WORKSHOP 101 & Tony Hawkins Writing Intensive at The HEAR Now Festival
NATF presents Workshop 101 at the HEAR Now Festival. This workshop is a crash course in audio theater. In three and a half days, NATF's instructors will take participants through the basics of writing, directing, producing and performing audio theater works. Participants will create or adapt a script that will be performed, directed and acted by the Workshop 101 participants on the final day of the festival. Not only will participants get the opportunity to interact with their accomplished teachers, but they will also get to meet many professionals throughout the field, who can become valued contacts. Over the last three decades NATF, and its faculty, have been producing audio theater workshops nationally. Workshop 101 reflects that knowledge in a tight program that will give participants better understanding on how to create their own audio theater projects.
WORKSHOP 101 REGISTRATION FEES:
$295.00 per person
$225.00 per person for Kansas City, MO residents
$195.00 per person for students (college or high school, no grade school children in this program)
For further information about Workshop 101, please e-mail hearnowfestival@gmail.com
Click below to listen and watch the 2015 Workshop 101 Performance ....
2016 Workshop 101 Faculty
Howard L. Craft is a father, husband, poet, playwright, and arts educator. He is the author of a book of poems,Across The Blue Chasm. His poetry also appears in Home is Where: An Anthology of African-American poets from the Carolinas, edited by Kwame Dawes.
His plays include: “Caleb Calypso and the Midnight Marauders”, “The House of George ”, “Stealing Clouds ”, a children’s musical entitled “Indigo Blue”, and “Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green”.
Craft’s 2010 play, “Jade City Chronicles Vol 1”, sparked Craft and WUNC host Frank Stasio to create the first African-American Super Hero Radio Serial entitled The Jade City Pharaoh which is currently in preparation for a 3rd season.
Craft teaches creative writing in colleges, public, private schools and to adults through the North Carolina Writers Network , Duke Center for Documentary Studies and various arts councils and organizations. An accomplished writer, Craft has received the N.C. Arts Council Playwriting Fellowship, a Durham Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant, and is a two time recipient of the N.C. Central University New Play Project, as well as numerous commissions from universities and professional theaters.
His plays include: “Caleb Calypso and the Midnight Marauders”, “The House of George ”, “Stealing Clouds ”, a children’s musical entitled “Indigo Blue”, and “Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green”.
Craft’s 2010 play, “Jade City Chronicles Vol 1”, sparked Craft and WUNC host Frank Stasio to create the first African-American Super Hero Radio Serial entitled The Jade City Pharaoh which is currently in preparation for a 3rd season.
Craft teaches creative writing in colleges, public, private schools and to adults through the North Carolina Writers Network , Duke Center for Documentary Studies and various arts councils and organizations. An accomplished writer, Craft has received the N.C. Arts Council Playwriting Fellowship, a Durham Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant, and is a two time recipient of the N.C. Central University New Play Project, as well as numerous commissions from universities and professional theaters.

Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio will join Howard Craft in leading the 2016 Workshop 101 classes.
Frank was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006 at WUNC-FM.
A native of Buffalo, he has been in radio since the age of 19.
Frank began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
From there he went to National Public Radio, where he rose from associate producer to newscaster for All Things Considered. He left that job in 1990 to help start an alternative school in Washington, DC. Frank returned to NPR as a freelance news anchor, guest host of Talk of The Nation and other national programs, and host of special news coverage.
He also presents audio theater workshops for children and teachers and conducts radio journalism workshops for broadcasters in former Soviet-bloc countries. He lives in Durham.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio will join Howard Craft in leading the 2016 Workshop 101 classes.
Frank was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006 at WUNC-FM.
A native of Buffalo, he has been in radio since the age of 19.
Frank began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
From there he went to National Public Radio, where he rose from associate producer to newscaster for All Things Considered. He left that job in 1990 to help start an alternative school in Washington, DC. Frank returned to NPR as a freelance news anchor, guest host of Talk of The Nation and other national programs, and host of special news coverage.
He also presents audio theater workshops for children and teachers and conducts radio journalism workshops for broadcasters in former Soviet-bloc countries. He lives in Durham.

