The Gray Area
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The Gray Area is a radio drama based in New York City written and produced by Edward Champion.[1] It began airing in 2017. In its first year of production, The Gray Area, was a finalist for the coveted Parsec Award, under the category "Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Novella Form).[2][3] In 2018, two episodes became finalists for the Parsec Awards again. This time it was Episode 6 of the 2017 season "Loopholes" and Episode 10, "Buddies for Hire".[4] ""Buddies for Hire" won the Parsec Award in 2018[5]. The show has been singled out by The Sonic Society[6] and Midnight Audio Theatre for its "subtle threads of coincidences and relationships between them that tie them all into a single collective universe."[7] Podcast critic Wil Williams commended the program's ability to "shift pacing for each story and genre" and remarked on its " incredible knack for completely changing each episode while also maintaining its identity."[8]
In 2019 the cast of The Gray Area, made an audio drama adaptation of "The Yellow Wallpaper". It was dedicated to the #Metoo movement. It aired on The Sonic Society, a website dedicated to showcasing the very best in audio dramas, and Chatter Box Audio Theater.
A Season 2 trailer of the Gray Area was released on September 25, 2019 through YouTube.[9] On April 11, 2020, upon release of the Season 2 premiere, Champion announced that there would be nineteen free Season 2 episodes airing every other Tuesday during the 2020 pandemic, stating, "Let the record show that I didn't let a pandemic stop me from seeing this highly complicated project through."[10]
On October 16, 2021, after receiving a City Artist Corps grant, Champion staged a theatrical version of the audio drama with eleven actors. The live show, written and directed by Champion, was primarily composed of new material and was performed at the Gene Frankel Theatre.[11]
Season 1 Episode Guide[edit]
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | "Prologue" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | April 4, 2017 | |
| Virginia Gaskell (Chris Smith), an underappreciated 66-year-old cult writer forced into a rest home, contends with mysterious voices summoned from her typewriter and an obscure literary interviewer named Ed Champion. | ||||||
| 2 | 1 | "Hello" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | April 18, 2017 | |
| A man (Tim Torre) wakes up in his apartment with a hazy memory of the night before. He’s greeted in bed by a mysterious woman (Emily Carding) who keeps saying, “Hello.” But she seems to know far more about his life than he ever could have told her in one night. And as the rats gnaw mercilessly from within the walls, she has a few bold and shocking answers as to why he’s so afraid | ||||||
| 3 | 1.5 | "Dissociation" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | May 2, 2017 | |
| Greg Sutton (Charlie Harrington), a fidgety young man who is a little too fixated on selling himself, sees his psychiatrist (Colette Thomas) for the first time in months, hoping to find answers about his lost childhood and how to get back the woman he loves. But his own quick fix solution to his problems is not quite what the psychiatrist had in mind. | ||||||
| 4 | 2 | "Brand Awareness" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | May 17, 2017 | |
| Joanna (Eileen Hanley) loves Eclipse Ale. It’s the best beer in the world. She has boxes of Eclipse memorabilia. She regularly wears Eclipse baseball caps. But on one rainy night, Joanna discovers that this happy relationship (along with the relationship with her boyfriend) is not what it seems. | ||||||
| 5 | 3 | "Fuel to the Fire" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | June 6, 2017 | |
| An artisanal mustard retailer from Astoria (Samantha Cooper) finds herself in a strange realm with the ability to set things on fire. Meanwhile, Ed Champion continues his investigation into Miss Gaskell’s disappearance, meeting a woman in mourning (Noelle Lake) who may hold the answer to his own strange curse. | ||||||
| 6 | 4 | "Loopholes" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | July 3, 2017 | |
| As a thriving empire faces war with ferocious barbarians, a mischievous scholar named Minerva (Rori Nogee) hopes to bring law and civilization to a great realm populated by talking birds, giant rats, gregarious knights, elemental gods, and menacing malasanders. An unanticipated dispute among the knights gives Minerva an opportunity to uphold the doctrine of moral principles, but Minerva finds herself testing her loyalty to her aide-de-camp (Gerrard Lobo) while helping others to learn what honor, empathy, and identity really mean. | ||||||
| 7 | 4.5 | "The Waiting Room" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | July 18, 2017 | |
| Virginia Gaskell finds herself on the other side of the portal that lured her in, greeted by an extremely exuberant (and strangely familiar) receptionist, some squawking avians that aren’t quite okay with her love of chicken fajitas, and further mysteries about how the universes rupture into each other. | ||||||
| 8 | 5 | "Compassion Fatigue" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | August 1, 2017 | |
