Radio Plays

By Karen Sunde

Radio opens a direct link to the audience’ imagination. Sound alone telling a story is instantly absorbed onto the mind’s creative canvas, and the resulting composition will be personal and intimate to a higher degree than that of any other medium.
My first radio assignment was also the first play I ever wrote. Initiated and produced for the National Foundation For The Blind by the Iowa State University Radio Players, it won the Bob Hope Award. The Sound of Sand presents a blind boy’s mighty dangerous venture away from his sand-castle on the beach far out onto the sea on a raft.
The second time I wrote for radio, WNYC’s Radio Stage asked me to adapt my stage play Haiti: a Dream and then produced and broadcast it on WHYY and NPR as well. Voodoo to Paradise began when I read a tiny New York Times clipping “wreckage of a wooden boat” on Florida’s coast and instantly “saw” its lost passengers.
Founder of Full House Productions in New York, Phil Lee, prompted the radio adaptation and production of How His Bride Came To Abraham so that its battlefield parable of Mid-East peace could reach audiences anywhere. Set in South Lebanon, when a fleeing refugee encounters a soldier wounded by a roadside bomb, irresistible Palestinian and Israeli characters clash, then ignite a passion that heals. A sample of the audio is online at the film's website.
The two stage plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karen Sunde
• Release date: May 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476293387

Karen Sunde

An actor turned writer, Karen performed many leading roles Off-Broadway, and was Associate Director of CSC Repertory. Her plays have been performed Off-Broadway, in regional theatres, on a USA tour, and in eleven countries and seven languages. Sunde’s first screenplay, UNDERCOVER PATRIOT was a finalist at Sundance. She wrote PARALLEL LOVES for Terra Bella Entertainment, Los Angeles; BOULE DE SUIF (adapt Maupassant) for Dace Direction, London; DREAM HOUSE for Passport Films, NYC; THE FASTEST WOMAN ALIVE for Howard S Shulman Productions, NYC; THE SECRET SHIP; FINAL QUEST: THE MOUNTAIN OF THE GODS; TRIPPING TAMMY; CHICKS GOTTA SWIM; LOVE HITS EARTH (& Other Disasters); NEXT!; adaptations of HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM, screenplay an "Official Selection" at Oaxaca FilmFest, www.AbrahamFilm.org, and IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA, won the Gold Prize at Hollywood Screenplay Contest. Published plays: DARK LADY, produced Abbey Theatre, Ireland, Aalborg State Theatre, Denmark, optioned for film; BALLOON, won three VILLAGER awards Off-Broadway, nominated Best Play by Outer Critics Circle, aired Radio France; HAITI: A DREAM in FACING FORWARD, produced Seven Stages, Atlanta, aired WNYC, WHYY, NPR; TO MOSCOW, premiered Ankara National Theatre, Turkey, Chain Lightning, New York; OH WILD WEST WIND in ROWING TO AMERICA, produced Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey (PTNJ). PLAYS BY KAREN SUNDE includes TRUTH TAKES A HOLIDAY, read La MaMa, New York City (NYC); IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA produced PTNJ, HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM, produced PTNJ, Praxis Theatre Project, NYC, premiered at The Unicorn, Kansas City. ANTON, HIMSELF for Actors Theatre of Louisville, also played The Moscow Art Theatre, the Yalta Festival in Russia, Peoples Light and Theatre, NYU in New York. THE FASTEST WOMAN ALIVE produced Luna Stage, NJ, Praxis, NYC, Edinburgh Festival (2010); KABUKI OTHELLO, produced People's Light and Theatre Company and Annenberg Center, Philadelphia; Wisdom Bridge, Chicago; KABUKI LADY MACBETH produced Chicago Shakespeare Theater, cited for five JEFF Awards, including "Best New Work," Best Production," "Best Direction:" IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA. Scenes from TO MOSCOW; ANTON, HIMSELF; MASHA, TOO; and ABRAHAM appear in SCENES & MONOLOGS FROM THE BEST NEW PLAYS. Among 23 plays--for Actors Theatre of Louisville; People's Light and Theatre; The Acting Company, NYC, Sunde wrote KABUKI MACBETH, KABUKI KING RICHARD and ACHILLES, which toured Hungary, Cyprus, and Japan. She co-wrote musical QUASIMODO,(a musical) premiered Byrdcliffe Festival, Woodstock, NY, produced Lahti City Theatre, Finland. For Cheltenham Center, Philadelphia, she wrote LA PUCELLE (ME & JOAN) and DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING (TRACKING BLOOD WHITE). In NYC: for Chain Lightning, WHEN REAL LIFE BEGINS, for The Working Theatre, 2020 SEXCARE in FREE MARKET; for Tisch School, NYU, Table and Chair Handmade Theatre, PLEASE GOD, NO WEDDING OR SHOOTING AT THE END! Opera THE SPA with composer Michael Dilthey. also at https://www.dramaticpublishing.com/authors/profile/view/url/karen-sunde Sunde’s won a McKnight Fellowship, an NDEA Fellowship, the Aide de la Creation award in France, the Bob Hope Award, Gold Prize in Hollywood Screenplay Contest, lives in New York City, served on the theatre panel of New Jersey Council on the Arts, and the new plays panel of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, was faculty at New Hampshire Institute of Art's Writing for Stage & Screen MFA program, La MaMa ETC (New York)'s nominee for the Laura Pels/​PEN award, consultant for musical DAMASCUS SQUARE.

