2016 HEAR Now Festival Featured Programming:
Thursday, June 9th - Saturday, June 11th
5:00pm-6:00pm
Prospero's Books
Cafe' Caliban & Reader's Room (2nd Floor)
Each night, beginning on Thursday, June 9th, from 5:00pm-6:00pm, and running through Saturday, June 11th, guest narrators read selections from Mark Twain at Prospero's Books (1800 W 39th St, Kansas City, MO) in Cafe' Caliban - their 2nd floor Readers’ Room.
With support from SAG/AFTRA, 2016’s A Celebration of Mark Twain! is free and open to all and includes a slice of d'Bronx Pizza nightly for all audience guests and Mark Twain narrators.
With support from SAG/AFTRA, 2016’s A Celebration of Mark Twain! is free and open to all and includes a slice of d'Bronx Pizza nightly for all audience guests and Mark Twain narrators.
Thursday, June 9, 2016:
Featured Narrators:
Mac Chamblin
Reading from Roughing It Roughing It is Twain's personal recollection of his wanderlust years. In his youth, Twain traveled extensively throughout the untamed American West with his brother, working his way from town to town in a variety of jobs, including gold prospector, reporter, and lecturer. Twain was a skilled chronicler of his own life and experiences. Roughing It is a wildly humorous adventure yarn that combines hard facts with a healthy dose of the author's unique perspective, one that helped define the course of American literature. Mac is a teacher/director, stage and voice actor, and broadcaster from the St. Louis region. He is professor of speech /theatre /mass communication, and heads the broadcast program at Southwestern Illinois College. This year at HEAR Now, he is delighted to be performing in Oh! What a Poetical War! and Celebrating Mark Twain! For the past few years he has been busy establishing the college’s internet radio station, Blue Storm Radio, serving as its General Manager. |
Maryann Strossner
Reading from The Autobiography of Mark Twain (Edited by Charles Neider) Maryann is best known for the Random House audiobook “Mother Teresa’s Meditations from A Simple Path.” She also narrated children’s stories for Golden and Scholastic Records and was one of the characters in Judith Martin’s “Miss Manners” audiobook series on etiquette for Audio Renaissance. While family responsibilities took her away from radio drama (one of the series MIDNIGHT was broadcast on NPR)she is thrilled to be back, starting off with a character in SueMedia Production’s upcoming audio production of MOZART’S COOK. |

Holmes Osborne
Reading from Letters From The Earth
Holmes is an actor living just outside rural Odessa, Missouri, nearby Kansas City.
This “ubiquitous character actor,” as one critic dubbed him, began his acting life on the stage,
later working steadily in film and television.
His film work began with Tom Hanks’, “That Thing You Do!” Among other films are “Donnie Darko”, “The Quiet American”, and “Affliction”. TV includes guest starring roles on “House”, “Everybody Loves Raymond”, and many others. Look him up on imdb.com!
Holmes did many hours of narration when make his living, pre-Hollywood, as an on-camera and voice-over narrator, as well as performing as an actor for a number of years as a regional theatre actor.
Reading from Letters From The Earth
Holmes is an actor living just outside rural Odessa, Missouri, nearby Kansas City.
This “ubiquitous character actor,” as one critic dubbed him, began his acting life on the stage,
later working steadily in film and television.
His film work began with Tom Hanks’, “That Thing You Do!” Among other films are “Donnie Darko”, “The Quiet American”, and “Affliction”. TV includes guest starring roles on “House”, “Everybody Loves Raymond”, and many others. Look him up on imdb.com!
Holmes did many hours of narration when make his living, pre-Hollywood, as an on-camera and voice-over narrator, as well as performing as an actor for a number of years as a regional theatre actor.
Friday, June 10, 2016:
Featured Narrators: Mark Turetsky (Jeff Kraus Performance Scholarship Winner) Reading from The Private History of a Campaign That Failed. The story chronicles a fictionalized version of Twain's experiences during the Civil War, and deals with themes of loss of innocence upon witnessing the horrors of war first hand. Mark hails from the New York City area and has been narrating since, 2009. His recent accomplishments include:
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Joan Baker & Bob Kaliban
Reading from The Diaries of Adam & Eve What if Adam and Eve had kept diaries? What would this have told us of their characters? Mark Twain, in his brilliance, shows what the possible result may have been in these two diaries. Joan Baker is the author of Secrets of Voice-Over Success, and has performed hundreds of promos and commercials for TV, film and radio throughout her highly regarded career. ABC News, American Express, Other clients include: King World, ESPN, BLOOMBERG TV and radio, SHOWTIME, HBO, NBA Entertainment, COURT TV, Imus in the Morning, Olay, Lens Express, Sony Music, JP Morgan Chase, American Express, Costco, and The New York Times Classified represents just a few of the numerous clients who regularly call upon her unique sound. Recently Joan also provided the live voice announcements for the “Museum of the Moving Image Salutes Will Smith” which aired on Bravo TV. Bob Kaliban is best known as a voice-over actor and 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. |
Suzan Lorraine
Reading from "How to Tell a Story" This essay points out the differences between humor and comedy through delightful examples of each. In her native San Francisco Bay Area, Suzan has been involved acting, directing and stage work in community theatre for nearly 100 productions. Over the last few years, she and her husband, Bill Chessman, have produced over a dozen radio dramas before live theatre audiences - some of which have been featured in the Atlanta Fringe Festival and the HEAR Now Festival and broadcast over local stations. Suzan has included a short radio drama in a summer theatre workshop for kids ages 8-15 which she has directed for the last four years. All of this has led to her jumping into the world of audiobook narration and production. Talk about going from the frying pan into the fire . . . |
Saturday, June 11, 2016:

