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By Natalie Musumeci
Brooklyn Daily
These performers are giving a face to radio.
Radio stories are coming to life in a “Radio Cabaret,” a variety show featuring actual radio producers, journalists, musicians, and storytellers at Williamsburg’s UnionDocs on Feb. 16.
For audience members it won’t just be a feast for the ears, but also a treat for the eyes thanks to live music, animation, and other theatrics.
“If you close your eyes and imagine the possible scenes while you’re listening to a radio story — that’s what we bring to the stage,” said radio journalist Audrey Quinn, the show’s co-director, who has worked for Public Radio International and National Public Radio.
“Radio stories are wonderfully immersive, but when there’s something to draw your eyes onto the stage too it just adds that extra layer that puts you in another world,” said Quinn, who has put on the show four times since its inception last year with radio producers Kaitlin Prest and Sharon Mashihi.
It’s like television — but better.
Each show is made up of a handful of different performers who come up with their own short, unrelated, and typically non-fiction-based acts that all incorporate the use of recorded sound, giving the show its radio feel.
Quinn will join forces with musician Pierre de Gaillande to tell the story of Solresol, a dead language invented by a French musician in the early 1800s, using archival sounds.
The show will also feature performances by radio journalists Alex Gallafent, who will put on a one-man comical bit, and Karen Michel, who toured the country asking people what they would live, die, and kill for the most.
Can’t make it out of the house? Don’t worry: two sound artists will even transmit the event on an actual FM radio signal during their performance — albeit without those awesome visuals.
“If you enjoy radio on its own there is no way you couldn’t enjoy the enriched quality of ‘Radio Cabaret,’ ” said Quinn. “It’s like radio plus.”
Radio Cabaret at UnionDocs [322 Union Ave. between Ten Eyck and Maujer streets in Williamsburg, (718) 395-7902, get tickets at www.artful.ly/store/events/737]. Feb. 16, 7:30 pm. $9.
Reach reporter Natalie Musumeci at nmusumeci@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4505. Follow her at twitter.com/souleddout.