Origin
story
Re-Imagined Radio's origin was a response to a question.
In Fall 2013, I taught digital storytelling at Washington State University Vancouver. Students built
digital
projects based on The War of the Worlds radio drama. Prequels. Sequels. Extended character
developments. opportunities for community engagement. We planned an exhibition in a downtown
gallery.
See The War of the Worlds, 2013, the first episode of
Re-Imagined
Radio, for more information about this student exhibition.
The Question
"Will visitors understand our stories if they don't know the source?" one student asked. Good question.
And, the origin of Re-Imagined Radio.
"You find the venue"
I asked The Willamette Radio Workshop for help. WRW, a group of Old Time Radio (OTR) enthusiasts, were
keen to help. Founded and led by Sam A. Mowry, and based in Portland, Oregon, they offered live
performances of radio programs from the "Golden Age of Radio," the 1930s to the 1950s. The War of
the Worlds was part of their reportoire. "You find a venue. We'll bring the performance,"
Mowry said.
"You handle the publicity"
For the venue I turned to the historic Kiggins Theatre, built in 1936, and still the heart of downtown
Vancouver, Washington's Art District. "You can use the theatre if you handle the publicity," Dan Wyatt,
owner and manager told me.
That was Re-Imagined Radio's origin. Want to know more? Keep reading for Re-Imagined Radio's Timeline.
Enjoy listening!
— John Barber
Creator, Producer, Host
RiR
timeline
NOTE: The following is a longer read. It's meant to be. It documents Re-Imagined Radio history from origin to present. Despite the detail, I hope you enjoy the story.
First Performance
The first performance by Re-Imagined Radio was a re-creation of the original "The War of the Worlds"
radio broadcast. Willamette Radio Workshop, directed by Sam A. Mowry, provided the performance.
Quite serendipitously, the available date at Kiggins Theatre was October 30, 2013. The seventieth
anniversary of the original broadcast. My students and I began promoting the WRW performance, and their
gallery show.
Long story short, the event was a success! The gallery was packed with visitors pre-performance. Many
returned after. Every seat in the theatre was taken. People stood along the theatre walls, at the back
of the theatre, even in the lobby, watching and listening through the doorway curtains.
Three members of the audience raised their hands when I asked, "Does anyone remember the original
broadcast, seventy years ago?" Serendipity again. The idea to ask this question came to me during my
morning shower. Luckly, I had prepared certificates. The three individuals were invited to the stage.
Recognized. And rewarded with Re-Imagined Radio Certificates of Authentic Listening.
After the hour-long performance, Sam, Dan, and I looked at each other and said, "What's next?"
We agreed on "A Christmas Carol," mid-December. Another sold out performance. We decided to keep going.
Willamette Radio Workshop Period
The Willamette Radio Workshop was performance-based. They focused on OTR content. Artifacts from a time
when radio dramas, stories, and shows were a popular and primary entertainment and information source
for listeners. Each live performance by WRW for Re-Imagined Radio was a study of how
the the orginal radio program might have been produced and broadcast from
radio studios thirty to forty years earlier.
We explored different forms of radio storytelling. Fiction, horror, science fiction, comedy, westerns,
and suspense. I began archiving and curating information and artifacts from our performances using a
website I designed and coded. Opportunities were created for student photographers, videographers,
actors, designers, and social media content creators.
And we expanded our storytelling techniques. A stage was already in place, just in front of the
projection screen. We used the theatre's projector to create backdrops and provide additional
information. The voice actors stood just in front of the screen, so they became part of the image(s).
We offered pre-show entertainment, lobby displays and activities, episode guides, occasional speakers,
and guest writers. Beyond typical concession stand fare, Dan offered wine, beer, and pizza slices during
each performance.
Live sound effects were very popular. Audiences enjoyed watching how
the sound effects artists created believable sounds from improbable objects. We moved their tables and
gear to the front edge of the stage. Some performances included live music. The Christmas Carol
performances sometimes included carolers.
Each performance by The Willamette Radio Workshop was a learning experience. Often "learning by doing."
Research was a requirement of my job at Washington State University Vancouver, and I was struck early on
what a fine research topic this Re-Imagined Radio endeavor would make. Learn more about Re-Imagined Radio's conceptual framework.
Determined to document and share my endeavors publically, I conceived and developed this website as an
archival portfolio. A place to collect information and artifacts about episodes. And curate them so to
make what I was learning easily available to anyone interested.
Information about every episode produced since 2013 is available here. I admit my failure to secure
recordings of our earliest episodes. I was trying to be true to the ephemeral nature of early radio,
often heard only once and then relegated to memory. As visitor traffic to the Re-Imagined Radio website
increased, I realized the need to secure recordings, to preserve and document what we were doing. These
recordings became part of the creative
process. Today, they are the basis for our podcast series, and our YouTube
channel.
