Mike Suerdieck picked up a wooden box filled with outlet wall plates.
“Basically, this is our crash box,” he said, rattling the box and the plates inside to create a sudden, jarring clatter.
He placed the box back on the Foley table for Williamsburg Old Time Radio Hour, a soundboard of contraptions Suerdieck devised to create various audio effects.
Some are pretty straight-forward: a container of marbles mimics the sound of ice in a cup. Others are more complex: clothespins and a door hinge fixed to a slab of wood combine to create the sound of a manual typewriter.
Though Williamsburg Old Time Radio Hour is a performance audiences can watch, the magic of the show lies in the sounds.
“It’s an audio experience,” Suerdieck said.
Recreating the experience of a live radio broadcast in 1935, Williamsburg Old Time Radio Hour will present four shows at Kimball Theatre July 16 and 23.
Mike Suerdieck and his wife Rebecca created the program, which they’ve offered around the area since 2006. The upcoming performances include three others: Chloe Martin, Nicola Worrell and Randall Benton.
The program includes three original skits: a romantic comedy, a drama and a pet comedy following the adventures of “Lucky” the dog. Performances of vintage jazz songs punctuate the skits, as well as humorous advertisements and one-liners.
“It’s using your imagination,” Mike Suerdieck said. “The visuals are totally in their head.”
He sometimes sees audience members with eyes closed. Not because they fell asleep, but because they want to soak in the sounds more fully.
Even so, the radio hour engages visually. Dressed in costume, cast members don’t just read scripts onstage, they perform. “Lucky” the dog, a puppet, even makes an appearance.
There’s an orchestrated flurry on stage as the cast reads, performs, creates Foley, gives cues, follows cues – often all at once.
“It’s like a little ballet going on,” Benton said.
Williamsburg Old Time Radio Hour could stand alone as entertainment, driven by the talent of the cast. One could also note the program’s authenticity, resurrecting the radio medium in its golden age.
But there’s more still to the show. The Suerdiecks designed the program to tell a story unique to Williamsburg: the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg.
“It’s a complete reinvention of Williamsburg,” Mike Suerdieck said.
Yet, as much as the restoration changed Williamsburg, Rebecca Suerdieck said many don’t know the story. They just see its effects.
“That’s why we wanted to introduce another version of a story of the same town,” she said.
Though fictional, the radio hour draws from this time period, with insight gained from oral histories and Colonial Williamsburg archives.
Take, for example, the show’s fictional advertisement for “Rooster Roast” coffee. The commercial references Pender’s Grocery, a store once located along Duke of Gloucester Street.
“These stories are not in the history books,” Rebecca Suerdieck said.
It’s important to revitalize stories that may have just sat on a library shelf, she said, to take “these stories that may have been lost and keep them alive.”
And to do so through Foley, corny one-liners and “Lucky” the dog.
“There’s just so much more to love with history,” Rebecca Suerdieck said. “And it can be hilarious.”
Bridges can be reached by phone at 757-345-2342.
Williamsburg Old Time Radio Hour
When:1:30 and 4 p.m., July 16 and 23
Where: Kimball Theatre, 428 W. Duke of Gloucester St.
Tickets: $14/adults, $10/children age 12 and under
Call 1-855-923-8015 or visit kimballtheatre.com.
