Careful of the Edge ... It's Nightfall! [entries|friends|calendar] Nightfall-25 [ website | The Nightfall-25 Project ] [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

A Voice Silenced [12 Nov 2009|12:56pm] [ mood | sad ] [ music | Nightfall #003: "The Monkey's Paw" ] When I began to explore the world of Canadian radio drama back in 2002, the very first voice I heard was that of "the mysterious Luther Kranst", the Host for the first two seasons of CBC Radio's infamous Nightfall horror series. It wasn't until I began collecting records from the series that I learned his real name was Henry Ramer. I found out from from Elva Mai Hoover, one of the regular actors from the show, that Mr. Ramer died back in August. He was in his 80s. Henry Ramer was one of the people associated with the show that I never had a chance to talk with, but wish I had. From what I've read of him, his voice was known to everyone in Canada, even if his name wasn't. He narrated commercials and documentaries, voiced cartoon characters, and performed on the radio. He was also a stage, screen and TV actor, receiving an ACTRA nomination for his role in 1974's iconic film, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. He acted alongside stars like Orson Welles, Elizabeth Taylor, Christopher Plummer and Carol Burnett, and was known widely as "The Voice of Canada". Here is a short clip of his intro to the Nightfall adaptation of "The Monkey's Paw". And here are links to a couple of brief news articles about his passing: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/680436 http://durhamregion.typepad.com/neil_crone/2009/08/final-curtain-for-henry.html The world of radio drama is a little quieter now. Thank you, Henry, for giving me a chill. add your scream

Len Peterson: 1917-2008 [13 Mar 2008|11:48am] It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Len Peterson at the end of February.  He was 90.   Mr. Peterson was an amazing man, with a long history of writing cutting-edge drama.  In the 1930's and 40's he was writing social commentary radio dramas about controversial issues like racism at a time when it was considered "bad for the public morale" to discuss such things on the air.  Several of these plays won international awards despite this.   My wife and I met him in Toronto in 2004 while I was on a research trip to the CBC.  There's an entry in this journal about meeting him.   The Toronto Globe and Mail has an extensive biographical obituary about him. Len Peterson adapted five short stories for Nightfall, including "The Monkey's Paw", "The Telltale Heart", "The Stone Ship", "The Guest of Honor" (from Peter S. Beagle's "Come, Lady Death") and "They Bite". 1 scream|add your scream

Wikipedia Nightfall Entry Updated [04 Jan 2008|01:20pm] Recently, I spent a few hours updating the Nightfall entry on Wikipedia. Take a look! add your scream

"Nightfall" Discussion at ReaderCon on July 6th [05 Jul 2007|09:57pm] I will be co-presenting "Nightfall," Forgotten Classic of Horror Radio at ReaderCon in Burlington, MA tomorrow night. Essayist Adam Golaski, who interviewed me about Nightfall for the journal All Hallows last year, will be introducing the series and the two of us will discuss its history, play clips from several episodes, and talk a bit about some behind-the-scenes stories, as well as discussing current-day productions which may be of interest to horror audio fans. I am planning to record the event and hope to podcast it at a later date. I'll keep everyone posted. 3 screams|add your scream

E-mail/Phone Contact: John Graham [03 Feb 2007|04:18pm] Finally! I've been looking for John Graham longer than any other writer from the series. He wrote five episodes of the first season: 001: Love and the Lonely One 004: Hands Off 007: Future Fear 016: Buried Alive 033: Angel's Kiss (w/ George R. Robertson) He seemed very surprised that people were even aware of the show or his stories in particular and says he's happy to discuss his work on the series. add your scream

Mavor Moore (1919-2006) [21 Dec 2006|09:18pm] Mavor Moore, writer of the classic episode "The Book of Hell", has died in Victoria, BC following a long illness. He was a Canadian cultural icon, with talents running the range of acting, writing, and producing to writing an opera. For more details on his life, follow this link: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/12/21/mavor-moore.html 2 screams|add your scream

