By Laura Boylan
Scifi.com's Seeing Ear Theatre is divided into several series:
City of Dreams, Tales from the Crypt, the Original Playhouse
and Classics.
The Classics series brings to the internet decades old radio dramas,
from the days when radio, not television was the primary entertainer
in the home. May is Orson Welles month.
The Original Playhouse has many excellent adaptations of written
science fiction and horror, such as Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles,
HG Wells's Time Machine, Neil Gaiman's Murder Mysteries
and Edgar Allen Poe's Tell-Tale Heart.
The City of Dreams is written by J. Michael Straczynski, creator
of Babylon 5. It's an "audio drama anthology series featuring
tales of dreamers, madmen and fanatics." There have been eight
episodes, ranging from creepy to surreal to sweet. They feature such
guest stars as Andre Braugher, Tim Curry and John Turturro.
The Tales from the Crypt series brings this standard of American
popular culture to yet another venue. There have been eight episodes,
and more are planned once it comes back from hiatus.
The "Community" section contains pitifully underused bulletin
boards. The site is easy to navigate. The dramas launch in real audio
and can be purchased through audible.com
While I have listened to books on tape for years for the convenience,
drama written specifically for audio performance is a separate art
form that I had only fleeting experience with before I first ventured
to the Seeing Ear Theatre many months ago. Now I enjoy them
and have many times listened to them while doing some mindless task
like cleaning my room.