How to Write Reader's Theater and Radio Plays

In a successful radio play, listeners recreate a story in their minds without visuals. When H.G. Wells' radio play first aired on Halloween it caused mass hysteria among listeners who were convinced that it was an attack from outer space. Here are tips to write a radio play.

Consider readers' theater: Since there is nothing visual, write your words and sounds to capture audience attention.

Write a script. As you would a stage play , each actor in a radio play has lines.

Write dialogue to fit the genre. Whether drama, mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, comedy or melodrama write to that style. Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" is stellar narrative drama and for comedy, you can't beat Abbott and Costello.

Personalize characters' voices. Select word choices, regional dialect, accent, manners, vernacular and phraseology to match. Consider Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris and Edgar Lee Masters for some examples of local voice.

Personalize temperament. Are characters rude, bossy, shy, arrogant, bumbling, silly, stammering, melancholy, strident? Write these into the dialogue.

Write to listener mental images. Character communicate their feelings in innuendos about other characters, situations and themselves. Dialogue cues help actors tell the story. The "Prairie Home Companion" is a good example.

Set mood with dialogue notes.

*Tempo. Use the 'pregnant pause,' hurried or dragging speech to indicate mood.

*Rhythm. Use interruption, characters talking at once background talking to show mood.

*Pitch. High pitch can indicate nervousness or excitability. Low pitch indicates urgency, secrecy, intensity and mystery.

*Inflection. Use caps or bold to indicate words of importance. For example, a detective may say, "Oh he said THAT, did he?"

*Irony. Put heavy emphasis on significant words.

*Sarcasm -- add a sneer to the actor's passage.

*Understated humor. Give the actor's voice a lilt

*Tension. The actor speaks slowly and directly, in a quiet, low-pitched voice. Unsettling music is played.

*Pathos. Add 'with a catch in the voice' to your dialogue notes, indicating lines said with sadness

*Sympathy -- 'with feeling or warmth.' It indicates to the reader that she has sympathetic quality. Touching music is often used.

*Bitterness. Like irony, this sentiment is expressed by emphasis on words, but it has a defeated anger in the voice.

*Defeat. Dialogue in spoken in heavy, dull, indifferent speech.

*Fear. Lines are said panicked, high voice, often with oppressive music.

*Malaprop. This works well in comedy.

Use instrumental music to create atmosphere.

Use sound effects. Popcorn in a pie plate sounds like rain. Thunder can be simulated with a drum. Paper flapping sounds like wind.

Pace dialogue to keep in going.

Read slowly and clearly. It is easier to read too fast than too slow. Reading slowly gives the listeners time to digest what is taking place.

Break a leg!