Happy 26th Anniversary Nightfall! [04 Jul 2006|11:49am] Today marks 26 years since Nightfall premiered on CBC Radio with John Graham's "Love and the Lonely One". Thanks again to Bill Howell for bringing us such an incredible series and to the CBC for letting him bring it to life. add your scream

Site Updates [01 May 2006|05:18pm] Hi everyone. I apologize for the delays in updating the site. I've been juggling my work on the project with a new career as a radio drama producer and I've dropped the ball a few times. I just started updating the 25th anniversary episodes again, but I need to go back and catch-up on the dozen or so stories that were missed during my recent hiatus. I will try to make time to do that over the next few weeks and hopefully we'll be caught up by the 25th anniversary of the end of the show's first season, which is in early June. Thanks for everyone being so patient! add your scream

New Volunteer [28 Dec 2005|12:11am] I received an e-mail today from a fellow in New Hampshire who has volunteered to help write some of the entries in the episode guide. He's offered to do a sample for me, which I accepted. It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with. With so much of my time now occupied with producing my own radio drama projects, I feel like N25 is getting away from me. I really have to try to keep up with the weekly updates at the least. add your scream

Suggested Reading [12 Sep 2005|11:44pm] Joe Mahoney, one of our friends at CBC Radio Drama, is also a published writer. His latest fantasy story appears in The Sword Review: It's called Moonstone. add your scream

Phone Conversation: Raymond Canale [30 Jul 2005|03:23pm] I received a phone call from Raymond Canale this afternoon and we ended up talking for 3 hours! He's an older gentleman, living in Arbroath, Scotland. His health is rather poor -- heart problems that keep him short of breath -- and I felt bad for taking his time, but he said he found our conversation very stimulating and, indeed, he sounded better as the conversation went along. He did tell me a bit about how "The Blood Countess" (NF #20 & #21) came about and had a delightful story about how he got Kate Reid interested in playing the title role. He said there is more to tell, so I am looking forward to future conversations. He's going to be sending me some biographical information soon, which will definitely assist me in getting his entry for the biography page put together. As to materials related to "The Blood Countess", he is waiting for some copyright issues to be clarified before we can proceed along that line. All-in-all, a pretty good bit of progress. add your scream

Cool Request [27 Jul 2005|11:07pm] I had a phone call from Bill Gray this evening and we ended up talking for almost two hours. He was calling to ask if I would be interested in reading his treatment for the film version of his Nightfall story, "Gerald" (NF #45). Of course I jumped at the chance and he's just e-mailed the 40+ page PDF to me. I can't wait to read it! add your scream

Contact Effort: Raymond Canale [26 Jul 2005|02:40pm] I sent off a package to Ray Canale in Scotland today, hoping for a response regarding his 2-part story "The Blood Countess" (NF #20 & #21). I included one of my clamshell copies of "The Blood Countess" from the Durkin-Hayes series as a gift, just in case he doesn't have a recording of the shows. I ought to track down a replacement for that. There's usually one on eBay at any given time. add your scream

Contact List Update [12 Jul 2005|07:23pm] I received an e-mail from my contact at the Writers Guild of Canada today. She has come across contact info for three people I've been looking for: Graham Pomeroy Writer #38: "All-Nighter" #39: "Carmilla" (w/ John Douglas) Raymond Canale Writer #20: "The Blood Countess, Part 1" #21: "The Blood Countess, Part 2" Marielaine Church Sister of writer/actor/story editor/producer John Douglas, a very talented and much-loved man in the Canadian entertainment industry who died in the early 90s. I've all ready exchanged e-mail with Ms. Church and expect to contact Graham Pomeroy sometime next week. I only have a mailing address for Raymond Canale, who lives in Scotland these days, so I'll be writing up a letter to him this coming week as well. It's been a great week! add your scream