Book preview

What the Critics Say

"Sunde’s plays consider whether we have reason to hope. … With a voice both poetic and theatrical hers is a distinctive, even unique, contemporary American drama, more akin to European than to other American plays. … No matter how sweeping the setting and cast, she chooses personal canvases upon which to paint her funny, thrilling, searing, moving scenes.

"Sunde hopes for a better tomorrow even as she explores the roots of misery today. The prophetic HAITI: A DREAM dramatizes the flight to Florida of Haitian boat people by focusing on a man and his wife and the Old Woman empowered by Voodoo who tries to inspire them both to recognize their own strength to lead their people.

"In a similar spirit of fantasizing about a better way, HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM creates an extraordinary modern pacifist myth in which a wounded male Israeli soldier and a female Palestinian terrorist experience each other’s passionate hunger for their home and rights…It indelibly etches itself upon audience’ souls because of the human encounter…"

from CONTEMPORARY DRAMATISTS Karen Sunde entry: pp 643-645

HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM - stage play

One of the most powerful antiwar plays ever penned … this life-altering script. PLAYS INTERNATIONAL London

Sunde’s timely, gripping, and richly magical play… is modern day Romeo and Juliet…an engrossing look at how war can prematurely turn children into adults… the emotional pull of her drama will haunt audiences well after the end of the play. AMERICAN THEATER WEB

…crisp, biting edge... gripping drama... timely romantic drama ... volatile battle zone ... vivid portraits and action ... cinematic thrust summons the inspiration for a dandy film. VARIETY

A masterpiece…no soft edges…goes straight to the heart of the conflict. BLOOMBERG RADIO

RADIO PLAYS

VOODOO TO PARADISE (Haiti: A Dream)

THE SOUND OF SAND

HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM

by

Karen Sunde

Smashwords Edition

Copyright Karen Sunde

For rights to produce these plays, apply to:

130 Barrow #412 New York 10014

[phone]

[e-mail]

www.karensunde.com

CONTENTS

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY

INTRODUCTION

VOODOO TO PARADISE (Haiti: A Dream)

VOODOO TO PARADISE Scene Two

THE SOUND OF SAND

HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM

APPENDIX: The Seed of Haiti, A Dream

OTHER PLAYS & SCREENPLAYS -Karen Sunde

INTRODUCTION

Radio opens a direct link to the audience’ imagination. Sound alone telling you a story is instantly absorbed onto your mind’s creative canvas, and the resulting composition will be personal and intimate to a higher degree than with any other medium. Audio drama takes place in the listener’s mind.

How reading a radio play can work in the reader’s imagination, I don’t know. As you read, just keep in mind that the sounds described and the words being spoken tell the story however you envision it; then tell me if it works for you.

My first radio assignment was also the first play I ever wrote. Including it here is curious for me, but it was significant. Initiated and produced for the National Foundation For The Blind by the Iowa State University Radio Players, it won the Bob Hope Award, and won me a trip to New York to accept it. THE SOUND OF SAND presents a blind boy’s mighty dangerous venture away from his sand-castle on the beach far out onto the sea on a raft.

The second time I wrote for radio was years later in New York when WNYC’s Radio Stage’s Marjorie Van Halteren commissioned me to adapt my stage play HAITI: A DREAM, and then produced and broadcast it on WNYC, WHYY and NPR. It’s a simple story, rather lyrical, and so inspires music and dance artists. The same play was also adapted into a story-theatre choral piece called SIRI’S DREAM by Coatesville Community Center by Danny Fruchter, but I’ve always wanted to call it VOODOO TO PARADISE. The play was born when I read a tiny New York Times clipping: wreckage of a wooden boat that washed up in Florida, and I immediately began to imagine its lost passengers.

The founder of Full House Productions in New York, Phil Lee, prompted my audio adaptation of the play HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM, and then Phil directed and engineered a radio production featuring the play’s New York cast, so that this battle field parable of Mid-East peace would be able to reach any audience. Set in South Lebanon, HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM is a soaring love story. When a fleeing refugee encounters a soldier wounded by a roadside bomb, irresistible Palestinian and Israeli characters clash, then ignite a passion that heals.

