HEAR Now Festival 2019

Photos, programs, and sounds albums for the 2019 HEAR Now Festival held on June 6-9, 2019.

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How We Came To Be the HEAR Now Festival ...
The following was written by Butch D'Ambrosio for HEAR Now's AUDIO Tonight program and was performed by Phil Proctor on June 8, 2019:

Now, I told you that this is the seventh year of the Hear Now Festival, but did you know that our history goes back decades before, with the National Audio Theatre Workshop, and the Midwest Radio Theatre Workshop, before that? Well, if Edgar Allan Poe wrote about how we came to be here today, I think it’d sound something like this:

Once upon a June night, steamy, we were filled with hope and dreamy,
After many a decade having opened radio’s drawer,
We were planning, but while we plotted, M-A-C left us besotted,
Our future grant was unallotted! But we have had such great rapport.

“Ti – Ti - ‘t’is some mistake!” NAT - F stuttered. “Why ever would you close that door?”
“We can’t fund workshops anymore.”

Ah, so clearly we recall, that loss had gone and made us small.
And each participant – one and all – questioned it, as if to underscore
The tragedy that befell us! What to do? Could someone tell us?
Indeed, the world would be quite hell-us, without the workshops we adore.
Without the workshops we so adore. Grantless now for evermore.

Yes, loss of workshops left us hurtin’, but one thing we knew was certain
There could be - opportuni-tee- and therefore, NAT-F swore:
“It is time that we grow up and the people they will show up
To the future raise a cup up and in a Festival, efforts pour,
With our friends we raise a cup up and in a Festival our efforts pour!
This we’ll do or nothing more.

Presently the time grew nearer; and the planning it got clearer.
An audio, fiction, and sound art festival, yet so much more!
There would be story-telling, in all forms, most compelling,
We would hear the audience yelling, yelling “Bravo!” through the last encore.
Four days in Kansas City, each one a lion’s roar:
Audio fiction at its core.

Seven years of HEAR Now growing, growth that shows no sign of slowing,
Each new year bigger, better than the year that came before.
But, alas, tonight we look like toast, alas, we could not find a host,
A host who’d make a witty riposte, filling silence we deplore.
So I alone must save the day, save the day and save the store!
Let’s get going then – I CAN’T STAND THIS ANYMORE!

(APPLAUSE)