JERRY STEARNS & BRIAN PRICE WIN
NORMAN CORWIN AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN AUDIO THEATRE
Jerry Stearns wins 2017 Corwin Award
May 3, 2017
The founders and moving spirits behind the Great Northern Audio Theatre have been chosen to receive the 2017 Norman Corwin Award for Excellence in Audio Theatre. Based in the Midwest, Great Northern Audio Theatre creates its own unique brand of lighthearted, whimsical, and comic original stories that evoke the inventiveness of Firesign Theatre and the sophistication of golden-age radio producer, Norman Corwin. Working with Minnesota's premier Sci-Fi convention, Minicon (later moved to CONvergence), Jerry and Brian created live shows each year to the delight of con-goers, embracing – and extending, and often satirizing – the Science Fiction genre. Their motto says it all:
The founders and moving spirits behind the Great Northern Audio Theatre have been chosen to receive the 2017 Norman Corwin Award for Excellence in Audio Theatre. Based in the Midwest, Great Northern Audio Theatre creates its own unique brand of lighthearted, whimsical, and comic original stories that evoke the inventiveness of Firesign Theatre and the sophistication of golden-age radio producer, Norman Corwin. Working with Minnesota's premier Sci-Fi convention, Minicon (later moved to CONvergence), Jerry and Brian created live shows each year to the delight of con-goers, embracing – and extending, and often satirizing – the Science Fiction genre. Their motto says it all:
Brian Price wins 2017 Corwin Award
“Ours is not to create the machines of the future.
Ours is to make fun of them when they break down.”
They have also created many excellent studio productions, and their work is not always comic. It can be pointed, ingenious, and dramatic, crossing genres and offering new viewpoints on modern life. To give just a few examples, Tumbleweed Roundup turned a Western story on its head with a wild cowboys-and-aliens encounter; Drummer's Dome explored generational realities and perceptions; Solid State University took a look at education as it was, is, and might become (winning the Golden Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters); Dialog With Martian Trombone ingeniously revealed the real extra-terrestrial invasion that was covered up by Orson Welles' famous broadcast; and In The Embers – a truly classic original story of music, memory, and time and was mastered at the legendary ZBS studios – has been nominated for an Audie Award.
Jerry Stearns is a native Minnesotan, firmly settled in Minneapolis, where he is a longtime volunteer broadcaster and trainer at KFAI-FM. Starting in 1979 he co-hosted Shockwave, a Sci-Fi oriented show, and began creating original sketches at Minicon. In 1994 he began his current weekly show, Sound Affects—A Radio Playground, and in 1996 helped found the Mark Time Award and the Ogle Award, presented annually at CONvergence. Like his co-creator Brian, Jerry was involved very early with the Midwest Radio Theatre Workshop, and has had original scripts produced at Workshop shows. They have also organized audio theater workshops and conferences of their own.
Brian Price is more peripatetic, born in the Washington, DC area and having lived in Missouri, Iowa, and South Dakota before settling with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was associated for many years with KOPN-FM in Columbia, Missouri, serving as a staff member for the Midwest Radio Theatre Workshop and producing their series of TAP technical-assistance tapes. Interested in both history and the arts, Brian served as President of the Arts Council in Brookings, South Dakota, for a number of years, and produced the Dakota Reader Audio Arts Series for the South Dakota State Museum of Art. Brian has worked with audio theatre troupes from Massachusetts to Alaska.
The Norman Corwin Award for Excellence in Audio Theatre, given annually by The National Audio Theatre Festivals (NATF), is the premier American recognition of lifetime achievement, regardless of media, in the field of audio theatre. It was instituted May 3, 2010, on Norman Corwin's 100th birthday. The first Award was given to Mr. Corwin himself, who is considered the Grand Master of American radio theatre.
