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| Ron N. Butler |
TE:
Welcome to
Up Around the Corner, Ron. Please, tell
us a little about yourself and your writing and voice work.
RNB: Hmmm... Am I a voice actor? Actual
actors would probably disagree. I’m directing an audio adaptation of H.P.
Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror” at present, but I don’t tell people I’m a
director. (I find directing a chore, for one thing.) Most of my writing output
is scripts for the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company and I also pitch in to perform
with them as needed, so – No, I wouldn’t call myself an actor.
But I do write. And, as
I said, most of my writing is for ARTC. I’ve been working with the Company
since about 1990, so the scripts have sort of – accumulated.
I do an original audio
series, “Rory Rammer, Space Marshal.” It’s an homage-cum-pastiche of the boys’ radio / TV science-fiction serials of the
late Forties and early Fifties, like “Space Patrol,” “Tom Corbett, Space
Cadet,” and “Rocky Jones, Space Ranger.” But with a twist: They’re humorous. (Intended
to be humorous, anyway.) There are about two dozen of those now and the Company
has published a CD with five episodes, “Rory Rammer, Space Marshal.” [Advertisement]
The Company does a good
business in audio adaptations of the works of H.P. Lovecraft and I’ve written
two such scripts: “The Colour Out of Space” and “The Call of Cthulhu.” Lovecraft
isn’t easy to adapt. His writing style was archaic even in the Twenties, he was
getting paid by the word (when he was getting paid at all), and there’s very
little dialogue. (Not that I’m going to complain. I did a little re-editing
work on Thomas Fuller’s adaptation of “The Dunwich Horror” for a series of
shows the Company will be doing in October. That particular story does have dialogue.
It’s eye-watering.) I’m actually kinda proud “Colour” and “Call” came out as
well as they did. A community theater in Athens,
GA used my “Call” adaptation as
the basis for a stage production.
I’m currently working on
an adaptation of the late H. Beam Piper’s “Lone Star Planet” for the Sound of
Liberty Project and should have it done by the end of the year. And I was
approached after this last DragonCon about doing an original adaptation of H.G.
Wells’s “War of the Worlds.” I found a fresh approach for that and will start
working on it after I finish a first draft of “Lone Star.”
As I said, I mostly do
scripts. I find them easy; I just write down what the voices in my head are
saying. But I do write prose. I started writing with two short-story sales way
back in the Eighties and hope to do more in the future. And better, too. A few
short-story adaptations of “Rory Rammer” stories have been published in the
on-line mag “Planetary Stories,” and I’m stuck about halfway through one ep
titled “Luna Shall Be Dry!”
TE: When you write do you have
an audience in mind? If so, who do you see as your audience?
RNB: When I'm writing audio
scripts, I certainly do have a specific audience in mind: Whoever will be
sitting in those chairs in front of the stage.
Sorry. Not trying to be
a smartass. Short explanation: When the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company began --
1985 -- it was really On The Radio: A thirteen-week series of one-hour programs
on WGST in Atlanta,
funded by a grant from the Citizens and Southern Bank. But that was one of the
last gasps of on-air radio theater in the United States. Radio programming
nowadays is what they call "seamless," meaning anyone switching on
his or her radio, when he comes into the kitchen or starts up her car, can
follow what's going on without any preamble. Music. Sports. Consumer advice. Politics.
Radio theater isn't like that so it has gone away. (No. National Public Radio
doesn't do it, either.)
Luckily, other
technologies have come along that can kinda-sorta take the place of radio
broadcasting. Cassette tapes, to start with, bridging into CDs and now into
podcasts and MP3 downloads. ARTC can make juuuust about enough in sales to keep
going.
And it turns out that
watching people put on a "radio" show can be pretty entertaining,
too. Nominally, it's just people standing in front of microphones reading from
scripts, but throw in music [live music when we can get it] and the antics at
the foley table and you can hold an audience's attention, especially with good
acting and a good script. So we do live shows.
