I'm George Walker. Jenny McKnight, who's the director for the production Waycross by Jane Deely. Who's an MFA candidate in the IU department, Carolynn Stouder, who plays Leia, CIA agent Waycross, is an audio play by Jane Deely.
It's a comedy, immersive mystery, thriller radio drama. Lee is a CIA agent assigned to the nation's riskiest and most vital mission.
Nadia Rachmaninov is her arch enemy. Close on her tail through every mission, from Mauritius to Minsk, and at this point she's the closest thing Lee has to a friend, unless you count CIA director Skybell, who seems to live in Lee’s ear piece
George: Carolynn, tell us just a little bit about this character, Lee.
Carolynn Stouder: I would love to. Lee holds a great place in my heart because I've always wanted to play a spy. I train in stage-combat and I teach it and I choreograph it. In a way I've been training for this role my entire life. I was so honored to be asked to play Lee. She just is a wonderful character that has all the action and oomph of a leading lady. But she.
Also, has the vulnerability and she gets to explore all of these relationships with the wonderful characters that she interacts with. So she gets to be fierce and a powerhouse, but she also gets to be a real person going through a journey and learning along the way. It was a great deal of fun.
George: And also, you get to play a dramaturg in Georgia.
Carolynn: Yes, like two, well, several roles as a spy does. It was so much fun because we have our wonderful dramaturg, Madison who helped on the production. So ,I got a great insight into how to play a dramaturg from our very real dramaturg Since our team was so close working together on this project, it was really easy to draw inspiration for what a dramaturg should be like.
George: Tell us a little bit about directing this for the radio Jenny. I'm kind of curious about how you were working with this.
Jenny McKnight: Well, it's very different than directing a stage play, and it's an experience that I'd never had before, So, my biggest success, I think, was assembling the team. Our fantastic stage manager, wonderful actors. As Carolyn mentioned. You know our dramaturg and our sound designers. And sound editors. So, this team we all worked together to figure out. How to create a world just through an audible environment.
Jane Deely, did an amazing job creating the script that gave us the road map, but then we were free to explore what that meant. As far as when the dialogue needed to speed up when the dialogue needed to slow down when the dialogue needed to overlap when we needed to have. Vocal reactions that would cue an audience to fill in with their imaginations. What had just happened? Since they wouldn't be able, since we wouldn't be able to give them a physical representation of what had just happened.
So, it was a very interesting and fun experience. It was quite different than the way normally approach producing a play in our department, but it was incredibly rewarding and like I think the catch word you'll hear everyone say in reference to this production is it was just a lot of fun. It was. It was delightful because, you know, we've all been through the wringer this last year, so to be able to look forward to rehearsal and having fun with this group of people, and with this material.
It was just. It was a real joy
Carolynn: You know what? It was a very cool experience because we actually were never all in the same room. We started the process of this production before the shots were even mentioned. It was we were making do in our own spaces, recording from our own computers.
George: We've been talking with Jenny McKnight, who's the director for the production Waycross by Jane Dilly, and we've been talking with Carol and Studer, who plays Leia, CIA agent, and it'll be on WFIU 2 July 17th at 5:00 PM and on WFIU on July 18th at Six PM.
