Jim McKee, René Auberjonois, Erik Bauersfeld, and Millicent Dillon (left to right),
photograph by David M. Allen, 1999

Project Title: Locations
Recipient Organization: Bay Area Radio Drama
Lead Artist: Millicent Dillon
Genre and Date Awarded: Literary Arts, January 1998
Premiered: KPFA Radio November 28-December 19, 1999

Lead artist Millicent Dillon, along with poets Helen Cline, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Gary Soto, collaborated with Bay Area Radio Drama. its producer Erik Bauersfeld, and sound designers Jim McKee and Randy Thom to create four half-hour programs exploring “locations.” Each writer selected a Bay Area site of significance to them as a dramatic setting and then examined and transformed that location through a radio play that incorporated acoustical elements from the chosen site. Professional actors and the writers themselves were featured in the recordings. Writer Irene Oppenheim served as the project’s creative consultant.

The “Locations” series was completed in fall 1999 and broadcast over a number of stations, including KPFA-FM in Berkeley, California, and KQED-FM and KALW-FM in San Francisco. Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s piece was distributed internationally through German Radio (WDR Köln), Studio Arts Akustica, as well as Finnish Radio. This was the second “Locations” series produced by Bay Area Radio Drama: the first primarily featured collaborations between sound designers and playwrights.

The writers selected for this series represented a wide variety of literary genres and styles—creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry—and each selected a distinct environment to explore. Biographer, playwright, and fiction writer Millicent Dillon was the only writer among the four who previously had worked with Bay Area Radio Drama (on the first “Locations” series) to create “By The Water.” Dillon wrote, “As a writer of fiction and biography, I am ordinarily isolated, and the chance to collaborate with other artists in other media was very gratifying to me.”

For this second “Locations” series, Dillon created “Inside,” an original radio drama, performed by actor Rene Auberjonois with sound design by Jim McKee and music by Wieslaw Pogorselski. “Inside,” takes place in a man’s interior soundscape, as a cacophony of urban sounds assaults him from outside and pervade his inner world. Listeners meet him in his room; follow him through the streets of a city, commuter trains, and places such as highway and street tunnels where cars blast their horns. Noise dominates his thoughts and personal life. Driven to deafening himself, he substitutes the sounds of his own physical interior for those outside. He searches but finds no understandable cause for his loss of control over these sonic onslaughts.

In “The Soul of a Bell,” sound designer Randy Thom recorded Helen Cline, an 80-year-old blind poet, accompanied by her guide dog, at one of her regular locations, a Berkeley supermarket. She tells listeners how she finds her way in her sightless world. They follow her on the course of her daily errands, encountering the people she meets. At the animal farm at Skywalker Ranch she then recalls her rural childhood and love of animals. At these chosen locations and in a recording studio, Cline recited and discussed her poetry. Cline wrote, “I always know where I am by the sound. I like the great supermarkets… the echoes, ambiance, footsteps, voices… people say their shopping lists to themselves… but I hear them mumbling the items! And, of course, the smells. The sounds and smells tell me everything I need to know….” Helen’s guide dog, Lady, became a major and unanticipated acoustical element in the piece.

Poet and fiction writer Gary Soto’s “Teaching English” explored the sounds of the site of his volunteer work—teaching English to Latin American adults—at the High Street Presbyterian Church in Oakland. Soto worked closely with sound designer Jim McKee to create the piece, in which Soto describes his efforts to make English useful to his students—to help them get jobs, and to help them understand the ways of the United States. In the piece, listeners often overhear the Guatemalan church choir rehearsals in the background, but the voices of Soto’s students and his lively interactions with them provide the principal sound element.

In poet and visual artist Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “One of these Days (or Nights),” a man and his dog wander up a mountain and observe the solitude above and the worldly disasters below. Gunfire and explosions shatter visions of “Paradiso”. Nightingales and “the beating of wings” compete with army aircraft and bombing. An oceanic tidal wave sweeps across the globe and wipes out civilization. The two apocalyptic disasters, fire and water, clear the earth for a new and better Paradiso. Listeners also get to follow Ferlinghetti at two of his favorite locations—the Saturday morning Farmer’s Market on the Embarcadero and the neighboring Café de Stijl. To create the piece, San Francisco’s first Poet Laureate collaborated with sound designer Jim McKee and symphony musician Wieslaw Pogorzelski. Location recording was provided by Maria Gilardin.