Sorry. That wasn't a
"short explanation."
So my audience is often
a literal audience. And, yes, that affects how I write.
We do shows at a lot of
science fiction conventions, which works out because the Company tends toward
science fiction, fantasy and horror. I can expect that the audience will be
familiar with the tropes of those genres. If I say "alien," I don't
have to explain that I'm not talking about a Guatemalan with an expired visa. A
lot of science-fictional concepts have found their way into general popular
culture over the last fifty years, but still there are limits.
For instance: Every
year, about six weeks before our annual big show at DragonCon in Atlanta, we do a show at a smaller SF convention up in Chattanooga called
LibertyCon. Often, we use the LibertyCon show to try out new scripts we'll be
doing at DragonCon. But we have to watch it: The LibertyCon crowd is older,
more print-oriented and more conservative than a DragonCon audience. (Baen Books
has a heavy presence for their military SF at LibertyCon.)
A coupla years back, I
did an adaptation of H. Beam Piper's "He Walked Around the Horses." (It's
one of the earliest alternate-history stories. A Napoleonic-era British
diplomat is whisked into an alternate reality where the American Revolution
failed, the French Revolution never happened, and no one has ever heard of any
"Emperor Napoleon." It's an epistolary story, consisting of letters
and reports, and I thought it would be an easy, fast adaptation. Hoo boy, was I
wrong!) Piper worked in a joke at the end: The British Prime Minister, Sir Arthur
Wellesley, cannot figure out who one person referred to often in the diplomat's
papers is: The Duke of Wellington.
The night of the first
performance at LibertyCon, I told our producer that, after the script was done,
he should offer a free CD to anyone in the audience who could explain the joke
and I would pay for the CD. In the event, half the audience not only got the
joke, they laughed at it so we never made the offer.
At DragonCon, we would
have had to make the offer. In the end, we decided not to do the script at
DragonCon at all, specifically because it would not have engaged the typical
audience there and a good fraction of them would not have the history
background to make any sense of it.
If we do a
Steampunk-themed convention, we try to have scripts that are at least somewhat
related to that theme. (Wells and Verne adaptations are
"grandfathered" in.) We did a show at an academic conference on myth
and mythology a few years back, and I wrote a script called "Plato's
Cave," a talk show in which a Jerry Springer-type host interviews mythical
creatures and archetypes. (It almost didn't get produced because of worries
about "political content": I had a bit about the Nazi Aryan Superman
and the New Communist Man sharing an apartment.)
We do three or four
shows a year at the Academy Theatre in Avondale Estates. That audience is a
little more "mainstream," so those shows tend more toward horror, less
toward science fiction. (Everybody has seen "Friday the Thirteenth,"
not everyone has seen "2001: A Space Odyssey.") We also do a
Christmas show, "An Atlanta Christmas," based on a stage play
originally written by Thomas E. Fuller, our head writer for many years. That's
strictly mainstream. There are a lot of children's parts in the script and we
expect children and families in the audience.
So we watch our
language. Actually, I try to watch my language all the time. A lot of that is
the influence of Thomas E. Fuller. (See above.) Thomas was a terrifically
talented writer at any form he turned his hand to -- plays, poetry, stories,
radio. In his radio work, he was aware that anyone might hear his words
broadcast. Really, he was so good that he didn't have to resort to
"adult" (bad) language to make a point. About the worst he would use
were "hell," "damn," and "bastard." And he used
those sparingly so they had force, instead of becoming background noise. (He
wrote a horror piece set at a phone-sex service and the most salacious word in
the script is "bottom." But it's a genuinely horrifying -- and very
funny! -- piece.)
I don't think I
self-censor, except in the sense that there are just some things I don't want
to write about. I've had occasional quasi-political objections raised against
scripts of mine, and an actor once protested so vehemently that a Halloween
script (concerning the punishment of an SS officer in Hell) was "too
horrible" that it got put on the shelf for a year. My "Rory
Rammer" scripts are based on children's programs, but they're not intended
for children. There are oblique references in "RR" scripts to
same-sex marriage, human-robot sex, and "leather" bars, but they're
sufficiently oblique that I believe they would go over a youngster's head.
