Facebook.

Wait, what -- ?! A champion of modern audio drama is... going to do an OTR re-make?

Never fear. While I'll be the first to admit that OTR re-makes have been done to death, we've agreed that OTR is like radio drama's Shakespeare -- and who will tell you that Shakespeare is holding back the theatre medium?

Also, the goal isn't to just take the old script and imitate the original as closely as possible, ads for Roma wine and all. Instead, we're going back to the original text (for plays that were adapted from short stories), listening to the various recordings (most of the popular OTR plays have 3-4 versions in circulation) and removing the technical limitations of 1940 from our thinking about these stories. Like a great cover artist, we'll bring something of ourselves into these classics, rather than try for verisimilitude with the past.

Which exact works will you hear? Well... we're not ready to share that yet. However, more to the point, is that we're happy to announce when. The first run of stories (there will be three) will be released in September.

As previously announced, FinalRune's production of Waiting for a Window won the Gold Ogle Award, an international audio drama award for Best Fantasy Audio Drama.

The "Ogle" is so named for Charles Ogle, who played the first Frankenstein's creation in Edison's silent 1910 film of the famous science fiction horror novel. The award celebrates the best fantasy/audio production of the year. Fantasy includes magical "high" fantasy, sword and sorcery, horror, modern urban fantasy, and other things that don't fall under the criteria of Science Fiction. "Window" fit because it falls on the speculative fiction side of things.

Producer Fred Greenhalgh personally flew to Minneapolis to receive the award on July 2.

It's a few miles to Minneapolis from Maine, but the trip was well worth the effort. I had an awesome time hanging with radio buddies Jerry Stearns, Brian Price and Kris Markman of Great Northern Audio Theater as well as Jeff Adams from Icebox Radio Theater.

Fred says that should he make it out again, he'll spend more time at CONvergence, having been stunned at how much fun it was (who would think geeks could throw such lavish parties?), and how many great people were there. CONvergence offered a fairly strong serving of audio/podcasting related panels as well as writing panels.

Pictures available on FinalRune's Facebook page... Now to get working on something to enter for the 2009 contest!

The "Ogle" is so named for Charles Ogle, who played the first Frankenstein's creation in Edison's silent 1910 film of the famous science fiction horror novel. The award celebrates the best fantasy/audio production of the year. Fantasy includes magical "high" fantasy, sword and sorcery, horror, modern urban fantasy, and other things that don't fall under the criteria of Science Fiction.

Producer/writer Fred Greenhalgh will be headed out to Minneapolis, Minnesota to collect the award on July 2. Rumor has it he'll also be helping Great Northern Audio Theater put on their annual Mark Time Award live radio show.

UPDATE: Details on receiving the Ogle Award.

The show is a one hour program that is the brainchild of Lance Roger Axt, of Play it By Ear Productions and more recently, AudioComics. The show is in association with KUNM and will be broadcast, recorded, and hopefully released to the world digitally!

Once it's available, we'll try to link it here on the FinalRune site. "A Drink Before the Dark" is a short prelude/spin-off of FinalRune's upcoming "Lullaby Canyon."

A Promise of Spring

For those of us so blessed to live in the temperate regions, the time of year is here again where scent, sounds and light reappear after an austere winter. Feet's worth of snow has melted off, leaving mud and muck and a silly grin that warm days are coming after all.

So while it's tempting to lose oneself in eager planning for outdoor adventure and projects (you should see the garden we're planning this year!) it's also a great time to focus on growth of the audio medium. And it's been an eventful time for that, as well.

In the month of March I had the incredible pleasure of traveling to Ireland to meet Roger Gregg, stay in a 17th c. historic stone manor, romp around the countryside and be chased by sheep. The ideas birthed by that trip have turned into a series of meetings since returning home and are now are being to shape into new projects. Portland, Maine is a small city, to be sure, but one where numerous refugees from the DCs, NYCs, and LAs are heading to enjoy the good life and bringing incredible talent with them.

So despite the depression and funk that most of the world seems to be in right now, here at FinalRune it's only joy, adventure, and free spirit. But then again, we do what we do because we love it, not because we expect (or have ever gotten) a paycheck.

A Trip to Ireland

Ahh, Ireland. 'Trad in pubs, drunken singing, kissing the blarney stone, and leprechauns, no? Well, not exactly...