The Corwin Award is announced each year on May 3rd by NATF and presented annually at HEAR Now's Closing Ceremonies, in Kansas City, this year scheduled for Sunday, June 11th, at the Holiday Inn Country Club Plaza Ballroom. Legacy Awards are given occasionally, to honor great American contributors to the audio theatre art who have passed on.
Since 2010, NATF's Corwin Award recipients have included Tom Lopez, Peggy Webber, Yuri Rasovsky, The Firesign Theatre (Philip Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, Philip Proctor), Erik Bauersfeld, and Judith Walcutt, with Legacy Awards to Himan Brown, Orson Welles and this year, Stan Freberg.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Sue Zizza suemedia1@aol.com
President, National Audio Theatre Festivals
Charles Potter cameleopard@earthlink.net
Corwin Award Committee
and visit
www.otherworldmedia.com
http://www.natf.org
http://www.hearnowfestival.org
Ours is to make fun of them when they break down.”
They have also created many excellent studio productions, and their work is not always comic. It can be pointed, ingenious, and dramatic, crossing genres and offering new viewpoints on modern life. To give just a few examples, Tumbleweed Roundup turned a Western story on its head with a wild cowboys-and-aliens encounter; Drummer's Dome explored generational realities and perceptions; Solid State University took a look at education as it was, is, and might become (winning the Golden Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters); Dialog With Martian Trombone ingeniously revealed the real extra-terrestrial invasion that was covered up by Orson Welles' famous broadcast; and In The Embers – a truly classic original story of music, memory, and time and was mastered at the legendary ZBS studios – has been nominated for an Audie Award.
Jerry Stearns is a native Minnesotan, firmly settled in Minneapolis, where he is a longtime volunteer broadcaster and trainer at KFAI-FM. Starting in 1979 he co-hosted Shockwave, a Sci-Fi oriented show, and began creating original sketches at Minicon. In 1994 he began his current weekly show, Sound Affects—A Radio Playground, and in 1996 helped found the Mark Time Award and the Ogle Award, presented annually at CONvergence. Like his co-creator Brian, Jerry was involved very early with the Midwest Radio Theatre Workshop, and has had original scripts produced at Workshop shows. They have also organized audio theater workshops and conferences of their own.
Brian Price is more peripatetic, born in the Washington, DC area and having lived in Missouri, Iowa, and South Dakota before settling with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was associated for many years with KOPN-FM in Columbia, Missouri, serving as a staff member for the Midwest Radio Theatre Workshop and producing their series of TAP technical-assistance tapes. Interested in both history and the arts, Brian served as President of the Arts Council in Brookings, South Dakota, for a number of years, and produced the Dakota Reader Audio Arts Series for the South Dakota State Museum of Art. Brian has worked with audio theatre troupes from Massachusetts to Alaska.
The Norman Corwin Award for Excellence in Audio Theatre, given annually by The National Audio Theatre Festivals (NATF), is the premier American recognition of lifetime achievement, regardless of media, in the field of audio theatre. It was instituted May 3, 2010, on Norman Corwin's 100th birthday. The first Award was given to Mr. Corwin himself, who is considered the Grand Master of American radio theatre.
The Corwin Award is announced each year on May 3rd by NATF and presented annually at HEAR Now's Closing Ceremonies, in Kansas City, this year scheduled for Sunday, June 11th, at the Holiday Inn Country Club Plaza Ballroom. Legacy Awards are given occasionally, to honor great American contributors to the audio theatre art who have passed on.
Since 2010, NATF's Corwin Award recipients have included Tom Lopez, Peggy Webber, Yuri Rasovsky, The Firesign Theatre (Philip Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, Philip Proctor), Erik Bauersfeld, and Judith Walcutt, with Legacy Awards to Himan Brown, Orson Welles and this year, Stan Freberg.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Sue Zizza suemedia1@aol.com
President, National Audio Theatre Festivals
Charles Potter cameleopard@earthlink.net
Corwin Award Committee
and visit
www.otherworldmedia.com
http://www.natf.org
http://www.hearnowfestival.org
