Empty Room

[The evening news broadcasts a terrible climbing toll. You start to wonder if your neighbors will ever even know your name. Silence is not an option. Silence is not an option.]

A new experimental radio play by poet and essayist JP Seabright. In a dystopia seemingly shuttering in on itself, two companions try to mine meaning from one another's fading memories and desires, hushed by the drone of television static and flickering industrial lights.

Written to be performed in a randomized sequence each evening, CONTROL. HALT. DELETE. drums out the mundane rhythm of two lives under tyranny, refracted through an alien drama that borrows its stilted moods from Orwell, Lynch, Beckett, Brecht, and Ballard.

Voiced by Lizzy McCabe and Spike Pulice. Directed and designed by Jarid McCarthy.

. . .

EMPTY ROOM 2024

VARIANT: ULTRAVIOLET

Read Along: emptyroomradio.com/chd-seabright-3

[You know someone might be watching, but not who or why. This room is familiar enough that it could be home, for now. You don't know how long it's been this way. Is it all a show?]

A new experimental radio play by poet and essayist JP Seabright. In a dystopia seemingly shuttering in on itself, two companions try to mine meaning from one another's fading memories and desires, hushed by the drone of television static and flickering industrial lights.

Written to be performed in a randomized sequence each evening, CONTROL. HALT. DELETE. drums out the mundane rhythm of two lives under tyranny, refracted through an alien drama that borrows its stilted moods from Orwell, Lynch, Beckett, Brecht, and Ballard.

Voiced by Lizzy McCabe and Spike Pulice. Directed and designed by Jarid McCarthy.

. . .

EMPTY ROOM 2024

VARIANT: BRONZE

Read Along: emptyroomradio.com/chd-seabright-2

[The way here is hard to remember. You work without a break, but don't know what your job is. A nightly lottery is required viewing. Someone familiar is at the door.]

A new experimental radio play by poet and essayist JP Seabright. In a dystopia seemingly shuttering in on itself, two companions try to mine meaning from one another's fading memories and desires, hushed by the drone of television static and flickering industrial lights.

Written to be performed in a randomized sequence each evening, CONTROL. HALT. DELETE. drums out the mundane rhythm of two lives under tyranny, refracted through an alien drama that borrows its stilted moods from Orwell, Lynch, Beckett, Brecht, and Ballard.

Voiced by Lizzy McCabe and Spike Pulice. Directed and designed by Jarid McCarthy.

. . .

EMPTY ROOM 2024

VARIANT: MARINE

Read Along: emptyroomradio.com/chd-seabright-1

Broadcasting April 10th: A NEW PLAY by JP SEABRIGHT

A dystopian lottery. Lights flickering on and off according to schedule. Two partners sitting in their usual places, trying to remember how they got there.

Presented in three variations, and performed in a randomized order, JP Seabright's modular drama follows a couple's futile and stilted attempts to understand one another in the midst of a totalitarian regime.

Voiced by Spike Pulice and Elizabeth McCabe.

"Well, it's true what they say. Practice makes perfect." An all-night rehearsal that stretches into morning. A pianist straining over their instrument– and their instrument straining back. CHROMATIC SCALE is the first one-act play of poet Leela Raj-Sankar, exploring a musician's relationship to the art that confounds them.

Voiced by Claire Wagner, the pianist, and Diego Noll, the piano.

Performed in phantom-concert with a frustrated arrangement of Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G Minor by Matthew M. Hayashi.

Read the full piece online: emptyroomradio.com/chromatic-scale

. . .

EMPTY ROOM

SUMMER 2023

@emptyroomradio

Jordan is on the edge with her fiancé, when a stranger enters her world and slyly turns it upside down. Insistent on honing his social skills with someone who seems as kind as her, he leads them into an increasingly pointed debate about the tides of culture, love, and Jordan's own looming commitment. Developed from a conversation overhead in a coffee shop, Richard Gustin's SOMEONE LIKE ME is a socially awkward comedy about the intimate places a total stranger can unexpectedly take us.

Written by Richard Gustin and directed by Isabel Rodriguez. Sound design by Jarid McCarthy.

CAST:

Jordan (or 'Bri') - Marisa Taylor Scott

The Man - Jalen Davidson

Someone Like Me was first performed and recorded in September 2022 in San Diego, California.

EMPTY ROOM • 2023

. . .

Dramatists Guild of America · Copyright © 2023 by Richard Gustin

For script production inquiries contact Richard Gustin: gustinr@uwosh.edu

SIDE A: Sevilla, Waugh, King, Billingsley, Valley, Hardstark, Strickland, Glinnen, Rose, Galleran, Vincent, March & Georgeson. 

An anthology of poetry, drama, sound art, and music. Featuring twelve performances, readings, and improvisations. Addictions, obsessions, swarming bees, shattering glass, gardens and flames.

‘The Failed Sorcerer’ by Karlo Sevilla, voiced by Tamla Quipse

‘Balance in the Spot Where I Stand’ by Seanan Palmero Waugh, voiced by Ramon Suzara

‘In which diagnosis makes it easier to get work done’ by Sophie King

‘Chaos is Your New / Garden’ compiled and performed by Jacob Billingsley

‘Stage Directions for a Stick in the Wind’ & ‘The Word’ by Rebecca Valley

‘Shoes’ by Michael Hardstark, performed by Erica Jackson

‘Mutatis Mutandis’ by Garett Strickland

‘Long Beach, Saturday Morning’ by Rich Glinnen

‘Leaving a Hole’ by Arianna Rose

‘Attachment’ & ‘Memory’ by Kate Galleran

‘Elegant Carnage’ by Allison Vincent, performed by Charlie Diamond

‘Death Chant’ performed by Mark Georgeson & Charles March

. . .

