Some of the most creative and ambitious work in radio drama today is being done by a writer-director-actor who was a member of one of the best-loved cult comedic ensembles of the `60s and `70s.
With such recent projects as the writing and directing of a star-studded radio adaptation companion piece to the Ken Burns film ”Empire of the Air:
the Men Who Made Radio,” former Firesign Theatre member David Ossman is very much in the forefront of what he calls ”audio theater.”
”Empire,” which stars Steve Allen, David Ogden Stiers and Ed Asner, airs at 9 a.m. Wednesday on WBEZ-FM 91.5.
”Empire” culminates a trilogy of major works Ossman has done in the last four years. He adapted and directed a 50th anniversary production of
”The War of the Worlds” that aired on 235 public radio stations on Halloween 1988.
He also directed an update of Norman Corwin`s acclaimed celebration of the Bill of Rights, ”We Hold These Truths 200,” broadcast in December on public radio and the ABC, CBS, NBC, Mutual and Unistar radio networks.
Just 10 years ago, Ossman was collecting unemployment in Santa Fe after being fired from a job at National Public Radio in Washington.
”It certainly has been an interesting career,” said Ossman, 55, who lives in Washington state, where he and his wife, radio producer Judith Walcutt, run an independent audio production company.
A thread stretches between Ossman`s work with the four-member Firesign Theatre, who recorded 15 albums from 1966 to 1981, and his work today. Very much a product of the `60s, the college campus favorites mixed parodies of golden age radio shows with surrealistic pieces that delved into social and political commentary.
”I think the Firesign Theatre was greatly responsible for the continuity of audio theater,” said Ossman, who has conducted radio-theater workshops all over the U.S. ”And now I`m working with people like Norman Corwin, who goes all the way back to the birth of serious audio theater.”
The quietly subversive humor the Firesign Theatre specialized in remains a staple in Ossman`s work. His ”War of the Worlds” was more than just a remake of Orson Welles` classic radio broadcast; it was also a poke at public radio, complete with such announcements as, ”Partial support of today`s programming came from a grant from the Urban Jogger-investment quality shoes and chocolates in a mediational environment.”
”The question public radio stations asked was, `Are people going to panic when they hear the broadcast just like they did in 1938,` ” said Ossman. ”And we assured them that there would be plenty of warnings. But it would never have gotten on the air if I would have said that it was really a satire on public radio itself. It turned out to be a wonderful joke, and that was my payoff.”
Ossman and Walcutt are working on starting the first spoken-word cable-audio channel, and recently co-wrote a pilot mystery for Seattle`s public-TV channel.
”I don`t feel like my best work is behind me,” Ossman said of his Firesign legacy. ”Everything I know is going into what I do, and I`m still having fun entertaining people.”
