Author: Omar Willey

Omar Willey was born at St. Frances Cabrini Hospital in Seattle and grew up near Lucky Market on Beacon Avenue. He believes Seattle is the greatest city on Earth and came to this conclusion by travelling much of the Earth. He is a junior member of Lesser Seattle and, as an oboist, does not blow his own trumpet. Contact him at omar [at] seattlestar [dot] net
Theater

West of Lenin’s Demon Dreams: Folklore and Forgetfulness

Mr. Smith’s handling of the circular narrative is quite refreshing and refuses to become yet another simple story that gives easy answers. The ending even calls into question the entire evening’s storytelling itself. It is a substantial and enjoyable script, aided by six extremely good actors. Matthew Aguayo, Carter Rodriquez, Heather Persinger, Susanna Burney, Chris MacDonald and Sara Peterson give the production their all.

Radio

The Ghastly Impermanence: Learning a Hard Lesson–The BBC Audio Drama Awards

At first glance it would appear the BBC have made progress after the failure of the Giles Cooper Awards. Award-winning material, especially of such high caliber, should be made available to the public so that they can revisit it. The Beeb have at least re-broadcast most of the plays, and they have made a couple available for purchase. However, the issue of access to all the plays remains inelegantly unresolved.

Radio

Radio Drama: Beyond Nostalgia and Nerddom

Just as everything bad about Hollywood was bad about Broadway before it, everything bad about television was bad about radio. Virtually every generic trope of television stems from American broadcast having its roots in radio. But where television has run these genres into the ground, it has at least attempted variations on the themes. By comparison, contemporary audio drama is positively hidebound.