This episode is part one of the second installation of Empty Salon, a radio-gala and anthology series to complement and complicate our regular programming. Follow Empty Room on Twitter or Instagram @emptyroomradio for updates on the project and upcoming episodes of the salon.

View the anthology online now at emptyroomradio.com/salon-2 

"But that's the first rule of good writing: kill your darlings, right?" 

A short story about the fate of a forthcoming Romance novel being optioned for a Hollywood adaptation. An email from Dawn on behalf of Jacinda. An ill-fated love triangle. A love-letter from the angel Abdiel on behalf of Garett. Some slight editorial concerns. A roomful of imposters. 

Written by Jesse Hilson. Voiced by Charlie Diamond. Read the full piece: emptyroomradio.com/the-love-prompts-hilson

[Music samples include U.S. Girls and Guillaume Dufay.] 

. . .

EMPTY ROOM

SPRING 2022

@emptyroomradio

Duality Apéritif: Two Tao Set Pieces to Play Between One Acts.

Meditative radio-mimes of absence and presence. Stage directions toward a question of our own suffering. Agents in the crowd. A decaying tape. Written by S.T. Brant, and performed by Paige Taylor & Spike Pulice. Recorded on-site at the Meadowlark Garage in Anaheim, CA. 

Read the full piece: emptyroomradio.com/duality-aperitif-brant

. . .

EMPTY ROOM

SPRING 2022

@emptyroomradio

"Today, you feel relieved. Your life is simplified. Twelve zodiac signs was too many to keep track of. Why should distant planets guide your life when benevolent corporations are right here on Earth?" Transcripts of daily BATK horoscope podcasts. A work of radio fiction by Marcella Haddad. 

Voiced by Tamla Quipse. Directed by Jarid McCarthy.

Read the full story: emptyroomradio.com/good-morning-today-haddad

. . .

EMPTY ROOM

SPRING 2022

@emptyroomradio

SIDE B: Kai Rosales, Joseph Pharr, and Matthew Katterhagen. 

Jarid sits down with the cast and playwright of HIGH-RISE (2021) to continue discussing the art and aftermath of J.G. Ballard, their own artistic practices, and recent experiences of the still-reeling theater industry. Mythic afterimages of social decline, the fate of the billionaires, a new musical, an evolutionary Ouroboros, a woman on the shore, and the sound of birdsong over video-chat.

Featuring a performance of Shakespeare's 102nd sonnet by Joseph and Kai. Passages read from the 1975 novel. 

.  .  .

This episode is part two of the first installation of Empty Salon, a radio-gala series to complement and complicate our regular programming.

Follow Empty Room on Twitter or Instagram @emptyroomradio for updates on the project and upcoming episodes of the salon.

You can listen to our production of HIGH-RISE by Matthew Katterhagen on any podcast platform.

SIDE A: Matthew Katterhagen, Ramon Suzara, and Molly Renze.

Jarid sits down with the cast and playwright of HIGH-RISE (2021) to discuss the art and aftermath of J.G. Ballard, their own artistic practices, and recent experiences of the still-reeling theater industry. Reflections of rectilinear windows and sleek lobbies, recollections of plague summers, questions of the limits of a community, a feeling of being left behind by the future, and clownish gestures towards something better.

Featuring a reading of Ramon's poem "these quiet hours" and a clip of Molly in Anne Carson's ANTIGONICK. Passages read from the 1975 novel.

. . .

This episode is part one of the first installation of Empty Salon, a radio-gala series to complement and complicate our regular programming.

Follow Empty Room on Twitter or Instagram @emptyroomradio for updates on the project and upcoming episodes of the salon.

HIGH-RISE by Matthew Katterhagen, adapted from J.G. Ballard's 1975 speculative thriller. Directed and edited by Jarid McCarthy. 

Debut production of Empty Room.  

Dr. Robert Laing, a medical instructor drowning his recent divorce in monotony and routine, finds his daily rituals shattered when his apartment block rapidly decays around him. As his fellow residents war for their place, floor-by-floor, Laing is forced to set his sights on the penthouse: to confront Anthony Royal, the man on top. 

.  .  .

THE RESIDENTS:  

Ramon Suzara as Dr. Robert Laing 

Kai Rosales as Richard Wilder 

Molly Renze as Katherine Tisch 

Joseph Pharr as Anthony Royal  

.  .  .

Additional recordings by Matthew Kulisch and Jarid McCarthy.  

Muzak sampled from Nick Perito and Leyland Kirby (The Caretaker).   

Performed in June 2021.  

.  .  .

View a video transcription of this play on the Empty Room VIMEO channel: https://vimeo.com/emptyroomradio/high-rise 

Broadcasting October 25th, 2021.

HIGH-RISE, a radio-play. After J.G. Ballard's 1975 novel. 

Dr. Robert Laing, a medical instructor drowning his recent divorce in monotony and routine, finds his daily rituals shattered when his apartment block rapidly decays around him. As his fellow residents war for their place, floor-by-floor, Laing is forced to set his sights on the penthouse: to confront Anthony Royal, the man on top. 

Written by Matthew Katterhagen, directed by Jarid McCarthy. 

Debut production of Empty Room.