I'd been dreaming of a trip to Ireland since I first learned of Roger Gregg's involvement with the Gaiety School of Acting's weeklong radio acting workshop.

The plan was to arrange a trip to correspond with that course and participate in some way. While Plan A didn't work out, the window of opportunity worked out between work schedule, money, and frequent flyer miles, so rather than go somewhere lame with palm trees, it was to Ireland beautiful Amy and I headed to for our spring vacation.

While no one will accuse Ireland of being tropical, it was a fair shade warmer than the last throes of our Maine winter. Trust me, being able to stretch the legs, see some spectacular scenery, and hunker down for a proper pint in a traditional pub was nearly worth the trip itself. But wait, there's more.

Roger was an incredible gracious host, taking us on a tour of RTE studios and to a Gaeity School of Acting devising workshop dress rehearsal. We spent much time at restaurants, cafes, pubs and clubs discussing the radio arts, where they are, where they're headed, what makes it good, and what fun projects the future should hold.

It's far too early to say anything official, but Roger and I batted around several ideas for collaborative opportunities and maybe one or two of them will actually pan out.

Suffice to say, it was a huge treat to see Roger's studio, get a whole pile of Crazy Dog schwag, and see Dublin through the eyes of a local (man did I wish I knew this town was out there when looking for colleges!). Thanks again Roger, and hope to see you again soon, on this continent or another.

Tune into Radio Drama Revival to hear Roger's latest work, The Heart of Morphine, and to hear an exclusive "fireside chat" held in his Dublin studio.

Short Shorts Released

Just before my trans-Atlantic trip I was charged with the task of coming up with content for my regular show, Radio Drama Revival. I already was running an episodic program (the pulp war adventure Order is Orders), but since my absence fell on the station's semi-annual "Begathon" fundraiser, I wanted something a little bit special.

And so it was that my first short shorts were created, with me stabbing out in no particular direction except to involve the theme of begging for pledges. I took as much inspiration as I could from Tom Lopez's 2 Minute Film Noir and Chillin' Cell Phone Theater, and ended up, I hope, somewhere completely my own.

And heck, even if it wasn't original, it was a lot of fun, and special thanks to FinalRune regulars Philip Hobby, Joe Duley, and Charly Duley for stepping in on a Sunday afternoon to get it all done. This was the first show I've ever recorded and produced in a day, and I think they make it through the frenzied production schedule rather well.

But give it a listen to see for yourself. You can listen online at Radio Drama Revival.

FinalRune to Be Haunting Halloween

Previously I've mentioned that the next coming show will be Lullaby Canyon, an adventure through the underworld through the lens of Southwest mythology. While this will be the next "official" FinalRune story, that doesn't mean there won't be more stories in the meantime!

There are a few particularly exciting FinalRune projects in the works, the biggest being our first live stage show to be held on Halloween. WMPG is in the midst of raising money for a new transmitter (bringing the signal up to 4500 watts -- which will add close to 100,000 listeners!), and what better way to rally support around the radio than to host a one of a kind event?

So we're looking at a 90 minute show live at an auditorium at the University of Southern Maine, which will also be broadcast live over the air. All proceeds from the event (ticket sales and such) will go directly to help the station, and the show will be re-broadcast ad infinitum over the web free-of-charge. Though web listeners will be most welcome to help out the station with a donation themselves.

What will listeners hear? I've been increasingly encouraged to steer away from suspense in favor of comedy, and we will most assuredly hear an adaptation on one of Roger Gregg's works from Crazy Dog Live (where I'm going to find all the live SFX whiz-gigs is yet to be determined). I will be coming up with a script myself, and to round out 90 minutes, I'll be looking for one more script, preferably from a local writer.

If you're in the Portland, Maine area (or feel like a drive to this lovely neck of the woods) mark your calendar now for 7-9PM on Halloween. It will be a once-in-a-long-time kind of experience!

And that's it. Thanks for reading another edition of RuneScapes.

You'll get another one of these as soon as I've got something else I'm ready to share with you, and don't hesitate to contact me with anything you'd like to talk about -- great story ideas, remarks on the craft, things you'd like to see, amazing opportunities I'm failing to see, or profane visions of the sacred.

Thanks for listening!

