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Raconteur Radio Remote!

We're recording performances via Skype Meeting or Zoom. Here's how it works: 1) We e-mail the recorded video performance to you. 2) You upload it to your organization's channel/video sharing platform and run it for two weeks. 3) We do a real time Q&A, via your choice of teleconference platform, at some point during the run (usually somewhere in the middle). Make sense?

All for a reduced rate; that is, over half off (!) our live show fee.

Currently, we're offering virtual presentations of The War of the Worlds (click here for preview), Sorry, Wrong Number (click here for preview), The Hobbit (click here for preview), The Wizard of Oz (click here for preview), and A Christmas Carol  (click here for preview). And we'll Frankenstein ready for this Halloween!

But, rest assured, folks, when we're finally on the other side of this, and we're once again doing live shows, our full program roster will be available.

To book one of our programs, please contact raconteurbooks@gmail.com.

But, rest assured, folks, when we're finally on the other side of this, and we're once again doing live shows, our full program roster will be available.

To book one of our programs, please contact raconteurbooks@gmail.com.

GOLD MENU:

A CHRISTMAS CAROL: Adapted from Charles Dickens' classic novella, the story tells of a misanthropic pinchpenny named Ebenezer Scrooge and his ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS: Set in Grover Mills, NJ, the play is a loose adaptation of the H. G. Wells classic. The simulated "news bulletins" of the original broadcast suggested to many contemporaneous listeners that an actual alien invasion was currently in progress and, as a result, there were instances of panicked evacuation throughout the US, especially in New Jersey!

THE GREAT GATSBY: Nick Carraway finds himself fascinated by one time bootlegger Jay Gatsby, a party-throwing parvenu with pink suits and a big yellow circus wagon of a car. Quickly drawn into Gatsby's circle, Nick becomes a reluctant enabler of obsession and a stirring witness to tragedy. From the Jazz Age classic by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

THE INVISIBLE MAN: A mysterious bandaged stranger arrives at a remote English inn during a snowstorm. Reclusive and aggressive, he demands to be left alone, holing up in his rented room with an elaborate set of chemicals, desperate to reverse his current state. Failing in his attempt to reverse the procedure, he slowly becomes murderously insane. From the classic H.G. Wells novella.

THE WIZARD OF OZ: For over a hundred years Frank Baum’s timeless tale of a magical land beyond the rain has given faithful service to the Young and Young at Heart; Time has been powerless to put its kindly philosophy out of fashion. To those of you who have been faithful to it in return, we dedicate this performance.

MOBY DICK; OR, THE WHALE:  A wandering young sailor named Ishmael takes work aboard the whale ship Pequod and soon learns that its crippled captain, Ahab, has but one doomed purpose: to hunt down the montrous white whale who bit off his leg. From the classic adventure by Herman Melleville.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS: Phileas Fogg and his newly employed French valet Passepartout  attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager set by his friends at the Reform Club. From the classic adventure by the French writer Jules Verne.

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT: A Yankee engineer from Connecticut is accidentally transported back in time to the court of King Arthur, where he fools the inhabitants into thinking he is a magician, using his knowledge of modern technology to perform such feats as demolitions, fireworks and the eclipsing of the sun. From the 1889 novel by Mark Twain.

SHERLOCK HOLMES & THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES: Set on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country, it tells the story of an attempted murder inspired by the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin. Holmes and his companion Doctor Watson investigate the case. From the third of the four crime novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes.

PYGMALION: Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. From the play by George Bernard Shaw.

THE MERRY ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD: Sir Robin of Locksley, defender of downtrodden Saxons, runs afoul of Norman authority and is forced to turn outlaw and flee to the forest. With his rebel guerrilla band of Merry Men, he robs from the rich, gives to the poor and still has time to woo the lovely Maid Marian, foil the cruel Sir Guy of Gisbourne, and keep the nefarious Prince John off the throne.

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE: Based on the 1886 novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, it tells of a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde.

THE THIRD MAN: Holly Martins is a "scribbler" of hack Westerns who arrives in Vienna to land a job and join his old pal Harry Lime. Instead he finds himself drawn into a network of deadly black-market racketeers. From the film by Sir Carol Reed.

THE WIZARD OF MENLO PARK: Thomas Alva Edison reflects back upon his long career as an inventor, scientist, and businessman, during which he opens an “invention factory” at Menlo Park, perfects the phonograph, and, with a Herculean trial-and-error effort, finally succeeds in creating a practical electric light.