| Emma (Colette Thomas) is a top-notch psychiatrist who can change the lives of the most difficult patients imaginable. But there’s a great personal cost to her formidable talents that she’s not telling anyone about, an internal torment eating away at her inner life that she’s hiding from her patients and her professional peers and that a quiet survivor of an abusive relationship (Devony DiMattia) may just have the answer for. | ||||||
| 9 | 5.5 | "Hatch" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | September 5, 2017 | |
| Four men stand at the beginning of an important interdimensional journey. But while their personalities are different and the portals seem attracted to their identities, their voices are the same. What is their connection? And why is the journey so important? | ||||||
| 10 | 6 | "Buddies for Hire" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | October 3, 2017 | |
| In the season finale, a once celebrated and now fading actor Jack Penderton (Gore Abrams) desperately needs a job. His agent, Jill Swanson (Ingeborg Reidmaier), lands him a strange gig involving a lonely scrapbook-loving eccentric (Carl Zurhorst), an unusual approach to free trade, a sinister salesman who moves uncommonly fast (Adrianno La Rocca), America’s Next Top Model, and an odd scam that causes Jack to reconsider his long abandoned principles about friendship, loyalty, and connection. | ||||||
Season 2 Episode Guide[edit]
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 7 | "Living Creatures" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | April 11, 2020 | |
| In a Wyoming chicken diner, two mysterious strangers make trouble with the locals over a philosophical matter. But their professed tolerance is put to the test by a remarkable failure in judgment that involves animal rights, bicoastal elitism, and a great deal of swagger. | ||||||
| 12 | 8 | "Dearer than Earsight" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | April 21, 2020 | |
| While investigating the Gaskell matter, journalist Ed Champion meets an enigmatic woman on a spiritual journey who may contain the answers for his own shaky relationship to love, dreams, and New York City. The two dodge belligerent subway preachers and unanticipated demons while ruminating upon daily wonders that are taken for granted. | ||||||
| 13 | 8.5 | "Our American Cousin" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | May 5, 2020 | |
| Months after the events of “Brand Awareness,” Greg reckons with the hurt he caused Joanna. But his role in the universe and the true nature of his past is much larger than he could have possibly imagined. | ||||||
| 14 | 9 | "The Demon Hunters" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | May 19, 2020 | |
| It’s the future. The cities are flooded. Certain words are forbidden. The doomed Earth has become united under a global totalitarian regime. But two eccentric outliers who refuse to follow the rules may be the Tellestian Empire’s only chance for a hopeful future. | ||||||
| 15 | 9.5 | "The Head Doctor" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | June 1, 2020 | |
| In this sequel to “Compassion Fatigue,” Emma has returned to practicing psychiatry again. But a highly unusual (and strangely familiar) patient arrives in her office with an odd proposition. | ||||||
| 16 | 10.1 | "Paths Not Taken: Where Are the Lads of the Village Tonight?" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | July 30, 2020 | |
| Chelsea Needham was once among the foremost leaders in tech. But something happened involving a fire and a death. And it got in the papers. Rumor reared its ugly head and Chelsea lost everything she had, with only a few friends left. While recovering from alcoholism, self-destruction, and losing the love of her life, Chelsea meets an enigmatic gentleman from England and a strange fortune teller who may have the answers to how she can reclaim her identity. | ||||||
| 17 | 10.2 | "Paths Not Taken: The First Illusion" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | August 11, 2020 | |
| It’s January 11, 2011. The world is similar, but it is also quite different. Chelsea reconnects with her best friend Alicia and takes the opportunity to correct her past mistakes, including rebuilding her relationship with Maya. But the shadow of her abusive mother and the presence of an eccentric man who is quite keen on hot dogs and the benefits of being obsequious may uproot this hard-won battle to claim a better life. | ||||||
| 18 | 10.3 | "Paths Not Taken: Same Age Inside" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | August 25, 2020 | |
| While on the run from a wild interdimensional beast named Chester, Chelsea learns of electromatter, the surprising ubiquity of Tony Danza, and the multiverse. But the alarming differences she discovers about the universe she’s become part of threaten to topple her efforts to reconnect with Maya and Alicia. | ||||||
| 19 | 10.4 | "Paths Not Taken: Unfound Door" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | September 8, 2020 | |
| onfronted with surprise revelations and the need to reconcile two parallel universes, Chelsea faces the hard truths about what sustaining a relationship really means while cleaning up a cosmic disturbance that no human being could have ever predicted. Meanwhile, a Melissa Etheridge T-shirt proves to be an invaluable remedy as our heroes contend with a giant heart that beats to the rhythm of time. | ||||||
| 20 | 10.5 | "Paths Not Taken: Canny Valley" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | September 22, 2020 | |