While the writers were the “lead artists” for this project, their collaborative process depended upon working with two talented sound designers—Jim McKee, of Earwax Studio and Academy Award winner Randy Thom—and with Bay Area Radio Drama director, Erik Bauserfeld. Erik Bauersfeld wrote at the project’s end, “On each individual program, writer, sound designer, creative consultant, and producer participated collectively in each stage of the work.”

Bay Area Radio Drama (BARD) is a radio drama production, training, and consultation group, established as a nonprofit organization in 1986. Its mission is to keep alive and develop the art of radio, particularly radio drama, in this country. Bay Area Radio Drama works in close association with KPFA-FM, in Berkeley, California, where its president Erik Bauersfeld was Director of Drama and Literature for 30 years. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and other sources, Bay Area Radio Drama has produced several series of original radio dramas, works by such writers as Sam Shepard, Susan Griffin, André Codrescu, Ed Bullins, and others. BARD also did the sound production for the 29-part dramatization of Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt and produced The Eugene O’Neill Radio Series, seven plays under the direction of José Quintero, including Hughie, with Jason Robards and The Emperor Jones with Joe Morton.

Millicent Dillon

Book Publications

• A Version of Love, a novel, Norton (3002)
• Harry Gold, a novel, Overlook Press (2000)
• You are not I: A Portrait of Paul Bowles, University of California Press (1998)
• The Viking Portable Paul and Jane Bowles (editor), Viking Penguin (1994)
• The Dance of the Mothers, a novel, Dutton/NAL (1991)
• After Egypt: Isadora Duncan and Mary Cassatt, a duobiography, Dutton/NAL (1990)
• Out in the World: The Selected Letters of Jane Bowles (editor), Black Sparrow Press (1985)
• A Little Original Sin: The Life and Work of Jane Bowles, Holt, Rinehart and Winston (1981)
• The One in the Back is Medea, a novel, Viking (1973)
• Baby Perpetua and Other Stories, Viking (1971)

Magazine Publications

Stories, essays, and reviews in Southwest Review, Threepenny Review, The Nation, Times Literary Supplement, PN Review, Washington Post, Ascent, The Chicago Tribune, The New Yorker, and others.

Plays

• “She is In Tangier” (1989)
• “Prisoners of Ordinary Need” (1991)
• “By the Water,” radio play commissioned and produced by Bay Area Radio Drama (1995)

Honors and Awards

• Finalist, PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, for Harry Gold (2001)
• Fellowship, Guggenheim Foundation (1994)
• Independent Study and Research Grants, National Endowment for the Humanities (1993, 1977)
• O’Henry Awards for the Short Story (1992, 1991, 1989, 1987, 1980)
• Story included in Best American Short Stories (1991)
• ROLM/Siemens-Michole W. Nicholson Fellowship in Literature, Djerassi Foundation (1990)
• McGinnis Award for Fiction, Southwest Review (1990)
• Visiting Scholar, Bellagio Study center, Rockefeller Foundation (1987)
• Travel Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities (1986)
• Visiting Scholar, Center for Research on Women, Stanford University (1985, 1986)

Employment

• Freelance writer of fiction, biography, and drama (1983-present)
• Academic writer, Stanford University (1974-1983)
• Instructor in English and Creative Writing, Foothill College (1968-1973)
• Staff Assistant, Association of Scientists for Atomic Education, Einstein Emergency Committee (1948)
• Associate Physicist, NEPA Project, Oak Ridge, Tennessee (1947)
• Technical Assistant, Standard Oil Company of California (1946)
• Junior Physicist, NDRC Project, Palmer Physical Laboratory, Princeton University (1944-45)

Erik Bauersfeld

Professional Experience

• President and Director of Projects, Bay Area Radio Drama (BARD) (1986-present)
• Director of Special Projects, Pacifica KPFA (1991-1996)
• Director of Drama & Literature, Pacifica KPFA (1962-91)