Metropolitan Performing Arts Period
Community engagement
In 2017, Willamette Radio Workshop switched their focus to studio productions, thinking of starting a
podcast series. Our last performance together was Laugh Your Dial Off, on September 27,
2017.
Dan Wyatt and I met with Barbara Richardson, Executive Director of Metropolitan
Performing Arts, based in Vancouver, Washington. We agreed to continue together Re-Imagined Radio's live
performances at Kiggins Theatre.
Our first performance together was A Radio Christmas Carol, on December 20, 2017. Several of our performances featured multi-media. We featured live musicians, singers, even dancers. We encouraged dressing as D.B. Cooper for Dan's three-part saga about the man who hijacked a passenger airplane between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, in 1971, and escaped with $200,000 by parachuting from the rear of airplane somewhere over Southwest Washington. Only $5,000 of the ransom money was recovered. Cooper (if that was his name) has not been identified or apprehended. The story is mythic.
With MPA, we frequently re-imagined our radio
re-creations by changing gender roles,
adding more visual projections, and encouraging audience participation. We continued recording
performances and began streaming live and recorded performances on community radio stations KXRW-FM
(Vancouver, WA) and KXRY-FM (Portland, OR).
We considered our performances a unique form of storytelling, based in community engagement. In this
regard, serendipity was again our muse. A Christmas Carol was a favorite of
MPA. The community liked it as well, filling Kiggins Theatre every holiday season. It wasn't long before
we started calling our performances of A Christmas Carol "our holiday
tradition." This tradition continues to present day.
Beyond passive audiences, we sought active community engagement in our productions. MPA had its regular
actors, and drew interested individuals from its classes, or straight from the community. Vancouver
Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle appeared in performances of A Christmas Carol and Lone
Ranger Origin
Story.
Interestingly, Dan Wyatt and I tried this same idea earlier, when we produced The Golden
Age of Superman, (Episode #07, June 18, 2015) starring Vancouver Mayor Timothy Levitt and
other local civic leaders.
Opportunities to learn by doing continued and so did my research. Learn more about Re-Imagined Radio's conceptual framework.
The last live performance of Re-Imagined Radio with Metropolitan Performing Arts was The Maltese
Falcon, on January 22, 2020. It wasn't planned as the last. But serendipity saw that it was.
The COVID Pivot
The COVID pandemic, 2020, with its emergency health regulations, stopped public gatherings and
performances very soon after our performance of The Maltese Falcon, in January 2020.
This prompted a shift from live performances to recorded radio broadcasts and streaming. Our original
partner community radio stations, KXRW-FM and KXRY-FM, who had broadcast and
live streamed our holiday episodes, offered to broadcast future episodes, if we would provide them on a
monthly basis.
The Radio Period
Re-Imagined Radio's first episode produced specifically for radio broadcast was The Skyjacker:
D.B. Cooper Saga Part 3, on November 25, 2020. We've
continued monthly since then. It's a lot of work, time, and effort. Too much for one person, especially
on top of a full-time job. I've employed current and former students over the years to help with social
media, photography, video, animation, and design. The group I work with currently has risen to
outstanding status and I can't thank them enough for all they do.
Their efforts have helped extend Re-Imagined Radio's audience from local to global. We use the digital
recordings of each episodes as the
basis for our podcast series, and our YouTube
channel.
Following devastating cuts to federal government funding for community/public media we've sought
community radio stations interested to include episodes of Re-Imagined Radio for free in their broadcast
schedules. It's a slow process, but growing. We now partner with community radio stations in Alaska,
Washington, Oregon, California, and New Jersey.
Each of these stations, while local in their
orientation, is global in their streaming reach. We can't count the number of listeners, but we
take pleasure in imagine the number as immense. Listeners in sixty countries download and listen to our
podcasts. Engagement with our social media platforms and our YouTube channel are growing.
The 100th Episode
August 2026. The 100th episode of Re-Imagined Radio will be offered to our listeners via radio
broadcast, global streaming via our partner community radio stations, on demand listening via this
Re-Imagined Radio website, and our YouTube channel.
After that? We plan to break from our monthly broadcast schedule for a while. We'll still produce
episodes, perhaps every other month, with a new, more experimental series, working title RiR
Workshop, offered the months between.
Who knows what else serendipty might send our way. More partner radio stations? More guest writer and
producer episodes? More original productions? Maybe a sponsor? We'll see.
Enjoy listening!
— John Barber
Creator, Producer, Host