Knappa High school students learn the power of broadcasting their voiceKnappa – Elias Hunsinger, a freshman at Knappa High School, stretches to put his mouth close to the microphone.

“Luuuuke, I am your faaather,” he whispers.

Hunsinger’s fellow classmates who are hooked into the recording system by silver headphones giggle.

A chorus of mooos erupts from the back of the room as everyone else practices the scene where Igor hits a cow with his blaster.

Welcome to radio theater, an introduction to the art of using your voice as an acting instrument.

Drama teacher Matt Christensen wanted to expose his students to something new – something that might expand their career expectations once they leave the protective shell of Knappa High.

Christensen applied for grant money from the Meyer Memorial Trust and from the Knappa Schools Foundation and was awarded $3,000 to buy radio equipment and the expertise to use it.

This two-week unit is a test-run of the radio elective the school plans to offer next year.

“They weren’t aware of the kind of money and availability of jobs out there,” he says. “There is a lot of money and need for people with a radio voice and recording experience.”

Newscaster, sportscaster, voice-over and sound board technician are all jobs where drama enthusiasts can actually make a living. At the very least, radio experience can teach students how to better use their

voices.

RecordingSix microphones stand soldier tall, their cords running to the main console and speakers. Students take their places in front of the equipment, scripts clutched in their hands. They go through the process of slating the recording – the scene, the part, who is playing what character.

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Reading the lead part of the simpleminded Stanley Klutz, Senior Nick Jacobson gets chuckles with his delivery of his lines.It used to be nerve-wracking, knowing all their mistakes were going to be played back to them, being forced to hear their voices coming through the speaker.

“The way I think I sound when I talk to my friends is totally different,” junior Whitney Hansell says. “When they played back my voice, I thought I sounded really weird.”

The students no longer cringe, at least not noticeably, at recordings they don’t like.

“Sometimes when you hear your voice it’s not exactly how you wanted to be and you can’t exactly change it all the time,” senior Savanha Gadberry says.

But students can learn how to manipulate their voices just by they way they stand and let their air out.

“We can do like little changes in our voices by practicing with our warm-up and can learn different ways to make ourselves sound younger or dopier, deeper or higher,” she says.

Stanley Klutz. Scene three, part one.Stanley Klutz’s father left him a powerful invention that Stanley’s stepbrother would like to use for robbing banks and other devious deeds.

The actors pick up where Igor is manipulating Stanley into practice-firing his finger of criminal destruction.

Hansell reads the narrator’s part in a deadpan voice.

“Each afternoon, when Stanley came home from school, he and Igor took the bus to the farmland outside of town. They walked to the field where nobody could see them.”

“Aim for that tree!” Justin Germond, freshman, yells.

Hunsinger presses a button on noise maker that emits an alien ray-gun sound.

“You missed it lunk head! Shoot again!” Germond says.

The barn is struck, and the class moos.

Paul Decker, the expertise Christensen bought, steps in.

“Now smile when you read,” he says. “Wait. You have to blast before you Moo.”

Decker spent his working live directing and producing TV and radio commercials in Los Angeles and conducting voice workshops. He now hosts a jazz program on KMUN.

“It’s sounding good here,” he says. “Let’s do it once more. I think we’ll have it.”

They plod on, practicing and recording, practicing and re-recording.

“It’s very tedious,” Gadberry says. “You have to play what you do and if you don’t like it you have to do it again. You have to get the sound effects right where you need them otherwise you have to re-record.”

Part twoDecker is looking for someone to play Mama.

“We have the perfect person for that,” Christensen jumps in. “Savanha is good sarcasm.”

Christensen, realizing that his words could be interpreted wrongly, adds, “That’s a compliment.”

Gadberry makes her voice nasal sounding, syrupy sweet with an ice pick behind it.

“Trust me, dear,” she says her line.

She sounds like the wolf dressed up in Little Red Riding Hood’s clothing.

Perfect for the part.

Finding scripts believable for young voices has been a roadblock for Decker. Compounding the problem is that radio theater script writing hasn’t been profitable for decades. The Knappa students are actually using a script he wrote a few years ago.

Besides getting his hands on appropriate material, Decker says another challenge is not having enough time in the classroom.

“This kind of time pressure with this number of students, you want to spend more time with each person to help develop their skills,” he says.

The whole shebangChristensen’s hope is by the end of the trial run of the radio theater, he can send students home with a CD of their voices or one scene from the Stanley Klutz script.

It takes at least an hour to record a minute’s worth of material. Professionals take about four hours for every minute because of added sound effects, mixing, editing and production time.

“Next year, when we have the full elective we’ll be able to do more,” he says.

Christensen hopes to venture into music and produce music CDs. He also has plans for students to make commercials for Knappa businesses and to have them produce theaters scripts that can be played on public radio.

For students, the radio class is an opportunity to learn about radio’s early influence (think H.G. Wells) and realize there are other sources of entertainment besides MTV and video games.

“Radio requires imagination and getting a mental image of what’s going on,” says Justin Germond. “It’s kind of what people in the past looked forward to instead of slouching in front of a television.”