Site Update: Press Releases + Anniversary Response [06 Jul 2005|12:48am] I finally got all the press releases campion7 did for me last week formatted and up on the site. I've also gotten several positive comments back from folks I'd contacted about the site launch. Looks like people are going to appreciate it a lot. Now I just need to send out notices to some of the Nightfall folks I've been in touch with and see what they think! add your scream

This is it! The moment is here! HAPPY 25th ANNIVERSARY, NIGHTFALL!! [04 Jul 2005|12:01am] I have been waiting for this moment for the last three years. The goal of our work -- whether it was a book, a guide or, as it is now, a website -- has always been to gear everything toward celebrating the 25th anniversary of Nightfall's debut. Now that day is here! The site is ready for launch. It is by no means complete, but it is all ready packed with data. Each week we'll complete as much of the entry in the Episode Guide as we can for the story that premiered 25 years ago that week. We'll also continue to update other sections of the site as we gather more data and documents from our sources. I encourage all of you who have been following this project to visit the site now. So much work has been done on it, so much of it has been renovated and so much has been added in the last few weeks that it's bursting with information. It is a fanatical labour of love, but it's one for which we are regularly receiving comments and thanks from fans and people from the show who've dropped by to see what's going on. Special thanks to samantha2074, rustyverse, nexstarman, indefatigable42, drake57, campion7, ayeshalan and the rest of you who have been following this journal or have helped out with some aspect of the site's development. You guys helped to make it happen! I am now officially wiped out. Go enjoy the site. *thud* add your scream

A Nice Present for the 25th Anniversary [03 Jul 2005|07:29pm] We stopped in to visit with NPR Playhouse creator John Bos for about an hour on the way back from Albany. We sat on his lovely back porch and chatted about NPR, Nightfall on NPR Playhouse, and the state of radio drama today. There are some things he's going to check into for me, plus he has a storage unit where a lot of his NPR Playhouse files are kept and he suspects there may be some material of interest to the Project there. When he has the time to get in there, he'll let me know what he finds. But the highlight of the day was having him give me a mounted, framed and signed Nightfall poster. (left - click it for a larger view). He felt it deserved a good home with a devoted fan of the series. I was very touched by his generous gift and I will find a good place for it on my studio wall. add your scream

Site Development Update [02 Jul 2005|06:17pm] Been zipping along quite a bit the past few days just updating the site, even while away from home. Been filling out pages with no material on them just so there's something more than "Coming Soon..." on most of the pages. Oh good! campion7 just delivered the NPR Playhouse press releases I assigned her two weeks ago (thanks, Andie!). I'll try to get those up before Monday's premiere. gilana's press releases from the CBC are all ready up and looking great! Tomorrow is my meeting and interview with John Bos from NPR. Looking forward to seeing what material he has in his files. Hopefully he'll be able to answer some questions I have regarding rights use of some of the materials I got from Andy Trudeau and Bob Maleski two years ago. Back to work! add your scream

NPR Contact: John Bos [28 Jun 2005|09:10pm] I connected again with NPR Playhouse creator John Bos, who lives about two hours from me. We've been meaning to get together for over a year now, but my exhausting trip to Toronto last year, along with several other projects, has kept it from happening. But I'll be traveling in his neck of the woods over the weekend and, as luck would have it, he's going to be home. So I'm going to stop in and chat for a bit and look at his collection of NPR Playhouse stuff, plus ask him a few questions about the deal CBC made with NPR to air Nightfall in the U.S. That should complement the interview I got from Susan Rubes, who was Head of Radio Drama at the CBC at the time. Then I'll have what I need to write that section of the site. add your scream

Site Development Update: Press Releases [19 Jun 2005|10:27pm] Thanks to the diligent folks who've offered their time to help me with transcribing these press releases and other documents, the site continues to grow. If you go to the site now -- http://www.nightfall-25.com -- and visit the EXTRAS section, you'll see a new category called Press Releases. Right now there are 5 CBC press releases regarding the show up, with another dozen or so on the way. I have to devote some time this week to my own radio drama project, but I'm hoping to get some work done on the detailed section of the episode guide after that. Keep coming back! add your scream

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