arts&life
radio
On The
Radio
PHOTO COURTESY OF DETROITROCKNROLLMAGAZINE.COM
Metro Detroit fans of old-style radio
plays launch their own show.
TOP: A family gathers
around the radio in
the early 1930s, when
the Charlie Chan radio
plays were popular.
MIDDLE: Sheldon
Kay taping his Rock
& Roll Lawyer Show.
RIGHT: Rehearsing
for The Inscrutable
Dr. Pong, Crime
Solver are (from left)
Penelope Calcaterra,
Steve Sussman,
Rob Grodin and Ted
Friedman.
BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER
F
ans of old-style radio
drama, take note:
You can return to those
thrilling days of yesteryear at
6 p.m. Friday, Jan. 12, when a
new Detroit-produced radio
play, The Inscrutable Dr. Pong,
Crime Solver, will make its
debut on WCXI-AM.
The play, the culmination of
almost two years of effort, was
the brainchild of Farmington
Hills attorney and amateur
musician Sheldon Kay.
Kay hosts an AM radio show,
the Rock & Roll Lawyer Show,
where he discusses legal issues
and plays American roots
music, especially “rockabilly”
songs. He likes to feature local
rock artists and groups on the
show.
Kay says he has enjoyed
radio plays since he listened to
them as a child late at night on
WWJ.
Over lunch at the Plaza Deli,
where he eats every Saturday
afternoon, Kay got to know a
fellow diner, local songwriter
and playwright Myron Stein of
Southfield.
Stein, 76, a semi-retired juve-
nile court probation officer
and art teacher, has long been
active with the Village Players
in Birmingham and frequently
contributes to their annual
“Shorts & Sweets” festival of
one-act plays.
A few years ago, Stein invited
Kay to the festival, where he
got the idea of producing a new
radio play. Stein was on board
immediately. In fact, he had
written a one-act stage play,
Pong, that he thought he could
easily adapt for radio.
He modeled both the stage
play and radio play on the old
Charlie Chan stories that first
appeared as novels in the 1920s
and were subsequently adapted
for film, radio and television.
Chan was loosely based on
Honolulu detective Chang
Apana. The character was con-
ceived as an alternative to neg-
ative Asian media stereotypes
like the villainous Fu Manchu.
For his cast, Stein enlisted
some fellow Village Players
members: Rob Grodin, 63,
a retired nuclear medicine
technician from Huntington
Woods; Steve Sussman, 67, an
architect from Birmingham;
and Penelope Calcaterra, 61, a
legal assistant from Waterford.
Joining them is attorney Ted
Friedman, 75, of Southfield,
who participated in a read-
ing of Stein’s one-act plays at
Congregation Beth Shalom two
years ago. Stein and Grodin are
also Beth Shalom members.
Stein says his original play,
Pong, which was performed at
the Village Players’ “Shorts &
Sweets” festival five years ago,
was only about 10 minutes
long. He had to expand it quite
a bit to create a 40-minute
radio play.
Once the script was written,
the actors and Kay got together
about once a month at Kay’s
office to rehearse and discuss
music and sound effects. The
process took close to two years.
The recording was done at
the Trion music studio in West
Bloomfield.
The play is set in a kosher
Chinese restaurant. Sussman
is the narrator and plays a
few other parts. Grodin is the
inscrutable Dr. Pong. He says
he prepared by watching old
Charlie Chan films and con-
sulting a theater professor to
help him master the Chinese-
American accent.
The crew’s biggest challenge
was syncing the sound effects
with the spoken lines. •
details
The Inscrutable Dr. Pong will air in two parts, on Jan. 12 and
Jan. 19 on the Rock & Roll Lawyer Show on WCXI-AM 1160.
It will also be live-streamed at rockandrolllawyer.com.
jn
January 4 • 2018
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