Adapted by Julie Hoverson from several stories by Saki (H.H. Munro).   Four girls waiting for punishment tell tales of pranks they've pulled. Cast List Vera - Beverly Poole Matilda - Lyndsey Thomas Helen - Julie Hoverson Nora - Chandra Wade Alice - Xandria Nirvana Barber     Shock Tactics Heasant - Megan Lane Bertie - Jasper Loovis The Boar-Pig  Stossen - Jody Montague Miss Stossen - Hillary Dixon The Storyteller Bachelor - Cole Hornaday The Open Window Nuttel - Kim Turner Aunt - Robyn Keyes Uncle - Rick Lewis Alice's stunt doubles Caira Greenfield and Draven Schoberg Music:  Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com) Editing and Sound:   Julie Hoverson Cover Photo:  Daniel O'Connell (courtesy of Stock Xchange.com) "What kind of a place is it? Why it's an Edwardian girls' school, can't you tell?  This way to the Headmistress' office..." http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/OpeWin.shtml ************************************************************* [transcript follows] The Saki Quartette Adapted by Julie Hoverson from several stories. I am a huge fan of H.H. Munro, who wrote under the pen name Saki in the early years of the 20th century.  His career ended prematurely when he was killed in The Great War at the age of 46. Saki is mainly remembered today for the amazing story "The Open Window," which I encourage everyone to read before listening to this episode, so I don't spoil it for you.  It's available on Project Gutenberg, you can get a reading on librivox, it's around.  It is considered to be one of the best short stories ever written in English, right up there with The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. While Saki wrote a number of supernatural, suspense, or speculative stories, his forte was relatively cruel humor - but always inflicted on those pompous enough that you didn’t feel too badly for them.  And since nobody really got hurt - unless you take it from a modern "mental damage" perspective, you can laugh.  Clovis Sangrail was an ever-recurrent character who sailed through many stories leaving havoc in his wake, but Vera from The Open Window reappeared from time to time as well (later described as a "flapper") - the two of them intersecting in The Almanac. This episode is an homage to Saki, and incorporates elements from four of his short stories - Shock Tactics, The Boar-Pig, The Storyteller, and of course The Open Window - with a bit of wrap story that is entirely my own. Three of the four principal girls were from my old high school's drama department, the fourth was me.  Several of the other voices were drawn from ART (American Radio Theater).  It's not a perfect recording - we can't seem to keep the pronunciation of "aunt" straight between us (including me) - and I hadn’t yet learned how to clean tracks perfectly yet, but overall it's fun and quite funny. Episodes like this were one reason I determined form the start that I wasn't going to nail myself into a "horror story" format.  The name "19 Nocturne Boulevard" is suggestive of the dark side, but open-ended enough to go anywhere I wanted to go. And as an aside, it has nothing to do with nocturne alley, is it, from Harry Potter?  Several people have commented on that, but when I created 19 Nocturne Boulevard, it was sometime around 2006, and I hadn’t - I may have heard of Harry Potter, but I never actually read the books.  This was entirely on my own.  It’s not a pun like Nocturne alley - nocturnally - was. I remember the summer of sitting there and thinking I want a number, and an address that sounds cool - what's a cool street? While sitting around at meetings of American Radio Theater. ******************************************************** SAKI QUARTETTE   Cast: Olivia, host Vera [open window] [15], sly Matilda [boar-pig] [14], mischievous Helen [shock tactics] [10], eager Nora [storyteller] [11], shy, rules-bound Alice [15], older girl, screams a lot [Shock Tactics] Bertie, Helen's older brother Heasant, their mother [Boar-Pig] Stossen Miss Sto