Yeah, I have an audience
in mind when I write. I know a lot
of them by name.
TE: Do you write your scripts
with certain members of ARTC in mind when devising the characters and dialogue?
How are people selected, assigned, volunteered for a part in a script’s
production?
RNB: For a continuing series (that
would be mostly "Rory Rammer, Space Marshal," but also
"Unresolved Mysteries: Solved While U Wait!" and a coupla episodes I
wrote for Daniel Taylor's series
"Bumper's Crossroads"), there is generally one of our regular
ensemble of actors who has a lease on (I won't say "owns") a role.
There have been three or four Rory Rammers, but David Benedict has read the
role for at least the last five years. And a bit of David's personality has
crept into "Rory."
I've had less continuity-luck
with Rory's genius-but-naïve sidekick, "Skip" Sagan. I had one very
fine actor (Jack Mayfield) in that role for about four years, and Skip grew
considerably over the course of the scripts from that period, maturing and also
becoming a bit like Jack. Alas, Jack's participation in ARTC has dropped off
and we're back to "revolving Skips." In the end, with ARTC the
director makes casting decisions. Some directors' decisions have set my teeth
on edge. But that's life in a collaborative art form.
For adaptations and
original, non-series pieces, characters are driven by the plot requirements,
for me. Yeah, it's not rare that I'll read back over what I've written and
think, "Hal could do this really well," or "Clair can do what I
want here in her sleep," but the available actors don't drive the script. If
nothing else, ARTC scripts are frequently produced multiple times, often years
apart. And that means substantially no overlap in casting. Better to let the
characters be whatever they need to be and let the actors scramble to keep up. Don't
actors always say they love an artistic challenge? Luckily, it's not hard to
find actors in Atlanta.
(Now, good actors...!)
Part Two: How Does
One Become a Member of the Glittering Constellation of Stars That Is the
Atlanta Radio Theatre Company?
Answer: Show up
at Bill Ritch's basement on a Wednesday evening. Seriously. We have some
contacts with the larger Atlanta
artistic community, but mostly we're approached after a performance -- at a
convention or at the Academy Theatre -- by people asking how they can get in on
this. Most of them are actors, but we're also happy to recruit folks who want
to do tech or music or write or just fetch-and-carry stuff. (Oh! And audio
editors. We desperately and chronically need audio editors. If you are an audio
editor and can edit together one or more of our considerable backlog of
studio-recorded production voicetracks, we will worship you as a mythic hero. We
might even find a way to pay you for it. We are that desperate.)
If you are not too
obviously a fan-boy, Bill Ritch (President) or David Benedict (VP-Production)
will give you directions over to Bill's place in Stone
Mountain. Show up at 7:30
and come downstairs. You'll be asked to introduce yourself and tell us what
you're interested in doing. Then sit down and soak it in. Our production cycle
is usually five or six weeks long, so odds are pretty good that we'll be
starting a new production within a few weeks. If you're standing around during
read-throughs, you will likely be given a small part to read, just so we can
see what you've got. If you've got some talent and presence (and cold-read
well), you may hold onto the role. If you're actually, like -- good, you
may get assigned to a larger part.
Caveat: ARTC is
an all-volunteer organization. (With a very few exceptions which I will not go
into, just for reasons of space and complexity.) As Thomas E. Fuller used to
say: "We are reviving a dead art form. It's taking longer than we
thought." And: "There is Adventure in Sound! (But Damn Little
Money.)" Or: "A 501c3 non-profit corporation. (Not by intent.)" We
do not pay actors, mostly because we have no money. Radio theatre is a lot of
fun and it will fill space on your resume, but you can't make a living at it. Heck,
you can't make pizza money at this! We are even below the minimum size required
to get grants organizations to look at us.
 |
| David Benedict, Kat Nowack, Ronald
Zukowski, Hal Wiedeman, Daniel Kiernan |
We are non-union by
necessity. This means that the local actors' unions discourage any of their
members from appearing with ARTC. Over the years, we have lost some fine, fine
actors due to union obligations. (Every year, the local SAG and AFTRA do some
radio theatre themselves: A one-night restaging of old-time radio shows from
the Thirties and Forties at a local playhouse to benefit the Atlanta Food Bank.
