MRH: You background is originally a composer and musician?

AB: As a concert pianist, actually. That’s what I did for about 14 years.

MRH: For the directing itself, did you rely on any associates for pointers or tips or suggestions?

AB: Absolutely. On all the actors, I had a really great guy named Christopher Stanton assisting me. He was an invaluable help. It was [also] my first time conducting, and I’d worked with all the musicians as a musician, [so] I felt comfortable with all of them. I didn’t have anything to prove to them... Every guy in that band gave me direction about what works, what doesn’t work, what’s helpful, what’s not helpful. It was a huge learning experience for me.

MRH: There’s one aspect of the cast that I really enjoyed, and that’s right at the play's beginning, where the actors were playing their historical counterparts arriving for what’s essentially another day on the job.

AB: Totally.

MRH: And then just mimicking the camaraderie, and what everybody goes through in their normal morning routine.

AB: That was again part of the vision in the beginning. Basically, all the broad strokes were mine – how it was to look, the fact that it would begin that way, the fact that we would be waiting for Orson.

I didn’t expect anybody to get it, but when he did this radio broadcast [in 1938], he was hustling like crazy to try to keep his theatre company afloat, so he would be doing 3 or 4 radio shows a day and then rushing back to and from rehearsals at the theatre to these radio gigs, and he actually used to rent an ambulance; there was no law to prohibit the use of an ambulance for brevity or whatever.

[So] the waiting for Orson was there, and the archetypes of the characters were there, and the fact that the foley would be a major part of the theatre was there. All those moments got filled out by the actors, and it was just a question of keeping the gems and directing them if something wasn’t working.

MRH: I’m curious if you had an extensive rehearsal time, because the performances were like musicians in a jazz band - glancing over and seeing if the other actor was ready, how they would enter a scene, and when to let someone take over in a fluid action.

AB: Do mean like a jazz band in the sense that it was kind of improvised as we went along?

MRH: I guess maybe behaviorally improvised, where everyone was waiting not just for timing, but entering and exiting a scene in spite of occasionally adding a few touches if it felt right, or to compliment an actor’s prior bit of business. The Orson Welles character at one point walks over to the foley artist and makes suggestions, such as playing the Martian death ray beam a little harder to give listeners a good shock.

AB: Absolutely... There are many moments where it needed to feel like they were looking for cues or for timing, or at each other. I mean, they were pre-determined, but it was different each time. They were such a great cast in terms of their spontaneity, and kind of playing in the moment.

MRH: I particularly liked the way they stayed in character. Don McKellar basically played a busy-minded, obsessive workaholic; Marc Bendavid was a vain matinee idol, and Nicholas Campbell was my favourite because he played this salty veteran who arrives first into the studio but didn’t remember to pull up his fly until the broadcast was already underway.

AB: The Orson Welles character was really directing and controlling everything; he was the one with the vision; he was the one who knew how he wanted it to sound, and the timing and the rhythm of it…. Marc was supposed to be kind of the eager-beaver ingénue.

MRH: For the original radio broadcast audiences, they were used to listening to a few sounds and visualizing the drama in their minds, regardless of the setting or type of drama, but for contemporary audiences, we’re used to having a visual component which we seem to need because without it, a radio drama may seem sort of boring.

As an audience member, your whole production seemed cinematic because not only was it a glimpse through a historical window, but there were specific stage elements which, as an audience member, you could focus on whenever you wanted while ‘the film’ was going on.

You could follow an actor and a small gesture, and then glance over to the musicians who were having their own wry chatter when not playing any music, and to the left see the foley artist prepping his audio props and making sure the wiring was tight and nothing was tangled. The fact everyone stayed in character and simulated small behavioral gestures made it easier for modern audiences to watch the recreation of a live radio drama.

AB: I’m glad. I would be lying if I said that was calculated, but we were all kind of there to deliver this play. [The characters on stage were] busy because they were all focused on what was going on, and I knew that people would get a kick out of the foley... It was very deliberate to put him right down stage so that everybody could see how he was making those sounds.

MRH: For myself, the foley was the final hook that drew me into the play because when I read the description, I though ‘Oh! They’re actually going to have a foley artist and a live band’ When you see his paraphernalia, it’s just amazing.

AB: John Gzowski’s job would have been infinitely easier if I wasn’t so obsessed by everything at least looking like it was from 1938. In the end we had to cheat in many ways, but that tied his hands a little bit, you know what I mean? But it also made it more interesting, like the Slinky thing [which] I don’t think was invented until World War II.