DECEMBER 3 – 28, 2025
A Christmas Carol: A Live Radio Play at Third Avenue PlayWorks in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, is a unique, family-friendly production, with a talented team of artists creating an authentic 1940’s radio experience in front of a live studio audience.
DIRECTED BY ELYSE EDELMAN
The WBFR Radio Players are back!
With the assistance of a gifted musician and foley artist, the five WBFR players bring scores of colorful characters, inventive sound effects, and musical underscoring to vivid life. In this refreshed version with all new staging, our talented team of artists creates an authentic 1940’s radio experience in front of a live studio audience. You’ve never experienced Charles Dickens’ holiday classic quite like this, so plan to join us for this unique, family-friendly production!
Cast:
Cassandra Bissell – Sally Applewhite
Neil Brookshire – Jake Laurents
Ray Jivoff – Freddie Filmore
Dan Klarer – Harry
Rána Roman – Lana Sherwood
Brian Grimm – “Chet, the intern” Foley Artist & Musician
Director – Elyse Edelman
Set Design – Alex Polzin
Lighting Design – Colin Gawronski
Costume Design – Karin Kopischke
Sound Design/MD – Brian Grimm
Production Stage Manager – Kelsey Brennan York
Properties Master – Haley Cranstoun
Check out my interview write up on TAP’s website about the Art of Foley! >>
Scroll to the bottom of the post to see 3 Reels of all the Foley sounds in this show!!
Remount with a Different Approach to Foley and Microphones
Though we were remounting the 2022 production of “Christmas Carol: A Live Radio Play” at Third Avenue Playworks, there ended up being many significant changes this time around. Director Elyse Gorens Edelman, who had performed as Lana Sherwood in both the 2022 “Christmas Carol” and 2023 “It’s a Wonderful Life” Radio Plays, had three really big concept shifts based on her previous experiences on stage.
The biggest shift was having the actors do all of their own Foley sounds! In the first production, I handled all foley sound making, unless there was a music cue happening concurrently; which did happen a fair number of times, especially around scene transitions. However, during longer dialogue scenes like the opening at Scrooge’s counting house and Old Joe’s shop, I was making all the foley sounds at my table. As you can imagine this kept me quite busy!! It was a head spin to perform the show the first time, it was non-stop for me. Even just handling mostly music this time, I am still incredibly busy on stage; switching between various mallets, bows, and instruments.
One big thing we learned over the last two radio plays is that if the audience can See it, they can Hear it. Musically, we made sure I wasn’t hiding any instruments in the back, having me stand the whole time. Foley wise, by having the actors doing their own sound effects, it would bring visual attention to the sound so the audience knew where to put their focus. So what does it mean for the actors to do their own foley?… well it’s not easy either! The actors are holding scripts and executing a lot more blocking to go back and forth between their microphones and the foley tables. For instance in the counting house scene, Fred, the Gentlewoman, and the Caroling Boy characters all perform their own door knocks and door open/closes when entering the scene. So now instead of the actor just being stationary at the microphone while I perform their foley door sounds – they must go to the table with the door, perform the foley and then step to the mic to start the dialogue. Or for instance, one character was responsible for all of the clock chimes in the play. This meant they must get all the way upstage to grab the bell chime and mallet, hurry to the mic downstage, and while holding the script perform the foley sound, then immediately start speaking their lines. No small feat!! It is very challenging and dynamic, kudos and bravi to all the actors on stage for stepping up to this demanding task!
A grand change was Alex Polzin’s updated set design. The first production had a more narrow and tall stage setup, as there were 5 microphones and a lot less blocking. I was doing foley and music at one single, long table and the actors were performing lines at the mic. However, this year Alex opened the set all the way wide, with three lovely archways and red curtains. One big table for me, which now has more music instruments set upon and a few smaller foley objects, and two smaller break out foley tables spread around the stage for devices like the wind machine and doors. I love the mid century art deco mural Alex painted on this set!! It turned out wonderfully!