Selected Productions

• “Locations,” a series of original works based on recorded and specific acoustical locations featuring Ellen Sebastian, John O’Keefe, Ed Bullins, Millicent Dillon, Irene Oppenheim, and Randy Thom. Co-Produced with WDR Köln, Funded by the NEA (1996)
• “Eugene O’Neill Radio Project,” Lazarus Laughed, NEH Funding (1995)
• “Eugene O’Neill Radio Project,” Hughie with Jason Robards, Directed by José Quintero, NEH Funding, Broadcast NPR & BBC (1992)
• Bay Area Radio Drama Series, adapted and produced “The Horia,” (De Maupassant); Object Piece, by Drury Pifer (Sound Design by Randy Thom); sound pieces for radio co-produced by WDR, Cologne, NEA Funded (1992)
• “Eugene O’Neill Radio Project,” The Emperor Jones, directed by José Quintero, Sound by Randy Thom, Joe Morton as Jones. NEH Funded. Broadcast NPR. (1991)
• “Hörspiel/USA Project,” Produced and directed Houses by Jurgen Becker. Broadcast Pacifica Radio and WDR Köln (1991)
• “Art on Film Conference” (Metropolitan and Getty Museums) Moderated panel on sound in relation to art (1991)
• “PrixItalia,” represented National Public Radio, President of Radio Drama Jury, Perugia, Italy (1990)
• European Broadcasting Union, represented NPR at conference, Florence, Italy (1990)
• “Eugene O’Neill Radio Project,” The Hairy Ape, directed by José Quintero, Sound design by Randy Thom, NEH Funded, Broadcast NPR and BBC (1989)
• “Hörspiel/USA Project,” directed and produced Centropolis by Walter Adler, broadcast Pacifica and WDR Köln (1989)
• Sound Design Conference, In association with Randy Thom and Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound Studios presented a conference for 50 radio producers (1989)
• Eugene O’Neill Radio Project,” SS Glencalm (four plays of the sea), Funding from the NEH, NEA, SPDF, Skaggs, WDR Klön (1988)
• “Hörspiel/USA Project,” production of Ophelia by Gerhard Ruhm, directed by Klaus Schöning (1988)
• “Mind’s Eye Theatre,” adapted, directed, and produced a three hour version of Dracula by Bram Stoker (1988)
• Babbitt, sound production for KCRW and LA Classic Theatre, 29 half-hour installments of Sinclair Lewis’s novel (1987)
• European Broadcasting Union, represented NPR at conference in Cologne (1987)
• “Hörspiel/USA Project,” production of three plays translated from the German (1987)
• “Tales from the Shadows,” adapted and produced a series of 13 bizarre classics by Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Poe, Lovecraft, Kafka, Bierce, and others. (KPFA, KCRW and NPR), Distributed by NPR and Pacifica (1987)
• Bay Area Radio Drama Series (2), original works for radio by Sam Shepard and seven other Bay Area writers (1986)

Helen Cline

Helen Cline lost her sight at the age of three. Sixty years later, after raising five children, she decided to make a poetic record of her stay on the earth.

She attended the school for the blind in Berkeley, California and studied writing at the Braille Institute in Los Angeles as well as in Laney College in Oakland, California.

She studied music and became an accomplished pianist.

Cline’s poetry has been printed in Out of Site, Out of… published by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department; and she has performed readings of her work on KPFA-FM.

Cline reads Braille fluently. She writes with the use of a voice-activated computer and currently is attending classes in computer science.

She lives in Berkeley, California, with her guide dog, Lady.

Poet Helen Cline (left), photograph by David M. Allen, 1999

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

(Excerpted from the City Lights Bookstore web page—www.citylights.com/CLlf.html)

A prominent voice of the wide-open poetry movement that began in the 1950s, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has written poetry, translation, fiction, theater, art criticism, film narration, and essays. Often concerned with politics and social issues, Ferlinghetti’s poetry countered the literary elite’s definition of art and the artist’s role in the world. Though imbued with the commonplace, his poetry cannot be simply described as polemic or personal protest, for it stands on his craftsmanship, thematics, and grounding in tradition.

Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers in 1919. Following his undergraduate years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he saw service in the U.S. Navy in World War II as a ship’s commander. He received a Master’s Degree from Columbia University in 1947 and a Doctorate from the University of Paris (Sorbonne) in 1950. In 1953, with Peter D. Martin, he founded City Lights Pocket Bookshop, the first all-paperbound bookshop in the country, and by 1955 he had launched the City Lights publishing house. The bookstore has served for half a century as a meeting place for writers, artists, and intellectuals.

Ferlinghetti was named San Francisco’s Poet Laureate in 1998. His paintings have been shown at galleries around the world, from the Butler Museum of American Art to The Palace of Exhibitions in Rome.