The stage plays two of these works are adapted from are published by Broadway Play Publishing:

https://www.broadwayplaypub.com/the-plays/haiti-a-dream/ Haiti: A Dream, published in FACING FORWARD

https://www.broadwayplaypub.com/the-plays/plays-by-karen-sunde/ How His Bride Came To Abraham is in PLAYS BY KAREN SUNDE

http://www.broadwayplaypubl.com/HOW%20HIS.htm is How His Bride Came To Abraham by itself - the single stage play

TAGS: Haitian history, Israeli Palestinian conflict, blind child drama, boat people, Haitian refugee, voodoo, anti-war play, radio drama

PRODUCTIONS HISTORY

VOODOO TO PARADISE (Haiti:: A Dream)

Theatre: Seven Stages, Atlanta, and Coatesville Community Center as SIRI’S DREAM

Radio: Commissioned by WNYC’s Radio Stage, directed by Marjorie Van Halteren, broadcast on WNYC, New York, WHYY, Philadelphia, and nationwide on NPR.

https://www.broadwayplaypub.com/the-plays/haiti-a-dream/

THE SOUND OF SAND

Radio: Written for and produced by Iowa State University’s Radio Players. Won the Bob Hope Award fromr The National Foundation For The Blind,

HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM

Theatre

Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey by John Pietrowski, directed by Ken Marini, fight direction by Rick Sordelet,

Praxis Theatre Project, New York, producer Matt Bray, director Courtney Patrick Mitchell, fight direction Ian Marshall,

Unicorn Theatre, Kansas City, producing artistic director Cynthia Levin, premiere.

Youngstown University, director Dennis Henneman, with symposiums.

Catholic Associations benefit performance at Cathedral High School, NYC

Staged Readings

Israeli/Palestinian Working Group, United Nations; Stanford University, Palo Alto, Seminar on Terrorism, consecutive years, Princeton Middle East Society, Ansche Chesed Synagogue, NYC Cathedral of St John the Divine, NYC, Nebraska Repertory, Castillo, NYC.

Publications

HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM is published in PLAYS BY KAREN SUNDE, 2001, and as a single play, 2006, by Broadway Play Publishing, NYC

https://www.broadwayplaypub.com/the-plays/how-his-bride-came-to-abraham/

Film

www.AbrahamFilm.org - The Abraham Film Project, Synopsis, Screenplay and Trailer directed by Yahel Herzog & Karen Sunde

http://www.abrahamfilm.org/documentary/documentary.html Documentary trailer PLAYING PEACE, by Open Windows Productions, directed by Yahel Herzog and Yuval Sussler:

Radio

http://www.abrahamfilm.org/audio/audio.html Sample of Audio Drama, the play adapted for radio; produced and directed by Phil Lee, Full House Productions, New York. Full CD available from Karen Sunde.

VOODOO TO PARADISE

(Haiti: A Dream)

Two scenes and interlude

CHARACTERS:

RUBIN: teacher, Siri’s husband

SIRI: young mother, Rubin’s wife

SAILOR: rough Master of sailing boat

OLD WOMAN: mysterious passenger

PASSENGERS-CHORUS may be live or pre-recorded

MUSIC: DRAMATIC ORCHESTRA, SEGUES INTO STORM, FADES TO…

SOUND: DENSE NATURE IN TROPICAL NIGHT: CRICKETS, WATER, INSECTS, HOLDS UNDER

ANNOUNCER: The play is Haiti, A Dream, written for WNYC’s The Radio Stage by Karen Sunde, and recorded in collaboration with The People’s Light and Theatre Company and radio station WHYY in Philadelphia.

SOUND: TROPICAL NIGHT, LAPPING WATER, HOLD UNDER

RUBIN: (Hushed) What is it, Siri?

SOUND: HATCH BEING OPENED

SIRI: (Hushed) I’m going down. Stay with the trunk.

SOUND: STEPS ONTO HATCH LADDER

RUBIN: Careful, the baby. (Pause. Calling down) Siri?

SIRI: (From below) Wait. I can’t see. (Pause) All right, come on. But I don’t think there’s room. Careful, the trunk.

SOUND: DRAGGING LARGE TRUNK OVER EDGE OF HOLD. RUBIN STEPS DOWN LADDER SUPPORTING TRUNK.

(RUBIN is grunting under a weight as he moves)

SOUND: NIGHT SOUNDS OUT. FADE IN UNARTICULATED HIM OF MANY PEOPLE PACKED INTO HOLD BELOW DECKS.

RUBIN: