East Wing of Waverly Hills Sanatorium, from second floor of the West Wing (solarium/patient's quarters). Screen capture from Adam Watson's videotape.
"LIVE FROM WAVERLY HILLS"
a JACKPOT TIGER
production
presented by 91.9 WFPK-FM
broadcast on October 31, 2003, 8:00 pm
radio drama
length: 39
minutes
CAST:
WANDA PECK as Suzi Curtis
LANCE HILLMAN as Brett Bantham
RICK
O’DANIEL-MUNGER as Professor Robert Swayjik
DELORES GAGEL as
Juliana Torrance and the voice of Gladys
SPECIAL APPEARANCES (as themselves):
SCOTT MULLINS
KEITH AGE
DAN REED
Show Documentarian:
Dan Phillips
WFPK Studio Producer, Editor, and Sound Effects
Supervisor:
Andy High
Written by Adam Watson
based on a story by
Adam Watson and Dan Reed
Directed and Produced by Adam Watson
Special thanks and appreciation to the owners of
the Waverly Hills
estate, Tina and Charles Mattingly
For more information on the
"real" Waverly Hills Sanatorium, visit these links:
Waverly Hills’ Wikipedia entry
Official
Waverly Hills Historical Website (site owned by Tina & Charles
Mattingly)
Waverly
Hills Sanatorium / Woodhaven Geriatric Center Memorial Site
"Ghosts of the Prairie" article on Waverly Hills
The
Louisville Ghost Hunters Society
SHOW TRIVIA
The idea of the show grew out of a December 2002 lunch meeting between Dan Reed (WFPK's Program Director) and Adam Watson. Adam pitched an idea of a radio production of War of the Worlds, with a dash of modern "reality" drama, a la The Blair Witch Project. The idea of Blair Witch meets War of the Worlds intrigued Reed, who suggested doing a supposedly "live" show from a "haunted" house. Watson took it a step further: "Well, why not make it at Waverly Hills?", the former TB sanatorium renowned locally (and internationally) as a supernaturally active location. In subsequent conversations, several of the broad strokes of the story were hammered out, and Adam wrote the rest.
The show was recorded in three separate October sessions in WFPK's studio.
All the sound effects were original and created for the show. Several of these were actually recorded onsite at Waverly Hills, including the ambiant noise of the hallway (crickets chirping, etc., heard most clearly right before the credits), running footsteps on the stairs, and the pounding / slamming of doors.
Most of the facts about Waverly Hills and Woodhaven revealed in the interview segments of the show are true and/or based on printed and online sources. (However, "Max Eagleton" did not really exist.)
Although the overall storyline, character backgrounds, and main plot points of the show were carefully written by Watson, many of the beat-to-beat moments of the show were heavily improvised (similar to the way The Blair Witch Project was created and filmed). For example, Rick O'Daniel-Munger ("Professor Swayjik") studied and learned Waverly Hills's history so he would sound credible as an "expert" when Scott Mullins interviewed him, but the interview itself was not scripted. The other interviews were also improvised in a similar way.
Delores Gagel ("Julianna
Torrance") has real-life experience in psychic phenomena, including
reading tarot cards. Her character's supposed store address, "
If you listen closely, Lance Hillman ("Brett Bantham") coughs early and repeatedly throughout the beginning interviews, foreshadowing his serious problems later in the show. His cough during Keith Age's interview was taped separately and added in post-production!
The dragging sound made by Wanda Peck ("Suzi Curtis") as she tries to escape was done with a small mat usually used in the studio for drumkits. Wanda really did crawl while dragging the mat underneath her, in order to make the distinctive scraping noise.
The actual show ended twenty minutes shy of the "scheduled" programming hour. However, when originally broadcast, Watson was allowed to choose the music filling out the remaining twenty minutes. The songs played were (in this order):
- "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" by White Stripes (album: White Blood Cells)
- "In My Time of Dying," by Led Zeppelin
- "Cry Baby Cry," by the Beatles (album: The White Album)
- "Crossroads" (Robert Johnson), performed by the Cowboy Junkies (album: Whites Off Earth Now!!)
This
contained several hints and references to the show. Tuberculosis was
known as the White Plague or White Death; note the various "White"
references above. "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" has
ominous lyrics that mirror Suzi's plight. The
title of "In My Time of Dying" seems explanation enough, although the
lyrics are equally pertinent; the song ends with Robert Plant's remark about an
off-mike cough. In the chorus of "Cry Baby Cry," the audience
expecting a "real" seance is reminded in
the chorus to be "old enough to know better"; in one of the final
verses, "a seance in the dark" is described
"[w]ith voices out of nowhere / Put on specially by the children for a lark." It ends
with Paul's repeated refrain to "take me back," which alludes to Max Eagleton's story as well as the ending of the show.
And finally, the Cowboy Junkies's version of
"Crossroads" is just . . . spooky.
Mark Borchardt,
director/writer of Coven, star of the documentary American Movie, and actor of
such films as Jet Li's The One, said: "The production [of Waverly
Hills] was so well accomplished that not knowing at first if it was fact or
fiction, I bought into it as a real event. The actors, as well as the
technical rendering, were superb.
A definite congratulations to Adam Watson and
his crew."
The Courier-Journal article that plugged our
show:
"Some Unexpected
Treats Arise"
by Carla Carlton,
10/31/03.
PRODUCTION PHOTOS
Taken by Dan Phillips.
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Despite the 40+ hours he works as a WFPK deejay, Mr. Mullins was gracious enought to work on our project, and we were/are eternally grateful. |
Note the large multidirectional microphone on the right. It allowed Adam to record post-seance scenes in true stereo; for example, if a character spoke on its left side, the playback would come from the left speaker. It also allowed natural pans during recording as actors moved back and forth across the room. |
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