Fred Greenhalgh
The Ridiculously Optimistic One

In this Issue:

You're getting this because you've been involved in some capacity with FinalRune in the past few years, whether as part of the actual production or more distantly -- enjoying it and telling me so, telling others, inspiring me, teaching me, or giving me a solid whack on the head when needed.

So, thanks for all that, and I tentatively welcome you to what I hope to become a regular sort of newsletter for the productions.

Now, if your first reaction is Tourettes-like cursing at the prospect of yet another email, then hey, the unsubscribe is very handy, you have my humblest apologies, and I shan't bother ye again.

But... permitting you can stand a little bit more verbiage in your inbox, I hope you'll get something of this little ditty, where I'm hoping to divulge some behind-the-scenes info on each production, share more stories, release work before it goes up anywhere else and undoubtedly try and fail to enlighten.

Whether you're a die-hard fan of my stories (and if you are, please tell me) or still wondering why you're on this list, I hope you give me a shot and even more hope you get something out of this email.

It's an honor to have your attention.

Coming Soon: A Trip to "Lullaby Canyon"

On a long highway stretching from one end of the desert to another, a traveler staggers dazed as phantoms dance across the horizon. He's from the North, this kid, and so the experience of the desert is part reality and part gumbo of cultural mythology -- creaky ghost towns, shifty gunslingers, circling vultures and Native American legend. As his spirit nearly collapses on the side of the lonely road, he's picked up by a passing van and brought to a desolate town that wakes up after the sun goes down...

FinalRune's next work, "Lullaby Canyon" (originally a standalone short story called "Some Road Through the Desert") is being reworked in its transformation to audio to be a the sequel to my first work, Day of the Dead.

I wrote the short story only days after being off the road, having just landed in New Orleans after a month-long wander across the coasts in my Miata roadster. I was enamored with the southwest as we traveled through on long highways where you could let go of the wheel and just hit the pedal, through shifting edges and landscape and red and brown.

Beautiful country, and a place worth spending time, if not a lifetime, though I may be too much a lover of Maine's trees and ocean.

I'm working on the adaptation now, which in reality is actually still in the research phase, as I immerse myself in stories of Southwest myth and legend, and in particular tales of the underworld. While we're leaving Orpheus behind, this story does follow the traveler into another world, as he finds ghosts return to a ghost town after dark and himself trapped in a bet with a surly rogue that he can't play a guitar lick to save his life.

Know of any particularly great works of the Southwest you'd like to share? Native American legends? Stories realized in sound -- dramatized, or told? Poems or short stories? Let me know, I'd love to hear!

You can read the original tale -- Some Road Through the Desert here: http://www.cenophobia.com/some-road-through-the-desert/ -- as well as hear me read it aloud!

FinalRune To Release Short Story Originals of Dramatized Work

Speaking of stories of the written type, I've gotten so many requests that I've decided to release the original short stories of FinalRune's adaptations. It's a bit of a fun experiment, as while I doubt these stories are fit for publishing in the New Yorker, why the heck can't I put them on my own site? It's not like I'm paying to have my own book published, and it gives another avenue where people can experience FinalRune.

I'll probably work in reverse chronological order, starting with the release of Waiting for a Window this month and the rest in January. If you think this is a good idea, or a particularly bad one, I'm game for hearing that too.

What Would You Like to See in a FinalRune Podcast?

And, since I don't have enough things to do already, I'm playing with the idea of getting out at least one piece of audio for the FinalRune site a month. It won't be fully produced audio drama, but maybe soundbits, bytes, story fragments or other material. And heck, we know we have some outtakes from some of the shows we've done.

Not a lot of audio drama groups seem to be telling stories around the story (notable exception being ZBS' Meatballs' Meatballs), but I'm hoping that I can help keep the fire going even when I'm not actively producing a tale, and maybe get a few more ears on my work.

Okay, so that's that. Still reading? Great! I haven't failed yet. And hey, maybe I'm lucky, and you even liked it...

So expect to get another one of these next month, if you're up for it, and don't hesitate to contact me with anything you'd like to talk about -- great story ideas, remarks on the craft, things you'd like to see, amazing opportunities I'm failing to see... Just, um, avoid baseball. Not really my thing.

Thanks for listening!