A big deal is always made of the way the SAG/AFTRA actors are donating their
time and talent. Every year, all their technical support is provided by ARTC
members and folks who used to be with ARTC. All non-union and never
acknowledged as such. This always tickles me.)
[Later: While Ron and I
were putting this interview together, the 2012 “Lend Me an Ear” show came and
went and Ron says: “Wonder of wonders! – the non-union tech crew were
recognized at the show this year!”]
If you are a writer:
Bring a script. A short one, not the 300-pager that would have to be produced
as a mini-series. It should be an audio script, not your Major Motion Picture
screenplay. If you don't know the difference, come and watch a while. Ask for
an old ARTC script so you can see what our (limpidly flexible) formatting looks
like. We often read (short) script submissions before getting started on
rehearsals. You will be able to be critiqued by a substantial fraction of the
people in the United States
today who are actually writing radio scripts. (And everybody else in the room.)
We know how to be firm and fair without being mean. If you find this too much
to bear, you may need to find another venue. But we are not looking to run new people
off; a dying art form needs new blood continuously. And the current leadership
all remember when we were newbies and the Founders were good enough to take us
all in.
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| ARTC Logo |
TE: Cool opportunity for anyone
in the Atlanta
area. Now, here’s a change-up: Are
there any two science fiction / fantasy authors, living or dead, you wish you
could ask about their work, their life, whatever?
RNB: No.
TE: Well, that was brief. ;)
RNB: -- mainly because I’m not comfortable talking about writing with anyone.
I get intimidated very easily, because I’m doing this mostly by the seat of my
pants. I can’t discuss writing theory at all. I’ve never taken a
creative writing course or participated in a week-long workshop in some rustic
setting. My grasp of grammar is a little weak. I don’t know much about formal
story structure. As far as Great Literature goes, I am an unlettered engineer. What
I mostly try to do is to tell stories. Funny stories, a lot of the time. The
sort of stories that I like to read, stories I wish I had run across as a
youngster. Stories where things happen and people do things. Good people
and bad people, but always people who have interesting things going on around
them and interesting thoughts in their heads. That latter matters: Larry Niven
is a smart guy and a smart writer, and I always feel a little smarter for a few
days after reading a Niven story, for having taken a ride in a sharp
character’s head.
I’ve been working on adapting some of H. Beam Piper’s
stories. I remember reading Piper stories when I was younger -- age twelve and
up. They were great “storyteller-type stories,” and they stayed in my memory
for decades. But there were only a certain number of them in the science
fiction anthologies in the public library in Macon, and when I found science-fiction
magazines about age fourteen Piper didn’t seem to be publishing any more.
The reason, of course, being that he had shot himself in
1964.
The standard story about Piper’s suicide, for many years,
was that his agent had keeled over from a heart attack so that Piper didn’t
know about some sales the man had made and thought he was destitute. And being
some sort of right-wing self-sufficiency nut, Piper had subsisted for a while
shooting pigeons out of his apartment window and eating them, but then had put
sheets over all the furniture, written an apologetic suicide note, and shot
himself using one of the guns from his extensive firearms collection.
That’s the story as Fred Pohl tells it, I understand.
It’s a story that practically begs “What If?” (And Piper was
one of the earliest practitioners of alternate-history stories.) What if
someone down in New York
had phoned Piper and let him know he had a check in the mail?
