Category / Dramatic Readings

by Edward Champion

Dramatic Reading of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Emails

A dramatic reenactment of Jonathan Safran Foer’s emails.

On July 14, 2016, as part of an in-depth feature on Natalie Portman, The New York Times published an email exchange between Portman and the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer (inexplicably featuring many photos of Portman wearing scant clothing). Foer’s emails represented some of the strangest malaise ever expressed in a major American newspaper. In an effort to plunge into the tortured depths of Foer’s soul, I have recorded a dramatic reading of the emails, with the hope that this recording might help future generations make sense of the Foer predicament.

Listen: Play in new window | Download

by Edward Champion

Ocean Marketing: The Dramatic Reading

In an effort to provide appropriate journalistic context for the Ocean Marketing debacle, I have performed several dramatic readings. (I have replaced all instances of “LOL” with suitably melodramatic laughter.)

It began, as most forms of Internet frontier justice do, with a post that spurred outrage. Ocean Marketing, a firm that had promised to deliver an Avenger game controller before the Christmas holidays, failed to live up to its pledge. People did not get their controllers. There was an email exchange whereby aggrieved parties attempted to seek restitution with Ocean Marketing. But Ocean Marketing, failing to comprehend one time-honored maxim (‘The Customer is Always Right”), decided to get huffy about rectifying its mistakes, with the company’s representative becoming mind-numbingly arrogant when it came to the power of memes and the potential for serious screwups to create viral PR nightmares. The result was a public outcry and subsequent investigation that revealed even more astonishing sins, including plagiarism and phony charities.

In other words, the whole Ocean Marketing mess quickly became a veritable rabbit hole: a fascinating and time-consuming parable on how a representative’s poor conduct revealed a company’s true disgrace buried not especially deep beneath the dirt.

Others have done a commendable job of following this ongoing story. So in an effort to provide the appropriate journalistic context, I have performed several dramatic readings of the more snottier Ocean Marketing emails. I hope that my performances have appropriately represented the smarmy and self-serving behavior which galvanized this mighty electric storm. (Please note that I have replaced all instances of “LOL” with suitably melodramatic laughter.)

Ocean Marketing: Dramatic Reading #1 (Download MP3)

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Ocean Marketing: Dramatic Reading #2 (Download MP3)

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Ocean Marketing: Dramatic Reading #3 (Download MP3)

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by Edward Champion

The Bad Prose Reading Project #2 (“It Was Real Light”)

The second installment of The Bad Prose Reading Project features the phrase “it was real light” and runs two minutes and 52 seconds.

Back in February, I initiated the Bad Prose Reading Project — an effort to find new joy and meaning in prose that was truly atrocious. The joy and meaning would be delivered through audio dramatizations.

The idea behind the Project was to respond to a specific phenomenon that all readers know very well. Every now and then, you encounter prose so wonderfully preposterous that it feels quite a crime not to share it with other appreciative readers. Some confine this morbid pleasure to the Bad Sex in Fiction Award handed out yearly by the Literary Review. Others test their mincing mettle by contributing their own exemplars to the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest.

But the best bad prose isn’t always planned. It’s written and discovered by accident.

I had thought that The Bad Prose Reading Project would be a one-off. But then, on April 14, 2011, I discovered an extraordinarily awful specimen. It was so atrocious that it filled me with great delight! And as I read the words, I took further joy! When you listen to the recording, you will hear me go overboard near the end as I preach about “letting live and loving.”

As always, I won’t name the author, the story, or the novel that I’m reading. I feel this is fair to those who may judge the prose to be excellent. Needless to say, if I’m dramatizing it, it’s probably been published somewhere in the last few months. But that’s also part of the fun. Perhaps in dramatizing “bad” prose, the oral delivery may transform it into “good” prose because my dramatization is “bad.” Or perhaps I’m overthinking the experiment.

As always, I invite listeners to judge the results. The second installment of The Bad Prose Reading Project features the phrase “it was real light” and can be listened to below.

The Bad Prose Reading Project #2 (“It Was Real Light”) (Download MP3)

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by Edward Champion

The Bad Prose Reading Project #1 (“Disinterested Thrusting”)

The first installment of The Bad Prose Reading Project features the phrase “disinterested thrusting” and runs two minutes and 12 seconds.

Every now and then, you encounter prose so wonderfully preposterous that it feels quite a crime not to share it with other appreciative readers. Some, of course, confine this morbid pleasure to the Bad Sex in Fiction Award handed out yearly by the Literary Review. (How easy it is for us to confront bad prose when it’s being declared “bad” by an independent authority!) Others test their mincing mettle by contributing their own exemplars to the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest.

But as we all know, the best bad prose isn’t always planned. It’s written and discovered by accident.

With all these factors in mind, I offer The Bad Prose Reading Project, where I will be offering audio dramatizations of any bad prose I discover during my reading adventures.

During the course of these dramatizations, I won’t actually name the author, the story, or the novel that I’m reading. I feel this is fair to those who may judge the prose to be excellent. Needless to say, if I’m dramatizing it, it’s probably been published somewhere in the last few months. But that’s also part of the fun. Perhaps in dramatizing “bad” prose, the oral delivery may transform it into “good” prose because my dramatization is “bad.” Or perhaps I’m overthinking the experiment.

In any event, I invite listeners to judge the results. The first installment of The Bad Prose Reading Project features the phrase “disinterested thrusting” and can be listened to below.

Bad Prose Reading Project #1 (“Disinterested Thrusting”) (Download MP3)

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by Edward Champion

Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project #11

The latest installment in my ongoing Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project, read in the style of Carl Paladino. Sort of. Well, not really.

This morning, I emailed a film critic attempting to clarify a recent misunderstanding in civil and reasonable terms. This film critic accused me of being unprofessional, yet, as I pointed out to him, threatening people on Twitter (“you better watch yourself. How fucking dare you call my film review ‘suspicious,'” he had tweeted at a time when most people are sleeping) hardly constituted a professional act. I informed this film critic that I didn’t hate him or his colleagues. Indeed, I still don’t. I will be happy to hug any of the offended parties at the earliest opportunity if it will assist them in civilly responding to the argument. Unsurprisingly, the film critic sent me back a hate mail.

Therefore, my audio series — Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project — must continue.

The following clip represents my dramatic reading of the hate mail in question, read in the style of Carl Paladino. Or perhaps someone who differs from Carl Paladino. However inaccurate the voice, it seemed the right idea at the time.

I plan to continue reading any and all hate mail that arrives my way. And I will be happy to read any specific hate mail that you’ve received. (If you do send me hate mail for potential dramatic readings, I only ask that you redact the names of the individuals.)

Click any of the below links to listen.

Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project #11 (Download MP3)

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Previous Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Installments:

#10 A hate mail read in the style of Mel Gibson talking on the telephone
#9 A hate mail read in the style of Tennessee Williams
#8 A hate mail read in the style of Jimmy Stewart
#7 A hate mail read in the style of Glenn Beck
#6 A hate mail read in the style of a Miss Manners schoolmarmish tone
#5 A hate mail read in the style of Richard Milhous Nixon
#4: A hate mail read in the style of a drunken Irishman.
#3: A hate mail read in the style of a quiet sociopath
#2: A hate mail read in a muted Peter Lorre impression
#1: A hate mail read in a melodramatic, quasi-Shakespearean style