His A Coney Island of the Mind (1958) has been translated into nine languages and there are nearly 1,000,000 copies in print. His most recent books are A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997) and How to Paint Sunlight (2001), published by New Directions, New York. He also published two novels, Her (1960) and Love in the Days of Rage (1988).

He has received many awards, including the Los Angeles Times Robert Kirsch Award, the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association’s Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Award for Contribution to American Arts and Letters, and the ACLU’s Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award, along with several others in Italy. In 2003, he received the Authors’ Guild Lifetime Achievement award, the Poetry Society of America’s Robert Frost Medal, and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Letters.

René Auberjonois (left), shown with producer Erik Bauersfeld, recording the narrative for “Inside,” a radio drama by Millicent Dillon, photograph by David Allen, 1999

Jim McKee

Profile

Jim McKee is currently an active owner of Earwax Productions Inc., San Francisco, which he co-founded in 1983. He received his Master of Fine Arts form The Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College in Oakland, California, and his Bachelor of Music Education from Shenandoah Conservatory of Music in Virginia. In addition to his sound design work, he has lectured at YLE Radio in Helsinki Finland, Western Public Radio, San Francisco State University, California College of Arts and Crafts, and The College for Recording Arts.

Experience

As a sound designer, composer, engineer, and technical producer, McKee works primarily with computers and tape, using concrete sound elements and human voice to build impressionistic and abstract sound environments. Works are generally designed in collaboration with film producers, playwrights, radio producers, and performance artists using multi-track recording, samplers, digital editing, computer synthesis, and a wide variety of studio processing techniques. His experience includes engineering and sound design for national broadcast television, radio, commercial and drama, research and production for interactive, multimedia and CD-Rom. Feature film credits include: Hanna’s War, American Ninja 4, The Dolls, the Color of Honor, Vegas in Space, The Motorist, Yellowstone for Destination Cinema; special effects sound design for Bram Stoker’s Dracula; and design and effects with American Zoetrope for The Secret Garden. He also supervised and did effects for the IMAX film Whales.

Awards

As a partner in Earwax Productions Inc. since 1983, Jim McKee enjoys, along with two other partners, the reputation of having been voted best sound design team in San Francisco. earwax has also won honors in The Bay Area Critics Circle awards, Northern California Broadcasters, Association of Independents in Radio, along with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Academy Award for Francis Ford Coppola’s production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula for which Jim contributed design concepts and sound effects along with the sound team of Columbia Pictures and American Zoetrope.

Selected Clients

American Zoetrope, LucasFilm LTD, Pathe/MGM Entertainment, Sega, Cannon Films, Destination Cinema, Apple Computer Inc., MTV, Colossal Pictures, Banana Republic, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Landor & Associates, Magic Theater, Simon and Schuster, West German Radio, National Public Radio, Royal Viking Lines, Visible Interactive, CAPS Software, Finnish Broadcasting, Mondo Media, National Wildlife Federation, Hotwired, Meta Design, Sea Studios, and many others.

Jim McKee recording poet Gary Soto, photograph by David Allen, 1999

Gary Soto

Born and raised in Fresno, California, Gary Soto is the author of nine poetry collections for adults, most notably New and Selected Poems, a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the National Book Award. His recollections Living Up the Street received a Before Columbus Foundation 1985 American Book Award. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including The Nation, Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, Ontario Review and Poetry, which has honored him with the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award and by featuring him in “Poets in Person. He is one of the youngest poets to appear in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. He has received the Discovery-The Nation Prize, the U.S. Award of the International Poetry Forum, the California Library Association’s John and Patricia Beatty Award (twice), a Recognition of Merit from the Claremont Graduate School (for Baseball in April), the Silver Medal from The Commonwealth Club of California, and the Tomás Rivera Prize, in addition to fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts (twice), and the California Arts Council. For ITVS, Soto produced the film, The Pool Party, which received the 1993 Andrew Carnegie Medal. He also has developed the opera Nerdlandia for the Los Angeles Opera. Taken together, his books for adults and young people have sold over a million copies. Soto lives with his family in Berkeley, California.