Fred Greenhalgh
Dude Who Makes the Dramas
Contact FinalRune
twitter (yes, twitter, believe me, I've gotten grief on it already)

The creation is RuneScapes, a new monthly (I hope) newsletter updating, if only briefly, what's been up in the realm of mystery and where we hope to go next.

To sign up, enter your email on the box to the left. To read some of the content, um, check out: RuneScapes for Dec 2008

FinalRune is proud to be featured among the likes of Crazy Dog Audio Theater, Black Jack Justice, The Grist Mill, Dreamseed, and more. As you may recall, I decried the need for such a store about a year ago in the "Original Radio Drama in the 21st Century" article, and my oh my, did Xander deliver with Echo Fiction.

Starting with our next production, Waiting for a Window, you will ONLY be able to download clean, high-quality versions of our shows from Echo Fiction. You will still be able to stream the shows via this website.

"Waiting for a Window" marks FinalRune's second foray into a piece recorded predominantly in the field, and will be recorded on docks, boats, bars and woods in Southern Maine. While Maine is not quii-ite as tropical as the setting of the story itself, there is certainly enough "wild" life to be found to make convincing audio.

Expect more updates on the drama both here and at Radio Drama Revival.

To that end, get listening! FinalRune sincerely hopes you'll enjoy the stories available through this site, but hey, if you ARE willing to help support new original audio stories, the donate button is available in full-force (see right) and you'll hear multiple pleas on the new mp3 files.

Thanks for listening, and for your support.

It's always been a goal for finalrune.com to become more of an audio theater hub/knowledge source, and while my show Radio Drama Revival has taken over much of my ambitions to feature and promote exciting new work, I still want to use this site as a place to discuss thoughts and experience with the craft. On that light, soon we will be producing some audio production tutorials and other hands on learning pieces based on our experience in the studio.

But of course, our first love is the story, and in early spring expect to hear more about our next release, Waiting for a Window, a tale about a man who ends up on a strange tropical island where it's oddly impossible to escape.

Until then, keep on listening and let us know what you think of our shows!

An expected Halloween debut is providing the impetus to pull together this truly chilling tale of two boys who head to Downeast Maine expecting a fun weekend, but who quickly uncover a world of horror too terrible to imagine.

With a whole new approach to production based on observation at the National Audio Theater Festival, and feedback from audio pros from Roger Gregg to Bill Dufris to Richard Fish, this will be the first FinalRune Production done in stereo sound recorded in the field using a single microphone which all the actors will work around. The anticipated result: blood curdling horror for your ears!

For those of you less keen on the terrible, FinalRune will follow-up in early 2008 with the story Waiting for a Window, about a man who stumbles across a mysterious island while on a journey somewhere else, and finds out leaving is trickier than he imagined...

To accommodate our loyal website fans, the drama will appear here FIRST, available pro bono for some period of time, and then be monetized (while a free, lower-fi version will be available through the Radio Drama Revival! podcast).

I'll shortly have the photos up from the whole event, with minimal omissions to protect the innocent. Until then, good listening!

Headed to Missouri yourself? Drop us a line and let's meet up!

It was a frenetic, cramped, mac-and-cheese driven five hour session pulled together in the middle of finals week for our cast of USM students, but when the dust settled, Fred left the studio with complete vocal tracks for the upcoming fantasy drama Fall of the Hero.

Now comes the fun part -- post-production! Layering sound effects, score, tweaking lines to perfection, and listening to it over and over again are on the agenda for Fred in the next weeks as he prepares for the May 31st debut on Radio Drama Revival! And, while our opinion is always biased, this looks to be FinalRune's finest yet.

While we're honing the tracks, take a look at some production photos! And be sure to tune in May 31 on WMPG or the podcast thereafter on Radio Drama Revival!

The original site, developed in php, was very adequate but Fred decided that the interoperability, ease of assigning categories, hierarchy, and structure made WordPress a great way to keep the site manageable as FinalRune grows. He also is a little obsessive-compulsive and can't stop working on the site even on beautiful spring days.

A bevy of plug-ins from the WordPress community brings the site alive, with full widget support, with Zenphoto Gallery thumbnails, an easy contact form, category listing gadget, and more.

As with any major update, there are bound to be a few bugs to squash. Please contact us if you step on any!