| In this “screwball cyberpunk” episode, it’s 2023. Labor camps, a sinister government, and significant civil unrest rollick the world outside. But within the secret chambers of the multibillion tech company Apotheosis, an optimistic entrepreneur named Jill Swanson, who names her engineers after 1930s comedy film directors, sits on a secret that may just save the world. | ||||||
| 21 | 10.6 | "Paths Not Taken: Too Hard a Knot" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | October 6, 2020 | |
| Back in the original universe, Scarlett and Alicia contend with another version of Chelsea and conjure up a plan to get the two Chelseas back in their respective universes as they face the danger of a seemingly innocent benefactor gone rogue. | ||||||
| 22 | 10.7 | "Paths Not Taken: Shadows Have Offended" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | October 20, 2020 | |
| In the final part of the “Paths” saga, Chelsea and Maya struggle in their forties to keep their relationship alive as they initiate a fateful but necessary Thanksgiving meeting with Maya’s grandfather — a stubborn and “old-fashioned” World War I historian. Meanwhile, the disastrous political trajectory of the parallel universe encroaches upon deeply personal and deeply fatal territory. | ||||||
| 23 | N–A | "The Yellow Wallpaper" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | November 3, 2020 | |
| An adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story of the same title, with many Gray Area regulars. This radio play honors the text but is set in the present day, addressing #metoo and the oppressive demands upon women. | ||||||
| 24 | 11 | "West with the Light" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | June 22, 2021 | |
| Genius writer Virginia Gaskell fends off boredom (and the Receptionist’s peppy interventions) while trapped in the waiting room, but a number of unexpected new visitors provide vital new clues to her purpose and journey. | ||||||
| 25 | 12 | "Marching Orders" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | July 6, 2021 | |
| In 1911, a young British gentleman dukes it out against the austere whims of his Edwardian-minded father. But two travelers reveal that his role in the universe is much bigger than he could have ever imagined. | ||||||
| 26 | 13.1 | "Pattern Language: The Tainted Grimace" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | July 20, 2021 | |
| Pat Goras and Lucy Didas are a happy couple living in a fantastical suburban realm preparing for a delightful dragon brisket barbeque with their neighbors. But when a strange portal opens in their backyard, their lives and roles become permanently altered within the very Gray Area itself! | ||||||
| 27 | 13.2 | "Pattern Language: Not a Frown Further" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | August 3, 2021 | |
| Months after the events of “Paths Not Taken,” Chelsea is working hard to turn a corner and improve her life. But when Emily McCorkle, the smear merchant journalist who severely damaged her reputation, returns to write a follow-up piece, Chelsea is thrown into a jarring maelstrom that involves demons, people from her past, and the possibility of redemption. | ||||||
| 28 | 13.3 | "Pattern Language: An Iris for Emily" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | August 17, 2021 | |
| Emily McCorkle has landed the media appearance of a lifetime: a guest spot on the most respected talk show in America. But why is the host so concerned with her private details? And why are so many skeletons from her past making guest appearances? And who is the strange man with the hot dogs? | ||||||
| 29 | 13.4 | "Pattern Language: Mirrors of the Soul" | Edward Champion | Edward Champion | August 31, 2021 | |
| Our intrepid heroes visit the New York Public Library to meet up with visiting literary scholar Merrill Malone, an eccentric and the foremost expert on Virginia Gaskell’s life and work, to get, once and for all, all the answers about the portals. What they don’t realize is that shocking personal revelations and the very ground beneath their feet will alter forever within the library’s seemingly pristine walls. | ||||||
References[edit]
- ↑ "About the show," Archived 2017-08-06 at the Wayback Machine The Gray Area, May 3, 2017
- ↑ admin (2017-10-13). "2017 Parsec Awards Finalists". Locus Online. Retrieved 2023-04-24.
- ↑ Glyer, Mike (2017-10-13). "2017 Parsec Awards Finalists". File 770. Retrieved 2023-04-24.
- ↑ Glyer, Mike (2018-10-09). "2018 Parsec Awards Finalists". File 770. Retrieved 2023-04-24.
- ↑ locusmag (2018-12-17). "2018 Parsec Awards Winners". Locus Online. Retrieved 2023-04-24.
- ↑ "Gray Tones," Archived 2017-08-06 at the Wayback Machine The Sonic Society, June 6, 2017
- ↑ "Looking a Little Gray," Archived 2017-08-06 at the Wayback Machine Midnight Audio Theatre, July 8, 2017
- ↑ "First Impressions: High-Energy Surprising Storytelling in 'The Gray Area'" Archived 2017-10-05 at the Wayback Machine Podcast Problems, August 1, 2017
- ↑ "The Gray Area -- Season 2 (Teaser #1)" Archived 2023-04-23 at the Wayback Machine YouTube, September 25, 2019
- ↑ "Season 2 of the Gray Area Has Been Released!" Archived 2020-04-11 at the Wayback Machine Reluctant Habits, April 11, 2020
- ↑ "Live Performance of THE GRAY AREA to be Presented at the Gene Frankel Theatre" Archived 2021-10-19 at the Wayback Machine Broadway World, October 16, 2021
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