VOICE WORK

Featured here are MP3 samples of my voice work. These include dramatic readings; solo and with or for other outfits such as Willamette Radio Workshop, International Tales, "Afterhell," and "Dry Smoke and Whispers"; and commercial voice work.

I. DRAMATIC PROJECTS

Willamette Radio Workshop -- a group of actors, writers, musicians, sound effects specialists, and engineers in the Portland area that does old-time-radio style shows in live performance and for recordings

• Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde
• Hiro & Liling (the Shogun)

International Tales -- a Web site of fairy tales, folk stories, and classic literature for children and young teens

• Sherlock Holmes
• Dr. John Watson
• Breckinridge, a shopkeeper in Covent Garden Market, from "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle"
• the narrator of Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"
• Daniel Webster, from Stephen Vincent Benet's "The Devil and Daniel Webster"
• a washed-up Alaskan gold prospector, from Jack London's "The Night-Born"
• Beast, from the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast"

Afterhell -- the post-apocalyptic series of stories concocted and managed by Joe Medina and Jamie Lawson, aka Ollin Productions

• Douglas R. Levin, the manager of a suburban discount, supermarket, gives the retail staff a sales pep talk, in "Dead Peasants"
• back in his office, Levin chats with his, er, regional manager
• J.J, a washed-up, middle-aged, alcoholic, stand-up comic, chats about his forebodings with his wife Peaches (Jacqui Schmall) in "Dying on Stage"
• Declan, a young Goth punk being pursued by a crowd of flesh-eating zombies, in "Sleepless Days"
• Declan describes his Goth-punk lifestyle to his host

Dry Smoke and Whispers -- the science fiction audio series about telepathic detective Emille Song and his weapons-expert sidekick Professor Henchard, which airs on XM Satellite Radio.

I have played nearly two dozen characters in this series, from innocent victims to villains and wizened observers:

• Meewok Ingenos, an immigrant laborer in the Solarium mines on the planet of Quaymet
• Meewok is actually an actor hired by the mega-corporation Grent Industries to pretend to be a happy worker (which might explain why his accent is so hokey); more typical of the mine workers is Ahnmar, who participates in a rebellion against the owners by planting a bomb
  • Ahnmar worrying about setting the bomb
  • Ahnmar in despair because people were hurt in an explosion that was meant only to destroy property
  • A very confused and anguished Ahnmar talking to Song, who is trying to figure out why events turned out the way they did
• Then there's Ahnmar's older brother Kandahr, who tries in vain to tell people what's happening in the mines
• I've experienced some spectacular deaths on the show, for example:
  • Kahndar gets hit with a poisoned dart
  • a fellow named Mahvrepoor gets slammed by a powerful force against a wall and expires piteously
• I appear briefly as a sort of Zen monk named Nak N-Yen, who
  • politely intrudes on our heros in a night club, and
  • later has some characteristically inscrutable advice to pass along
• Vice Regent Grahvik is an especially fun character; he's one of the powerful figures in the Sons of the Assigned, but you can probably picture him as an evil high priest
  • Here's Grahvik picking up on the disguised presence of Song at a secret meeting of the Sons
  • Grahvik in a strategy meeting with Sword Master Odraythius (my friend Chris Porter who I think is channeling Peter Lorre)
  • Grahvik and Odraythius going into panic mode
  • Grahvik taking defensive action to protect Vice Chancellor Keerik

Aside from the dramatic characters in the "Dry Smoke and Whispers" series, there are incidental characters that pop up in advertisements, news reports, and cultural features, such as:

• Dominic Easton-Bribley, poofy arts reporter
• Ancient Eye, an ad for a spy probe to monitor the activies of your family
• fat cat, an incidental character in a car ad
• Jared Emlau, retired horror film star
• Splatter-Day Matinee, an ad spot by horror film star Jared Emlau

 

Speak-the-Speech.com is a Web site committed to the impossible task of someday putting every one of Shakespeare's plays online, in sound file and text form, for the benefit of students and fans of the Bard of Avon. I've been involved in several of the productions that have been completed so far, namely:

• "As You Like It," in which I played Duke Senior and Corin
• "Henry IV, part 1," in which I did the voices of the aged Earl of Northumberland (here berating his headstrong son Hotspur, Act I scene iii, lines 236-238, 300); Sir Richard Vernon, one of the rebel lieutenants (here praising the sight of one of his opponents, Prince Harry, Act IV, scene i, lines 97-110); Sir Michael, and First Carrier
• "Henry IV, part 2," in which I reprised the Earl of Northumberland (even more aged, now) and also was Sergeant Fang
• "Romeo and Juliet," where I play Friar Lawrence, (in his initial speech while tending his garden in Act II, scene iii, lines 1-30); Gregory (in the opening scene of the play, playing opposite Chris Porter as Sampson, with Sam Mowry turning up as Abram); and a Citizen

 

II. COMMERCIAL VOICE WORK

• Tag for Clackamas County Tourism Bureau series (aired on Portland radio stations in November 2007)

Contact David Loftus

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