Radio Plays Read online



  What the Critics Say

  “Sunde’s plays consider whether we have reason to hope. … With a voice both poetic and theatrical hers is a distinctive, even unique, contemporary American drama, more akin to European than to other American plays. ... No matter how sweeping the setting and cast, she chooses personal canvases upon which to paint her funny, thrilling, searing, moving scenes.

  “Sunde hopes for a better tomorrow even as she explores the roots of misery today. The prophetic HAITI: A DREAM dramatizes the flight to Florida of Haitian boat people by focusing on a man and his wife and the Old Woman empowered by Voodoo who tries to inspire them both to recognize their own strength to lead their people.

  “In a similar spirit of fantasizing about a better way, HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM creates an extraordinary modern pacifist myth in which a wounded male Israeli soldier and a female Palestinian “terrorist” experience each other’s passionate hunger for their home and rights…It indelibly etches itself upon audience’ souls because of the human encounter…” from CONTEMPORARY DRAMATISTS “Karen Sunde” entry: pp. 643-645

  HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM - stage play

  “One of the most powerful antiwar plays ever penned … this life-altering script.” PLAYS INTERNATIONAL London

  “Sunde’s timely, gripping, and richly magical play… is modern day Romeo and Juliet…an engrossing look at how war can prematurely turn children into adults… the emotional pull of her drama will haunt audiences well after the end of the play.” AMERICAN THEATER WEB

  “…crisp, biting edge... gripping drama... timely romantic drama ... volatile battle zone ... vivid portraits and action ... cinematic thrust summons the inspiration for a dandy film." VARIETY

  “A masterpiece…no soft edges…goes straight to the heart of the conflict.” BLOOMBERG RADIO

  RADIO PLAYS

  VOODOO TO PARADISE (Haiti: A Dream)

  THE SOUND OF SAND

  HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM

  by

  Karen Sunde

  Copyright Karen Sunde

  For rights to produce these plays, apply to:

  130 Barrow #412 New York 10014

  tel/fx 212/366-1124

  [email protected]

  www.karensunde.com

  CONTENTS

  WHAT THE CRITICS SAY

  INTRODUCTION

  PRODUCTIONS HISTORY

  VOODOO TO PARADISE (Haiti: A Dream)

  VOODOO TO PARADISE Scene Two

  THE SOUND OF SAND

  HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM

  APPENDIX

  The Seed for Haiti: A Dream

  OTHER PLAYS AND SCREENPLAYS by Karen Sunde

  INTRODUCTION

  Radio opens a direct link to the audience’ imagination. Sound alone telling a story is instantly absorbed onto the mind’s creative canvas, and the resulting composition will be personal and intimate to a higher degree than in any other medium.

  Whether reading a radio play works the reader’s imagination in the same way, I don’t know. Just keep in mind that the sounds described with the words being spoken create the story in any way you envision it, then tell me how it works for you.

  My first radio assignment was also the first play I ever wrote. Including it here is curious for me, but it was significant. Initiated and produced for the National Foundation For The Blind by the Iowa State University Radio Players, it won the Bob Hope Award, and won me a trip to New York to accept it. THE SOUND OF SAND presents a blind boy’s mighty dangerous venture away from his sand-castle on the beach far out onto the sea on a raft.

  The second time I wrote for radio, WNYC’s Radio Stage asked me to adapt my stage play HAITI: A DREAM, and then they produced and broadcast it on WNYC, WHYY and NPR. It’s a simple story, rather lyric, and so inspires music and dance artists. The same play was also adapted into a story-theatre choral piece called SIRI’S DREAM by Coatesville Community Center, but I’ve always wanted to call it VOODOO TO PARADISE. It originated when I read a tiny New York Times clipping: “wreckage of a wooden boat” washed up in Florida, and began to imagine its lost passengers.

  The founder of Full House Productions in New York, Phil Lee, prompted my audio adaptation of the play HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM, and then Phil directed and engineered a radio production featuring its New York cast, so that this battle field parable of Mid-East peace could reach any audience. Set in South Lebanon, HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM is a soaring love story. When a fleeing refugee encounters a soldier wounded by a roadside bomb, irresistible Palestinian and Israeli characters clash, then ignite a passion that heals.

  The stage plays two of these works are adapted from are published by Broadway Play Publishing:

  Haiti A Dream is published in FACING FORWARD https://www.broadwayplaypubl.com/fac.htm

  How His Bride Came To Abraham is in PLAYS BY KAREN SUNDE, https://www.broadwayplaypubl.com/sunde.htm …and as a single play at–https://www.broadwayplaypubl.com/HOW%20HIS.htm

  TAGS: Haitian history, Israeli Palestinian conflict, blind child drama, boat people, Haitian refugee, voodoo, anti-war play, radio drama