The Black Mass was a horror-fantasy radio drama produced by Erik Bauersfeld, a leading American radio dramatist of the post-television era. The series aired on KPFA (Berkeley) and KPFK (Los Angeles) from 1963 to 1967, on an irregular schedule. [1] Bauersfeld was the Director of Drama and Literature at KPFA from 1966 to 1991.
Bauersfeld's sound designer for most of the episodes was John Whiting, KPFA's production director. [2] Their collaborations were later credited in a Ph.D. dissertation with "keeping radio drama alive in America in the 1960s."
Music for the series was by several Bay Area composers, including KPFA's Music Director Charles Shere, a composer and music critic who later wrote books on American composers and also serves on the board of the Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse.
Bauersfeld's Black Mass productions were an influence on writer-producer Thomas Lopez (ZBS), who noted, "In the 1960s, I was inspired by someone at KPFA in Berkeley, Eric Bauersfeld, who did a series called The Black Mass, adaptations of H. P. Lovecraft and such. He helped me a lot. I consider Eric my mentor. He also did some fine Eugene O'Neill plays for radio."
Except as noted, these are in the Pacifica Radio Archives and on the Official Black Mass site:
The following are listed from KPFA, KPFK or KQED airchecks, not the Pacifica Archives: Great American Scream - KPFK:
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany,, commonly known as Lord Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. He published more than 90 books during his lifetime, and his output consisted of hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, and essays. He gained a name in the 1910s as a great writer in the English-speaking world. Best known today are the 1924 fantasy novel, The King of Elfland's Daughter, and his first book, The Gods of Pegāna, which depicts a fictional pantheon. Many critics feel his early work laid grounds for the fantasy genre.
KPFK is a listener-sponsored radio station based in North Hollywood, California, United States, which serves Southern California, and also streams 24 hours a day via the Internet. It was the second of five stations in the non-commercial, listener-sponsored Pacifica Foundation network.
"The Haunter of the Dark" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written between 5–9 November 1935 and published in the December 1936 edition of Weird Tales. It was the last written of the author's known works, and is part of the Cthulhu Mythos. The epigraph to the story is the second stanza of Lovecraft's 1917 poem "Nemesis".
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1890) is a short story by the American writer and Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce. Described as "one of the most famous and frequently anthologized stories in American literature", it was originally published by The San Francisco Examiner on July 13, 1890, and was first collected in Bierce's book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891). The story, which is set during the American Civil War, is known for its irregular time sequence and twist ending. Bierce's abandonment of strict linear narration in favor of the internal mind of the protagonist is an early example of the stream of consciousness narrative mode.
Lovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with "cosmic horror", is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). His work emphasizes themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries, which are now associated with Lovecraftian horror as a subgenre. The cosmic themes of Lovecraftian horror can also be found in other media, notably horror films, horror games, and comics.
"The Outsider" is a short story by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between March and August 1921, it was first published in Weird Tales, April 1926. In this work, a mysterious individual who has been living alone in a castle for as long as he can remember decides to break free in search of human contact and light. "The Outsider" is one of Lovecraft's most commonly reprinted works and is also one of the most popular stories ever to be published in Weird Tales.
The Whisperer in Darkness is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in Weird Tales, August 1931. Similar to The Colour Out of Space (1927), it is a blend of horror and science fiction. Although it makes numerous references to the Cthulhu Mythos, the story is not a central part of the mythos, but reflects a shift in Lovecraft's writing at this time towards science fiction. The story also introduces the Mi-Go, an extraterrestrial race of fungoid creatures.
Thomas Lopez, aka Meatball Fulton, is president of the ZBS Foundation and one of the foundation's founders. He writes and produces the ZBS Foundation's audio drama productions. When he was working in radio in the 1960s, Lopez took "Meatball Fulton" out of Rolling Stone as his nom de plume.
"The Rats in the Walls" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in August–September 1923, it was first published in Weird Tales, March 1924.
Anthony Bernard Duncan Mayes was a British broadcaster, university dean and author who founded one of America's first suicide prevention hotline.
The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society or HPLHS is the organization that hosts Cthulhu Lives!, a group of live-action roleplayers for the Cthulhu Live version of Call of Cthulhu. Founded in Colorado in 1984, it is now based in Glendale, California. Their motto is Ludo Fore Putavimus.
Radio Tales is an American series of radio drama which premiered on National Public Radio on October 29, 1996. This series adapted classic works of American and world literature such as The War of the Worlds, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Beowulf, Gulliver's Travels, and the One Thousand and One Nights. The series was co-produced by Winnie Waldron and Winifred Phillips. Waldron created the series and served as on-air host. Phillips composed music for the series.
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book The Devil's Dictionary was named one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration. His story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" has been described as "one of the most famous and frequently anthologized stories in American literature", and his book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians was named by the Grolier Club one of the 100 most influential American books printed before 1900.
American Gothic Tales is an anthology of "gothic" American short fiction. Edited and with an Introduction by Joyce Carol Oates, it was published by Plume in 1996. It featured contributions by Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, Anne Rice and others, and included over 40 stories.
Richard O. Moore was an American poet associated with Kenneth Rexroth and the San Francisco Renaissance.
Roy Campanella II is a television director and producer.
Graphic Classics is a comic book anthology series published by Eureka Productions of Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Graphic Classics features adaptations of literary classics by authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, H. P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe, with art by top professionals, many of whom hail from the underground or alternative comics world. Created and edited by Tom Pomplun, the series began publication in 2002.
Appointment with Fear was a horror drama series originally broadcast on BBC Radio in the 1940s and 1950s, and revived on a number of occasions since. The format comprised a dramatised horror story of approximately half an hour in length, introduced by a character known as the Man in Black. The plays themselves were a mixture of classic horror stories by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, M. R. James and W. W. Jacobs, and commissioned stories by new or established writers. Many of the stories in the early series were written or adapted by John Dickson Carr.
Frankie Mann is an American electronic music composer and performance artist. Mann was a part of the New York City avant-garde music scene of the 1970s and 1980s. Mann was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1955 and studied electronic music at Oberlin College and Mills College, where she studied with David Behrman and Robert Ashley. Mann's work was released by the record label Lovely Music, Ltd.