Featured Narrators:
Gladys Coggswell
Reading from A True Story
Gladys portrays “Aunt Rachel,” a former slave whose real name was Mary Ann Cord.
This heart wrenching performance is a recollection of her life as a slave. This story tells the sorrow of being torn apart (sold) from her husband and children. Mark Twain wrote her story “Word for word, as I heard it” and published it in the Atlantic Monthly in 1874.
As a media favorite, Gladys dynamic performances, workshops, speeches and books have been written about, and televised. Her stories have brought audiences to their feet. She is one of the nation’s leading experts in the areas of inner healing, humor, violence/substance prevention stories and story based seminars.
Gladys Coggswell
Reading from A True Story
Gladys portrays “Aunt Rachel,” a former slave whose real name was Mary Ann Cord.
This heart wrenching performance is a recollection of her life as a slave. This story tells the sorrow of being torn apart (sold) from her husband and children. Mark Twain wrote her story “Word for word, as I heard it” and published it in the Atlantic Monthly in 1874.
As a media favorite, Gladys dynamic performances, workshops, speeches and books have been written about, and televised. Her stories have brought audiences to their feet. She is one of the nation’s leading experts in the areas of inner healing, humor, violence/substance prevention stories and story based seminars.

Ellen Stewart
Reading from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Ellen has spent a lifetime as a theatre director/producer/actor in Sonora, California where she was Artistic Director for Columbia Actors’ Repertory and Mountain Actor’s Conservatory. She is a professor emeritus of theatre and speech at Columbia College.
In San Francisco, she improvised with Bay Area Theatre Sports Sunday Night Players.
She served as producer for the first two “live” shows for HEAR Now: The Audio Fiction and Arts Festival in 2013 and 2014, following twelve years participating with the National Audio Theatre Festivals as actor and director for numerous audio productions.
This year at HEAR Now, she is co-producing and performing in Oh! What a Poetical War! and Celebrating Mark Twain!
For the past several years, she has been developing a new radio station in her community, KAAD-LP, scheduled to begin broadcasting in late summer.
Reading from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Ellen has spent a lifetime as a theatre director/producer/actor in Sonora, California where she was Artistic Director for Columbia Actors’ Repertory and Mountain Actor’s Conservatory. She is a professor emeritus of theatre and speech at Columbia College.
In San Francisco, she improvised with Bay Area Theatre Sports Sunday Night Players.
She served as producer for the first two “live” shows for HEAR Now: The Audio Fiction and Arts Festival in 2013 and 2014, following twelve years participating with the National Audio Theatre Festivals as actor and director for numerous audio productions.
This year at HEAR Now, she is co-producing and performing in Oh! What a Poetical War! and Celebrating Mark Twain!
For the past several years, she has been developing a new radio station in her community, KAAD-LP, scheduled to begin broadcasting in late summer.

Jeff Hays
Reading from Tom Sawyer
Jeff Hays is an audio book narrator and producer. Born with a natural fascination with sound, he spent his younger years as a composer and bass guitarist. He has more than forty books from nearly every genre on Audible, each filled with enough unique characterizations that listeners often mistake them for full cast productions. Although he has recently been adventuring around the country, Jeff was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, and plans to eventually bring everything he discovers back home.
Reading from Tom Sawyer
Jeff Hays is an audio book narrator and producer. Born with a natural fascination with sound, he spent his younger years as a composer and bass guitarist. He has more than forty books from nearly every genre on Audible, each filled with enough unique characterizations that listeners often mistake them for full cast productions. Although he has recently been adventuring around the country, Jeff was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, and plans to eventually bring everything he discovers back home.
Mary Mitchell
Event Coordinator / Site Producer Mary has been involved with the NATF for close to a decade. She began working in the Festivals' vendor area and has gone on to work in many administrative areas over the years. "My husband Kerby introduced me to this world, and I have never looked back. I love having the opportunity to learn more and meet the great people of the audio world!" |