"CITY SLICKERS WHO YAP THEIR FLAPS AND CAN'T EVEN ORDER A MEAL!"
Hello there from The Gray Area! First off, we hope that you are safe, healthy, staying calm and positive, and making the most of it in these unprecedented times.
Second, after nearly two and a half years -- working seven days a week -- of recording 300 hours of audio (with 1,000 pages of scripts and 120 speaking roles!) and performing months of fastidious sound design and editing, we're happy to announce that Season 2 of our Parsec Award-winning audio drama is now available for your listening pleasure!
We've just released Episode 7 of The Gray Area, an audio drama told in interconnected stories that you can listen to for free. It's called "Living Creatures" -- a wild story inspired by Patty Hearst and Pulp Fiction -- and takes place in a Wyoming establishment known as the Dancing Chicken Diner! The venue serves up every form of chicken dish imaginable. But two mysterious strangers arrive (played by David Ault and Nicole Papadopoulos) and make trouble with the locals over a philosophical matter. 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.
This is the first of nineteen episodes that we will be releasing from now until the end of the year. While all of these stories can be enjoyed independently, there are many connections to Season 1. This is a program that rewards careful listening. And by the end of the second season, you will see how all of these many story strands are related to each other! But you can also experience these sonic tales as enjoyable yarns. We have a number of very fun and wildly ambitious tales lined up -- including a space opera set a few decades from now and an epic seven-part love story set in two parallel universes that takes place from 1994 to 2023. We're even going back in time to 1912 later in the season! This season has a bit of everything! Demons, demon hunters, eccentric engineers named after screwball comedy film directors, love stories, doubles and Doppelgängers, revolutionaries arguing about breakfast, dragons, a touch of film noir, time travel, absent-minded professors, fierce librarians, technological intrigue, AI, laser battles, a mysteriously exuberant figure known only as the Receptionist who is fond of hot dogs and Tony Danza, a wild interdimensional beast named Chester, and a great deal more! We've even composed and performed just under a dozen original songs.
We believe that, during these rough times, new stories help everyone to stay sane and strong. As such, we adjusted our postproduction schedule so that we could provide you with thrilling new tales during the pandemic. And because we know that many people are struggling right now, we also wanted to make sure that you could have a new episode every other Tuesday -- at an uninterrupted schedule -- for free. While we're releasing "Living Creatures" on a Saturday, we're going to carry on with regular biweekly Tuesday release with Episode 8, beginning on April 21, 2020. You can examine our episode release schedule here.
We are also starting an experiment. For Season 2, we're introducing a Season 2 pass that -- for one flat fee of $20 -- will give you instant access to all episodes ahead of release (as we finish them), as well as the scripts, and a special behind-the-scenes podcast called Inside the Gray Area featuring commentary and interviews with the actors. The first batch of five episodes (along with the supplemental material) is now available. We'll be releasing a second batch of eight Season 2 Pass episodes around June, followed by a third and final six episode batch sometime in August. But don't worry! Your season pass will be good for the entire duration of these three release phases. And all nineteen episodes will still be released on the free feed from now through December 15, 2020. To give you a sample of what you get with the Season 2 pass, we've also released the first episode of Inside the Gray Area on the free feed concurrently with "Living Creatures." A Season 2 pass not only gives you a lot of extra goodies (similar to a DVD commentary). But it will also help to support independent audio drama. We have a four season story plan in place. We pay all our actors. And we want to make sure that we can keep on producing this wildly unique and highly ambitious audio drama.
If you are a member of the media interested in advance review copies or anything else, please feel free to drop us a line.
If you'd like to connect with us, you can follow us on Twitter, sift through numerous behind-the-scenes videos on our Instagram account, and even watch some of our zany offerings on TikTok, which we've just recently joined.
So that's where we're at! And if you're feeling alone or you need someone to talk with, please don't hesitate to reach out. I will be more than happy to give you a call to crack jokes and lift up your spirits. Let's stay connected. Let's stay strong. We will get through this!
So until next time, wherever you are in the universe, be good to yourself and kind to others. Thank you for listening!
Edward Champion
