Veteran award winning radio theater dramatist Joe Bevilacqua presents a preview of the first hour of his production of William Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, a recording which was lost in the 1980s but found this year in the NFCB collection at the University of Maryland Libraries.

Bevilacqua's entire four hour production if Hamlet will be coming soon on download and CD from Blackstone Audio and Waterlogg Productions:

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Author: William Shakespeare
Produced and directed by Joe Bevilacqua
Length: 4 hours, 11 minutes, 58 seconds
(c) 1982 Joe Bevilacqua, (c) 2015 Joe Bevilacqua, Waterlogg Productions
Cast: Joe Bevilacqua, Margaret Dunn, William Melillo, Jay Snder, James Cronin, William Evans, Peter Cummings, Christine Solazzi, Rick Ramos, Jayson Ternan, Phil Duffy, Mark Yablonsky, John Fernandez, Thomas Babkowski, Leslie Spital, Keith Lander, Bob O'Connor, Alan Cobb, Andrew Heil, John Alston, William Conrad, Ben Wright, John McIntire.

Description:

When veteran award-winning radio theater producer Joe Bevilacqua (Joe Bev) was a student his final semester at Kean College (now Kean University) in the Spring of 1982, he designed his own course in which he produced and directed a radio version of Hamlet.

Casting Kean faculty and students, and portraying the melancholy Danish prince himself, Bevilacqua not only completed his nearly four hour radio adaption of Shakespeare's greatest work, he did so while carrying a double major in Speech-Theater-Media-Communication and English, producing, acting in and sometime writing radio plays for The WKNJ Radio Theater he founded at the college station, rehearsing and acting in the college production of "Bedroom Farce", and working 20 hours per week as the Assistant Manager of Kean's Writing and Math Lab.

After graduating Summa Cum Laude, Bevilacqua's production of "Hamlet" was picked up and distributed by The National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB) and aired on public radio stations nationwide.

Bevilacqua went on to become one of the most prolific radio drama producers in the United States, as well as an on-camera actor in such films as The Fly Room and The Better Angels and television shows, including portraying British General Bernard Montgomery in The History Channel's The Wars and the head of NBC in 1931 for HBO's Boardwalk Empire.

The master reels of Joe Bevilacqua's radio production of Hamlet were lost in the 1980s. On January 6, 2015, while going through some old files Bevilacqua came across an NFCB newsletter listing a number of his radio dramas, including Hamlet. He then traced the NFCB collection to The University of Maryland Libraries, where it now resides.

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare at an uncertain date between 1599 and 1602. Set in the Kingdom of Denmark, the play dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet is instructed to enact on his uncle Claudius. Claudius had murdered his own brother, Hamlet's father King Hamlet, and subsequently seized the throne, marrying his deceased brother's widow, Hamlet's mother Gertrude.

From the NFCB newsletter:
    This four-hour drama is both faithful to Shakespeare and creative in presentation. The acting is of professional quality. Joe Bev highlights the play as Hamlet by using great change of pace and dynamics, articulation and believability, along with superb vocal range. After hearing a tape of the production, veteran voice-man Daws Butler (Yogi Bear) said, "It is among the best Hamlets I have ever heard."
    Other highlights are the ghost's reverb processed bass and Claudius attempting to pray after murdering the king.
    Tech is good, the acting is excellent. You will understand every word, and get the full range of meaning (from tragic to comic) from the characters! Great use of sound effects and music!

BONUS TRACK: Another Point Of View (Hamlet Revisited), originally aired on The CBS Radio Workshop June 22, 1956.
An analytical misrepresentation of Shakespeare's greatest hero, with William Conrad (narrator, author), Ben Wright (Hamlet, author), and John McIntire.

 

A Joe Bev Audio Theater Sampler, Volume 1

By various authors 
Produced and directed by Joe Bevilacqua

Length: 6.0 hours

"The Joe Bev Audio Theater is a half-hour anthology representing more than 40 years of storytelling by Joe Bevilacqua (Joe Bev), the veteran, award-winning actor, writer, producer, director.

Each half-hour is beautifully produced with original a cast of professional actors, sound effects and music.

Cast:
Joe Bevilacqua, Lorie Kellogg, Daws Butler, Alan Reed, Alan Reed Jr., Kenny Savoy, Jim Folly, Vernon Morris, Henry J. Quinn, Jan Meredith, Roger Hendricks Simon, Matty O'Shea, William Melillo, Cathi Tully, Alison Nead, Rick Ramos, Thomas Babkowski, Charlie Morrow, Aundrae Dair.

 

© 2014 by Joe Bevilacqua, Waterlogg Productions

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Plays included:
""The Mystery of the Creep Hack Writer"" by Joe Bevilacqua
""Arise from the Angry Seas"" by JC Del La Torre
""Oedipus Noir"" by Ralph Tyler
""The House of Wax"" by Joe Bevilacqua
""Seven Letters of Love"" by William Melillo
""The Silhouette Meets His Reflection"" by Joe Bevilacqua
""On With the Show!"" by Alan Reed
""Stench of the City"" by Victor Gates
""The Bear"" by by Anton Chekhov
""Trouble in Simuland"" by Charlie Morrow
""Hermes"" by JC Del La Torre
""Pedro's Parodies"" by Pedro Pablo Sacristan
and more! "

More at: http://www.waterlogg.com.

Comedy-O-Rama Podcast on iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-comedy-o-rama-hour/id572142422

Jazz-O-Rama Podcast on iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jazz-o-rama-hour/id611001393

Cartoon Carnival Podcast
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cartoon-carnival-with-joe-bev/id624696898

Joe Bev Experience Podcast
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-joe-bev-experience/id627773341

and check out Rick Oveton's podcast too! Overview with Rick Overton http://goo.gl/OM2mD