2016 HEAR Now Festival Featured Programming:
The Mark Time Awards & Paseo Academy SoundPlay
Thursday, June 9th, 9:00pm - 10:00pm, Holiday Inn Grand Ballroom.
Guest Presenters: David Ossman & Judith Walcutt
2016 Mark Time Finalists
THE OGLE AWARD:
“The Cure”*
Jon Holland / The Theater in Your Mind (Ponder, Texas)
“To The Manor Borne By Robots Episode 5 – Who’ll Stop Lorraine”*
John Eder (Los Angeles)
“The Springhill Saga: The Secret of Springhill Jack”
Jack Bowman / Wireless Theatre (London)
“Santa For President”
Jonathan Mitchell / The Truth (NY NY)
“The Masque of the Red Death”
William Dufris /Pocket Universe Productions (Portland, Maine)
THE MARK TIME AWARD:
“Visible” and “The Last Job”
Jonathan Mitchell / The Truth (NY NY)
“Downtown Abbey, Episode 3, Denial In So Many Forms”
Marty Durlin / KZMU (Moab UT)
“The War of the Worlds: The Untold Story”
Atlanta Radio Theatre Company
THE NICK DANGER AWARD:
“BRASS: A Steampunk Adventure Serial, Pts. 1 and 2”
John Longenbaugh / Battleground Productions (Seattle)
“PULP-POURRI THEATRE: The D. N. A. Pit”
Pete Lutz / The Narada Radio Company
*programs being heard at HEAR Now Festival
THE OGLE AWARD:
“The Cure”*
Jon Holland / The Theater in Your Mind (Ponder, Texas)
“To The Manor Borne By Robots Episode 5 – Who’ll Stop Lorraine”*
John Eder (Los Angeles)
“The Springhill Saga: The Secret of Springhill Jack”
Jack Bowman / Wireless Theatre (London)
“Santa For President”
Jonathan Mitchell / The Truth (NY NY)
“The Masque of the Red Death”
William Dufris /Pocket Universe Productions (Portland, Maine)
THE MARK TIME AWARD:
“Visible” and “The Last Job”
Jonathan Mitchell / The Truth (NY NY)
“Downtown Abbey, Episode 3, Denial In So Many Forms”
Marty Durlin / KZMU (Moab UT)
“The War of the Worlds: The Untold Story”
Atlanta Radio Theatre Company
THE NICK DANGER AWARD:
“BRASS: A Steampunk Adventure Serial, Pts. 1 and 2”
John Longenbaugh / Battleground Productions (Seattle)
“PULP-POURRI THEATRE: The D. N. A. Pit”
Pete Lutz / The Narada Radio Company
*programs being heard at HEAR Now Festival
![]() David Ossman_ (Firesign Theatre)
David Ossman, one of the four creators of The Firesign Theatre, three-time Grammy nominees, known as “The Beatles of Comedy,” has been publishing poetry in books, anthologies and magazines since his teen years. The Sullen Art, his 1960-61 radio broadcasts with emerging writers included Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka and Denise Levertov, and has generated a scholarly collection (U. of Toledo Press, 2016). He has co-authored four books of Firesign’s stage and radio plays, written a novel, The Ronald Reagan Murder Case and a memoir, Dr. Firesign’s Follies, (both Bear Manor Press). He is finishing a second memoir, Fighting Clowns. An internationally-celebrated radio writer-director, best known for The War of the Worlds 50th Anniversary Production, Ossman has also produced major programs with John Cage, Ray Bradbury and Norman Corwin. His archives chronicle the Sixties, from Beat Poets to the first Renaissance Faire and the first Love-In and continue into the 21st Century. |

Judith Walcutt (Otherworld Media)
Judith Walcutt is the founder and CEO of Otherworld Media, an internationally acclaimed production company since 1981. She has been a professional in the broadcast and communications field for over thirty years. As a writer, director, and producer, she has generated hundreds of hours of programming for radio, theatre, television, and live festivals.
She began her career in theatre with an off-Broadway production of her first play at the La MaMa etc. shortly after her graduation from Bard College in 1974. She continued working in mixed media in Los Angeles, collaborating with performance artists, musicians, and dancers at the Woman’s Building, California Institute of the Arts, and at the University of Southern California where she finished her Masters degree in Rhetoric, Linguistics, and Literature in 1976. In 1979, she moved to Seattle and produced her first radio play for young people at KRAB-FM, the first free-form radio station in the Northwest.
In 1985, Walcutt took her producing skills to WGBH, Boston, for “The Spider’s Web,” hosted by Julie Harris and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The weekly radio drama series for young people aired classics of American literature, and was the last of its kind for public radio. Her first large-scale production for The Web, “The Red Badge of Courage,” a collaboration with her future husband, David Ossman, became the pilot for WGBH’s “Radio Movies” in 1986 in which the team applied the techniques of on-location recording, as well as filmic sound design and musical scoring to “radio drama,” moving the art form out of its past and into its future.
Judith Walcutt is the founder and CEO of Otherworld Media, an internationally acclaimed production company since 1981. She has been a professional in the broadcast and communications field for over thirty years. As a writer, director, and producer, she has generated hundreds of hours of programming for radio, theatre, television, and live festivals.
She began her career in theatre with an off-Broadway production of her first play at the La MaMa etc. shortly after her graduation from Bard College in 1974. She continued working in mixed media in Los Angeles, collaborating with performance artists, musicians, and dancers at the Woman’s Building, California Institute of the Arts, and at the University of Southern California where she finished her Masters degree in Rhetoric, Linguistics, and Literature in 1976. In 1979, she moved to Seattle and produced her first radio play for young people at KRAB-FM, the first free-form radio station in the Northwest.
In 1985, Walcutt took her producing skills to WGBH, Boston, for “The Spider’s Web,” hosted by Julie Harris and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The weekly radio drama series for young people aired classics of American literature, and was the last of its kind for public radio. Her first large-scale production for The Web, “The Red Badge of Courage,” a collaboration with her future husband, David Ossman, became the pilot for WGBH’s “Radio Movies” in 1986 in which the team applied the techniques of on-location recording, as well as filmic sound design and musical scoring to “radio drama,” moving the art form out of its past and into its future.

Meredith Ludwig (author / producer)
Meredith Ludwig is a writer and producer living on the banks of the Missouri River. Her weekly column called The Compost Pile can be heard on KOPN FM, streaming on the web, Sunday afternoons at 2:15 PM.
Her company, Your Town Folk History Theatre, is about to record interviews with the oldest living members of a nearby women's club. Excerpts from the interviews will then be compiled into a performance piece for the community giving them a glimpse into their past.
Meredith Ludwig is a writer and producer living on the banks of the Missouri River. Her weekly column called The Compost Pile can be heard on KOPN FM, streaming on the web, Sunday afternoons at 2:15 PM.
Her company, Your Town Folk History Theatre, is about to record interviews with the oldest living members of a nearby women's club. Excerpts from the interviews will then be compiled into a performance piece for the community giving them a glimpse into their past.
Paseo Academy SoundPlay
May 5, 2016 student performance of original works presented after two weeks of audio drama workshops facilitated by Judith Walcutt with Meredith Ludwig with audio recording and production by Jim Skeel.
May 5, 2016 student performance of original works presented after two weeks of audio drama workshops facilitated by Judith Walcutt with Meredith Ludwig with audio recording and production by Jim Skeel.
This educational program has been made possible by the Leo Gilbert Wetherill Foundation, which supports the educational mission of NATF and the HEAR Now Festival.