THE GREAT HOUDINI: Chronicles the spectacular but short career of Harry Houdini from his early fame as an escape artist, to his contentious friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle and his recalcitrant reputation as a séance debunker, to his tragic death. Features a live performance by an actual escape artist during our "fake" intermission.

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING: India in the late 19th century. A time of mission and mystery, of dark, forbidden lands, and of wealth often described as untold. Soldiers-cum-con men, Danny Dravot and Peachy Carnehan, climb mountains and cross glaciers to penetrate the forbidden territories where, through luck and a series of masonic coincidences, they realize their wildest dreams.

FLYWHEEL, SHYSTER, and FLYWHEEL: Depicts the misadventures of a small law firm, with Groucho as attorney Waldorf T. Flywheel and Chico as Flywheel's assistant, Emmanuel Ravelli. Situations drawn from Marx Bros. films. Featuring Ron McCloskey, a nationally known Groucho impersonator, in the role of Flywheel.

THE SEA WOLF: A 1904 psychological adventure novel by Jack London about a survivor of an ocean collision who comes under the dominance of Wolf Larsen, the powerful and amoral sea captain who rescues him. About which critic Ambrose Bierce wrote, "The great thing is that tremendous creation, Wolf Larsen, the hewing out and setting up of such a figure is enough for a man to do in one lifetime."

THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU: After being rescued and brought to an island, a man discovers that it's yowling inhabitants are experimental animal/human hybrids, the work of a visionary and ultimately mad doctor named Moreau. Based on the 1896 science fiction novel by H. G. Wells.

GASLIGHT: No one has lit any other lamps, and yet the light dims, then brightens. And what about the footsteps coming from the sealed attic? Something is driving Paula Alquist mad. Is it the house? Where her aunt, a famous concert singer, was murdered ten years before? Or is it her new husband, an older man she met in Italy, who convinces her to return to the murder scene and make it their home?

MACBETH: Tells the story of a brave Scottish general named Macbeth who receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the throne for himself, after which he is forced to commit more murders to protect himself from enmity.

TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA: Based on the classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne, it tells the astonishing story of Nemo’s Nautilus as seen from the perspective of Professor Pierre Aronnax.

THE TIME MACHINE: Widely considered to be one of the earliest works of science fiction and the progenitor of the "time travel" subgenre, it tells the timeless story of two Victorian scientists hurtled into the year 802,701 by an elaborate ivory, crystal, and brass contraption, where they encounter a violent race of subterranean simians. Based on the classic H.G. Wells novella.

SHERLOCK HOLMES & THE FINAL PROBLEM: Holmes and Watson embark on a roundabout Continental "holiday" designed to thwart the relentless pursuit of the Napoleon of crime himself, Professor Moriarty. The story culminates with a fateful square off at "a dreadful cauldron of swirling water and seething foam" known as Reichenbach Falls.



SILVER MENU:                

SORRY, WRONG NUMBER: While listening to what seems to be a crossed connection, Leona Stevenson, a neurotic invalid whose only connection to the outside world is her telephone, overhears two men plotting a murder. Desperate to prevent the crime, Leona begins a frantic series of calls, eventually deducing the shocking identity of the victim. From a play by Lucille Fletcher.

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME: Based on a story by Richard Connell, it tells the terrible tale of a big-game hunter from New York, who falls off a yacht and swims to an isolated island in the Caribbean, where he is found and hosted by Cossack aristocrat Genral Zaroff, a fellow hunter with a taste for the world’s most exotic prey—his houseguests.

THE HITCHHIKER: Ronald Adams is driving cross-country from Brooklyn to California. On the morning he leaves New York, he sees a man on the Brooklyn Bridge, apparently waiting for a lift. At several points along his journey, Adams repeatedly sees the same hitch-hiker, despite the fact that, logically, there is no possible way the mysterious man could get ahead of him. From a play by Lucille Fletcher.

AUGUST HEAT: Based on the classic tale of fear and trembling by W. F. Harvey, it tells the strange story of two men, one an artist, one a headstone carver, whose glimpses, each of the other's possible future, lead them to a bizarre and possibly fatal midnight standoff at the end of a scorching August day.


Plus: Orson Welles' Dracula, Jane Eyre, Casablanca, Sunset Boulevard, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. And a range of pop culture parodies.

To book a performance, please contact raconteurbooks@gmail.com.