Al Basile ’70 AM writes: “2018 marked the 50th anniversary of Bill Griffith’s and my Brownbrokers musical Good Times Illustrated Weekly, and I wanted to get some of the original cast together to work on a new project. During the later 70s, I worked for University Relations producing multi-image slide shows for the Development Office and the Freshman Week committee, so I had access to a small recording setup. Bob Sloan ’78 and I created a radio theater that ran for a half hour on WBRU Saturday nights for the fall ’77 semester, so I had experience writing and producing audio drama. I decided to write an audio play and enlisted the aid of alums who had been in Good Times—John Barylick ’71, Sharon Coleman ’69, Bill Griffith ’70, and Tony Lioce ’68. We had a lot of fun doing the play, which was called Flash Blind, and it won a silver award at the HEARnow National Audio Theater Festival in 2019. I’ve written, directed, and produced a new play every year since then; two of them, Hill & Dale and Open Question (which featured old friend Bob Sloan ’78), won Gold and Platinum awards at HEARnow in 2022. Last year I added faculty emeritus John Emigh to the company, and we’re now rehearsing our sixth play, which was submitted to an audio theater festival in the UK this winter, along with the Tribeca Film Festival (which has recently added an audio narrative category) in 2025. All of the plays in this run are distinguished by being written entirely in blank verse, but in the modern idiom, so they sound like natural conversation and hide their metric identity. Aside from the fun of working with old friends on new plays, I enjoy the chance to write parts tailored to the voices and talents of our alumni actors—something that they haven’t had done for them before. They don’t have to memorize lines or blocking, and age is not an impediment to their participation, as it can be for the stage (we are all veterans, and parts for actors of a certain age are few!). So we’re keeping the flame alive that was kindled for us in the Brown theater all those years ago. And we do excellent work together (the plays are all available at my YouTube channel).”
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Class of 1970