Poetry Titles

• One Kind of Faith, Chronicle Books (2003)
• Junior College, Chronicle Books (1997)
• Canto Familiar/Familiar Song, Harcourt Brace (1995)
• New and Selected Poems, Chronicle Books (1995)
• Neighborhood Odes, Harcourt Brace (1992)
• Who in Religion, Chronicle Books, San Francisco (1991)
• A Fire in My Hands, Scholastic Inc. (1990)
• Black Hair, University of Pittsburgh Press (1985)
• Where Sparrows Work Hard, University of Pittsburgh Press (1981)
• The Tale of Sunlight, (University of Pittsburgh Press (1978)
• The Elements of San Joaquin, University of Pittsburgh Press (1977)

Prose Titles

• The Afterlife (2003)
• Pacific Crossing (2003)
• Nickel and Dime, University of New Mexico Press
• Buried Onions, Harcourt Brace (1997)
• Summer on Wheels, Scholastic (1995)
• Jesse, Harcourt Brace (1994)
• Crazy Weekend, Harcourt Brace (1994)
• Local News, Harcourt Brace (1993)
• Pieces of the Heart: Recent Chicano Fiction, Chronicle Books (1993)
• Pacific Crossing, Harcourt Brace (1992)
• Taking Sides, Harcourt Brace (1991)
• A Summer Life, University Press of New England (1990); Dell (1991)
• Baseball in April, Harcourt Brace (1990)
• California Childhood (editor), Creative Arts Book Company (1988)
• Lesser Evils, Arte Publico (1988)
• Small Faces, Dell paperback reissue (1993)
• Living Up the Street, Dell paperback reissue (1992)

Picture Books from G.P. Putnam’s Sons

• Chato and the Party Animals (1998)
• Snap Shots from the Wedding (1997)
• Old Man and His Door (1996)
• Chato’s Kitchen (1995)
• Too Many Tamales (1993)

Play

• Novio Boy, Harcourt Brace (1997)

Randy Thom

Honors and Affiliations

• Received the Academy Award for The Right Stuff
• Nominated for seven Academy Awards, Best Sound: The Right Stuff, Never Cry Wolf, Return of the Jedi, Wild at Heart, Backdraft, Forrest Gump (Best Sound, Best Sound Editing)
• Nominated for an Emmy, Best Sound: Ewok’s Children’s Special
• Nominated for a Grammy, Best Spoken Word Recording: War of the Worlds, 50th Anniversary
• Member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
• Member of the British Film Academy
• Staff Sound Designer/Mixer at Lucasfilm (1983-1989)
• President of Ear Circus, a sound art production company (since 1989)
• Author and director, “Dream Train,” a Dolby Inc. Promotional Film
• Author of Audiocraft, textbook used in over 100 universities

Film Credits

• Sound Designer, Starship Troopers, Paul Verhoven
• Sound Designer, Mimic, Guillermo Del Toro
• Supervising Mixer and Sound Designer, Contact, Robert Zemeckis
• Supervising Mixer and Sound Designer, Mars Attack, Tim Burton
• Supervising Mixer and Sound Designer, The Frighteners, Peter Jackson
• Supervising Mixer and Sound Designer, Jumanji, Joe Johnson
• Sound Designer, Nine Months, Chris Columbus
• Supervising Mixer and Sound Designer, Species, Roger Donaldson
• Re-recording Mixer (Effects), Disclosure, Barry Levinson
• Supervising Mixer and Sound Designer, Forrest Gump, Robert Zemeckis
• Supervising Mixer, Saint of Fort Washington, Tim Hunter
• Supervising Mixer and Sound Designer, Wild at Heart, David Lynch
• Supervising Mixer, Cry Baby, John Waters
• Re-recording Mixer (Effects), Always, Steven Spielberg
• Re-recording Mixer (Dialog), Tucker, Francis Coppola
• Supervising Mixer and Sound Designer, Colors, Dennis Hooper
• Re-recording Mixer (Dialog), Gardens of Stone, Francis Coppola
• Supervising Mixer and Sound Designer, Spaceballs, Mel Brooks
• Supervising Mixer and Sound Designer, Latino, Haskell Wexler
• Supervising Mixer and Sound Designer, The Grand Canyon, Keith Merrill
• Re-recording Mixer (Music), Indiana Jones, Steven Spielberg
• Production Mixer, Re-recording Mixer (Music) Return of the Jedi, Richard Marquand
• Re-recording Mixer (Effects), Principal Effects Recordist, The Right Stuff, Phil Kaufman
• Production Mixer, Never Cry Wolf, Carroll Ballard
• Production Mixer, Rumblefish, Francis Coppola
• Principal Effects Recordist, Apocalypse Now, Francis Coppola