Another enormous difference between the first production and this remount is the type of microphones we are using, how many, and the way they are set up in the live mix. In the first production we used a Shure 55SH microphone. Dynamic, dark tone, classic look and a very tight pick up pattern. This was period appropriate and had a lot of isolation from feedback, requiring the actors to get up close on mic. If they were 3″ off mic there started to be a big drop off in level, by time they got 6″ off mic, it was quite distant and not really coming through the speakers so well. Style wise it looked really good, because the actors really were leaning in and on mic. But it actually created actor issues when they wanted to play the line to their scene partners on another mic across stage. It was hard to make eye contact or change their body position without going off axis and getting lost in the mix. The tight pick up radius was a major advantage for me as the mixing engineer, because I’ve set this show up as a static mix. Which is a big challenge, and honestly a risk on a show like this, it has to be dialed in very carefully. Eliminating feedback frequencies while still keeping a natural sound, and setting up precise gates & compressor settings. There are 7 to 8 completely live microphones, all with faders up and the gain wide open… no board operator or live mixer to mute channels or throw faders! It is a very live mix with a lot of stage noise between the actors, music instruments, and foley. So I had to set up a mix that can stay wide open and not feedback during the run of the show with no one at the board… oh yeah and have it sound good too! Honestly this is the part of the show that goes completely unnoticed and uncredited – because it is so dialed in. It would only be noticed if it was going wrong and there was constant feedback or a bad sounding mix. The more invisible it is, the better I’ve done my job. But because I’m not credited as “mix engineer” in the program, it goes over people’s heads that I have also set up this live mix, and that there is no one at the board live mixing.
This year we went with an condenser mic to allow for a more wide open set up. This way the actors could stand further back from the mic and play the scenes more open to their partners. Also we went down from 5 vocal mics to 3; often times there are 2-3 actors sharing a microphone. We worked in 3 “zones”, 1) full standing upright a foot or two back for the more distant scene hubub background noises, 2) leaning and stepping in for the all purpose main line performing, and 3) up close on the mic only for special effect voices and foley. The mic I chose is the MXL V67G in the absolutely lovely green body, gold grill colorway. Though it is a solid state large diaphragm condenser microphone, it is actually modeled off of the design of the tube classic Neumann 67. It is meant to give the rich tone and response of tube microphones in a solid state form factor. I must say at this price point the MXL V67 is an absolute steal, I have been so impressed with the results. I have the compression set up to really work hard only if the actors get right up close to the mic, and wow it is such a smooth transition and swoop of proximity effect which I was able to pull out of this microphone. It sounds warm, rich and very natural for voice! The director and I were very happy, it performed exactly as we imagined it would and was a really easy mic to work with. Highly recommend as a price point condenser to add to your mic locker – I’d love to hear it on cello…
There were a few changes this time around with the music instrument setup! I added Harmonium to the table, which I was very excited about. It adds some rich, folksy flavor to the Christmas Present scenes with the Cratchit family. This time, instead of sitting and playing cello, I had my cello on a strap system, ala “Flying Lovers of Vitebsk”, with my trusty DPA4900 microphone and wireless mic pack system attached to the strap. I also switched from Tenor Viola da Gamba to the Treble Viola da Gamba!! This was to bring the weight of history and nostalgia to the Ghost of Christmas Past scenes. The Treble Viol sits fully in both the violin + viola range and is small enough that I can stand and play it on top of my music table! So people can actually see what I am playing! It is such a sweet and fun little instrument to play, I love it!!
Here’s a Photo tour of the instruments and foley setup!
The last major change is that I had a surprise acting role!! Cast as the Ghost of Christmas Future, living up to my Grimm namesake! This ghost of things which have not passed but may never speaks a word, but bows terrifying crunchy cello sounds (my favorite hehe) using my custom made Nakatani-Kobo bow! This giant bow made for a great visual of the spectre’s outstretched hand, always floating and in supple motion. Not only did we want me standing to play cello behind the music table so I could be more visually present this time (which if I only played stationary, I could do by fully extending the end pin), but we wanted me freely mobile to go anywhere on the stage so that I could lead Scrooge through the terrifying mists of a future that may be, if he doesn’t change his ways. The most difficult part was not the moving and playing cello or having an acting role, but rather not breaking character during any of the goofy shenanigans or ad libs from the cast!
Special Thanks to my bandmate Chad Canfield for borrowing/renting to us a huge amount of instruments, foley, and the wireless mic pack for this production!!
A Tour of the Foley Sounds for this Production!
📸 Larry Mohr Photography – click to enlarge image