Bob Kaliban, returns as Workshop 101's Performance and Voice teacher, has done more than 15,000 commercials, everything from voice-overs to on-camera announcing. Bob does dialects, cartoon voices, straight announcing, on-camera, industrials, and much more. According to Bob, he has been more than lucky; he has been wildly successful. He attended Britain’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and then understudied in such shows as “Redhead” and “How to Succeed in Business” before getting into commercials work in the early 1960s and continuing his career through today.

Brian Price, writer, audio producer and director is Workshop 101's Writing Instructor having participated in the 101 program since 2013. Brian started out writing 90-second political satire commentaries back in the 1980s. Since then he's written scores of radio/audio skits and plays that have even been translated into Croatian and Chinese. He is a founding partner in Great Northern Audio Theatre and a founding member of NATF.

Tony Brewer, Workshop 101's Sound Effects Instructor, is an independent sound effects artist and spoken word performer from Bloomington, Indiana. He produced and directed eight episodes of the Hayward Sanitarium horror series for NPR Playhouse in 1994, and went on to produce, direct, and perform in dozens of live and studio works at the end of the last century for Last Minute Productions and WFHB Community Radio in Bloomington. Other credits include: live sound effects for The Merry Widow with the Knoxville Opera (2002); live sound effects for The War of the Worlds for the Franklin (Tenn.) Drama Review (2003); director or co-director of live sound effects for NATF (2001-2003, 2006, 2009-2014); foley for the independent films Inverses (2005) and 8 Wheels of Death (which he also wrote, 2010); live sound effects for the International Mystery Writers Festival (2008-2009, 2012); live sound effects for Agatha Christie and the BBC Murders produced by Otherworld Media (2010); and sound effects coordinator for live variety shows on WFHB (2008-present).

Butch D’Ambrosio, past Workshop 101 Director, will be on hand this year to work with the classes. Butch got his first rejection from MAD magazine when he was 12 years old. He was their youngest intern and the last one under Bill Gaines. Butch was also a contributing member of the Usual Gang of Idiots for a long while. His involvement in audio theatre goes back almost as far, having been lucky enough to hook up with certain people… then MRTW… now NATF. Some of his other interesting things are too long ago to be relevant, a short film, a season writing for a Sesame Workshop animated children’s show, years of involvement with local theatre groups, a sketch group, doing sound effects, spending five seasons at a RenFaire, etc.. Some more recent things include being a board member of the aforementioned NATF, writing for 24 hour play festivals, and creating now abandoned Twitter accounts focusing his dislike of Justin Beiber and the Royal Wedding in Haiku. He can be heard playing great music and complaining about something every Sunday night at 11pm eastern on http://live.streamwrhu.net.

Kerby Mitchell returns to the HEAR Now Festival as the Workshop 101 Technical Director.
Kerby has been an audio engineer for 14 years.
"I fell in love with the NATF 13 years ago as an intern. Since that time I have recorded many radio theater productions. Through this I have worked with many, many talented people. I have also gone on to work for Metro Mobile at the Bonnaroo Music Festival."
Kerby has been an audio engineer for 14 years.
"I fell in love with the NATF 13 years ago as an intern. Since that time I have recorded many radio theater productions. Through this I have worked with many, many talented people. I have also gone on to work for Metro Mobile at the Bonnaroo Music Festival."
2015 Workshop 101 Faculty
Click on the captions below each photo for an expanded view of each image.
Andi Meyer is Director of Education and cast member for the international award-winning radio comedy group, Right Between The Ears. She is also the resident arts coordinator at Marillac, a therapeutic day school for students with Behavioral and Emotional Disorders. As an actress and teaching artist, Andi has worked for The Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, Accessible Arts, VSA Arts of Mo, Kansas City Rep, Starlight Theatre, The Unicorn, The Coterie, and Kansas City Young Audiences. She teaches Shakespeare, radio theatre, and visual arts for youth with backgrounds ranging from adjudicated to privileged. Specializing in arts access for people with disabilities, she served as a Trail Artist for a 2007 Coming Up Taller award recipient, The Discovery Trails Project, and is Executive Artistic Director for the Kansas City Pan Asian American Artist Group.