Actually, the story doesn’t make a lot of sense. Piper had some
really rare guns in his collection; was he too addled to think of selling or at
least pawning one to buy food? And how long do you think his neighbors and the
local cops would put up with him pot-shooting pigeons out a window? Pretty soon
it starts to smell like a tale carried by someone who didn’t like Piper very
much (and Pohl didn’t).
Nonetheless, Piper shot himself. You have to wonder why. His
circumstances weren’t great -- getting to be my age, divorced, had recently
quit his life-long job as a railroad night-watchman, slender finances -- not
anything to drive a man to despair.
I’m going to speculate here (with no malicious intent).
A few years back, I did an audio adaptation of Piper’s first
published story, “Time and Time Again,” from 1947. Yes, it’s one of those I
read as a kid and it stuck with me, even though I forgot both the title and the
author for a while there.
As the story begins, U.S. Army Captain Allan Hartley lies
dying of burns and radiation poisoning, a victim of the atomic bomb that
destroyed the city of Buffalo, New York in the early days of the Third
World War. He drifts into unconsciousness --
-- and wakes, in his thirteen-year-old body in Williamsport,
Pennsylvania on a Sunday morning in August of 1945.
As the story goes on, we find that Allan Hartley -- the
adult Allan Hartley -- was a bit of a bad-ass: Army officer. Former investigative reporter. Pulitzer
Prize-winning novelist. Firearms expert. Fluent in Spanish and French with some
German and Russian. Holder of lucrative patents on a couple of chemical
processes.
It was the “firearms” part that made something go *ping!* in
my head. Sometimes stories tell you more about the writer than about what the
writer thinks he’s writing about.
That’s my speculation: “Allan Hartley” is the man H. Beam
Piper wanted to be, when he grew up. And by 1964, he was all grown up and he
wasn’t Allan Hartley. He had a bit of a name in science fiction genre writing,
which was not very respectable back then. He was having problems with his
writing; he brought in a little-acknowledged collaborator, John J. McGuire, to
help with a number of stories. And he was such a private man that I think he
could have hardly avoided being lonely.
He seems to have believed in reincarnation, in a
non-religious way. Maybe he looked at what he did as saving an unsatisfactory
draft to disk so he could try again.
It’s probably really bad manners to ask a suicide’s ghost
why he did what he did. And you couldn’t count on getting a straight answer to
a personal question out of HPB. Or so I’m told.
Doesn’t matter. He’s beyond all men’s questions and all
mortal pains now.
TE: Anyone else?
RNB: I don’t have any worthwhile questions to ask any good writers. Well
-- I’d like to talk with Thomas Fuller, my old head writer at the Atlanta Radio
Theater Company, again, for five minutes. But not to ask any questions. Just to
say, “Thanks.”
I’ve wanted to be a writer -- mostly to be a science fiction
writer -- since the first time a story made the inside of my skull itch. And
I’d done a little bit before Thomas and I ran into each other. But Thomas’s
advice and encouragement were like the push your dad gives you when you first
successfully ride a bike. That wobbly run-up, a shove -- and then you’re sailing
down the street on your own. And you know how from then on.
Thomas was a fine writer, but he was an even better teacher.
He loved -- as the folks around the Company still say -- The Words. He could
see possibilities in an idea, a character, a phrase that the guy who came up
with the idea, the character, the phrase never would. And he was overjoyed to
be able to hand that spark back to you, for you to breathe on, to work on. To
make it even better. So he could read what you did with it.
Thomas is past all mortal pains now, too. And beyond my
thanking him. I hate that.
TE: Anything else you’d like to
add?
RNB: Nope.
Oh, where are my
manners? Thanks, Terry. This was a lot of fun, and only the second time in my
life I’ve been asked to sit for an interview. And that ‘un ended up on the
cutting-room floor. You see -- Never mind. I’ve rattled on long enough as is. Some
other time.
TE: Thanks for the interview,
Ron. I enjoyed your ‘rattling on’ and I think the readers here will too.
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