Get set for another trip back to the past with one of my favorite monthly events. The Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society (MORLS) performing on stage at the Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater in Uptown. If you’ve never been to one of these events you are really missing out. When your grandparents were kids, TV was called radio. Back then, radio didn’t just consist of commercials with the occasional song being played to break up the monotony, it actually had stories. Now when I say stories, I don’t mean what your Grandma called her “stories”, although there were those as well. But there was all manner of shows just like there are on TV, or as they are known nowadays, as platforms. There were sitcoms, dramas, westerns, romances, and the staple of the MORLS performances, horror, mystery, suspense, and science fiction. What this group does is perform just like they did in the old days, acting out the roles while creating the sound effects and music live as they perform. These shows are fun for the whole family from the wee ones to the great grandparents. The best part of going to something like this with someone old enough to remember those golden days of yesteryear, is the conversations the performances spark on the ride home.
Like many of their recent performances this will be a combination or performing the script from an old radio broadcast and performing original scripts by the company members. This months Performance is entitled “Valentine Of Death” and here’s the shows rundown:
“Death Robbery” from Lights Out (1935): A mad scientist cheats death… but at what price? One of the only surviving scripts from Wyllis Cooper’s original Lights Out program and a chilling example of early radio horror.
“The Chaser” from The Weird Library (premiere): Joshua English Scrimshaw’s short but deadly adaptation of the classic John Collier story made famous by The Twilight Zone.
“All’s Love and War at the State Fair” from The Minnesota Goodbye (2021): The second installment of Tim Uren’s original series, The Minnesota Goodbye. The state fair is finally open after last year’s outbreak of polio and private detective Raymond Lake has been hired to protect a pig who has been receiving death threats!
One great advantage to the move to the Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater is that now you can enjoy food and beverage while taking in the program. The doors open at 6:30 with the show beginning at 7:00 PM. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.ghoulishdelights.com/. Seating is general admission. I’ll be there so if you come make sure to say hi and join us. You can also find information about their podcast at the link above and how to be become a Patreon supporter with all the honors and benefits that entails.
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