Show reviewed:  Six
Written and directed by:  Kyle Hatley
Date saw the show:  July 23, 2008
Place saw the show: Kansas City Fringe Festival,  Kansas City, Missouri
Company: Chatterbox Audio Theater www.chatterboxtheater.org
Principal Leads: Heidi Stubblefield, Tricia Davenport, Jerry Genochio, Todd Carlton Lanker, Jess Akin, T. J. Chast
Sound effects:   Melissa Fennewald, Kyle Hatley 

Reviewed by:  Deborah Ground Buckner (Kansas City Correspondent - USA) 

Growing up, I was blessed with a family friend who was an old radio buff.  He devoted countless hours to recording old radio programs from his album collections or re-airings on nostalgia programs.  I listened to many of these as a teenager, and now, I have inherited his collection and continue to enjoy them.  Audio drama has a special, almost magical quality about it.  Only the words and the accompanying sounds are provided.  The visual images have to come from imagination, and, often, these can be more vivid-sometimes more terrible-than any Hollywood director with unlimited special effects could create. 

Chatterbox Audio Theater Artistic Director Kyle Hartley introduces the show by explaining the format, cautioning that if something should go wrong in the live performance, the actors will back up to the last cue and begin again.  This was not necessary in the performance I witnessed.  In explaining Chatterbox's decision to present audio theater, Hatley observed there are some stories "we could never tell on stage."  Six is one of these.   

Six actors appear on stage, each behind a stand with a script.  The audience watches as they read their respective lines, with the sound effects crew also present and performing on cue.  With no special lighting, no set, no costumes, the story comes vividly alive, demonstrating the power of the human voice and, even more, the human imagination.

Six characters are members of a Russian roulette club.  "Our lives are set to a simple fraction:  One over six."  Of necessity, new members are introduced to the club to maintain the number of six.  "Once you play, you stay."  Through each session, one member will "progress," and the other will "find peace."

A new member (Tricia Davenport) joins the club and challenges one of the most highly progressed members (Heidi Stubblefield).  Then begins "the story of how our system failed." 

Davenport, Stubblefield, Jerry Genochio, Todd Carlton Lanker, Jess Akin, and T. J. Chast make the six characters very real, and sound effects artists Melissa Fennewald and Kyle Hatley demonstrate the skill and quickness necessary in producing sounds on cue.

This is a theatrical opportunity very different from what most audience members will ever have experienced.  It is a welcome addition to the Fringe Festival. 

Each of the festival performances will be recorded, and the best performance will be edited for broadcast on the website www.chatterboxtheater.org.