Andrews – The ACT2 Players opened the 2025-26 season of productions at the Valleytown Cultural Arts Center with a trio of performances of The Radio Play Disaster last weekend.
At just under an hour, the play – based on Don Zolidis’ one-act production from 2009 – centers around radio director Harlan Bean’s production of his own science fiction “masterpiece” titled “Battle of the Planets,” which features alien landings and invasions. He sees it as a project full of gravitas as well as “his genius and perfection” on “the last night of America” after the devastation from the aliens’ superior technology and weaponry. What ensues from there is a mutiny of his radio play actors, who try to thwart both his ego and hubris while hijacking the play into their own narratives.
With Kevin Garrett in his first time directing the ensemble cast brought to life a radio broadcast reminiscent of War of the Worlds with more hilarity and hijinks from his unruly group of voice actors.
Garrett welcomed audiences by saying, “I’m very proud of the cast I’ve been able to work with on this play. We’ve had lots of laughs and fun and we’d like you, the audience, to join in.”
Garrett, who appeared in ACT2’s spring production of Southern Fried Funeral, said he became interested in directing after that experience and was glad for the opportunity to helm this production. He also plays the role of radio play director Harlan Bean.
Along with Garrett, several first-time actors gained roles and experience in this offering by the troupe. With minimal set design, featuring poster of past ACT2 and Community Youth Players productions, the actors were indeed made to shine in the lighting, handled by veteran Sawyer Bradley.
Diane Myers, in her first turn onstage and a commanding lead role, plays ambitious actress Tonya Bristow, a fiery neo-feminist character who chides Bean and her fellow male actors for having “all the good roles.” Midway through the production, Bristow also takes on the persona of Patricia Dunbar, warrior mayoress of the fictional town, who’s ready to battle aliens with either baguettes or strudels using her signature slogan after slaying aliens – “That’s a lotta bacon!”
Myers’ involvement with this production came after her work as an understudy and assistant stage manager on last spring’s ACT2 production. She said she enjoyed her strong character and loved the experience of acting so much she memorized her role, even though the actors had their scripts atop choir stands.
Renee Cates, also in her first time onstage, said her interest began after helping out at last year’s Haunted House fundraiser at the Valleytown Cultural Arts Center, where all of her family dressed up as haints and clowns and other ghostly entities. In her role as the Adrienna Lucas, playing Dr. “Brianna Something,” her deftly maneuvered malapropisms during a “briefing” on the aliens’ activity are one of the highlights of the show as she stumbles hilariously over the script, which the devious director had switched on her right before the show’s airing. Cue another actress who refuses to make Bean’s vision a success.
Still more first-timers trod the boards with both Maggie McGrady and Michael Williams, who credit Myers and friend and local legend Fuzzy Force for getting them involved with the production. McGrady, as Josie O’Connor, lends her no-nonsense tactics as a governmental official fielding both questions and a reporter asking them in a dizzying spate of who, where, what and when for the aliens’ takeover of the fictional Elmo’s Corners.
Williams, as Otis Sheridan also hilariously plays at least three other versions of his play’s persona as various David Davidsons, all reporters either embedded with soldiers who fight the alien menace or are stuck near cornfields covering a sighting and landing of the creatures by rural residents.
One rural resident, played by Fuzzy Force, works double duty as both Cletus and his wife, who report the atrocities the aliens have wrought upon their tiny patch of America. As Sir Brinsley Catamount, renowned radio actor, Fuzzy lends that gravitas Bean so desperately seeks to legitimize his alien play. Too, he trends toward the prototypical “hillbilly” affecting that Southern accent so necessary to those who are often targeted as witnesses at the scene of any natural or unnatural disaster.
Making his debut with this cast is also Jessie Anderson, a veteran of several productions with the Peacock Performing Arts Center in Hayesville, who plays Branford Bristow, the put-upon popcorn-loving husband of the ambitious Tonya Bristow who gives as good as he gets in the battle of the sexes and sexists during Tonya’s feminist “rants” and alien-slaying antics.
Rounding out the cast are several other veteran performers, including Jami Dyer as “The Un-named One” in Bean’s production, who is along for her second major role after last spring’s debut in Southern Fried Funeral and years of behind the scenes work with costuming. Her syncing match with Stage Manager Max is also one of the highlights of the hilarity in the production.
Samantha Strickland, noted for her role as The Statue in last spring’s Beauty and the Beast, plays an astronomer who tries to “simplify” all the important meteorological lingo when giving her speeches as to whether the “phenomena” are aliens or just “astronomical occurrences” or something like that.
Via Reyes-Daughtery, also a veteran of many an ACT2 and CYP production, slyly and subtly plays Bean’s stage manager Max, who may or may not have known about some reversal of not only fortunes, but switches, and whether there are saboteurs or if anyone’s “out there” or not.
Alexis Jones, another veteran performer, plays the smallest role of Maria Spumante, who is sickly and sniffling during the entire performance and can only commit to needing a “loh-zenge” before her reading of her fictional role, head in hand along with Kleenex.
Kyia Lovingood, scene stealer extraordinaire, once again makes her presence known and loved onstage in her role as “Furious Hamster,” who has won a contest to attend and act out a role in Bean’s production. Her resounding voice, booming patriotic anthems and axioms can probably still be heard after the show’s ending.
Shayla Dyer, another scene stealer of the impressive and impish variety radiates as Bean’s sound effects persona Chip Verdon and in her role as Trixie Flanders. Perhaps the true instigator of the mutiny, Dyer takes listeners and the audience on an interstellar sonic voyage beyond the imagination. Replete with her breaking out the sick bleats.
Overall, the production lends itself to lightheartedness while also laughingly exploring larger themes of otherness and community, whilst functioning as of a sort of frenetic Prairie Home Companion. Themes of what it takes to employ both talent and individuality to save the humanities.
What: The Radio Play Disaster.
When: 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 3 p.m. Sunday. Doors open 30 minutes prior to showtime.
Where: Valleytown Cultural Arts Center, 125 Chestnut St. in downtown Andrews.
Tickets: $10 for children and seniors, $15 for adults.
Details: Visit vcahs.com.