Five Part Dissonance

Five Part Dissonance[1]

Series
Work In Progress
Original Broadcast Date
1988
Cast
Eric Sears, Arthur Miller, Avery Hart, Paul Mantell, F. Murray Abraham, Annalee Jefferies, Joe Frank
Format
Improv Actors, Sound Effects, Absurd Monologue, Live, 56 minutes
Preceded by:	Words
Followed by:	Emerald Isle

Let me begin by asking you a question.

Five Part Dissonance is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series Work In Progress. It was originally broadcast in 1988.

Synopsis

• A panel discussion about esp: learning esp, picking up on thoughts, an esp demonstration, psychodynamic juggling.
• Communication throughout history, smoke signals, heliography, semaphore, alpine horns, speaking tubes.
• Traveling in search of death and shaving.
• Drum solo.
• Panicked man begs "don't make me do it" accompanied by a bizarre moaning soundtrack.
• Panel discussion: falling asleep while falling asleep.
• A man moans and strains while a woman giggles.
• Being buried alive.
• A woman moans.
• Joe talks about seeing a beautiful woman in an elevator.
• Life as here and there and this and that, trying to get there, freedom and slavery, looking in the mirror and shaving.
• Joe describes his favorite TV detective program against a live percussive background before an audience: seeing the actor on a talk show, neighbors are baffled by a nice guy who shoots strangers from his window, Joe is a nice guy except when driving, he seeks out the film star in order to attack him, befriends him, and becomes trapped in a television program
• Nihilism, immortality in the past, discordant stuff.
• A man's shoelaces are tied together and he's abducted by aliens from a planet that plays mahjong and feed him opium.
• The talking drum.
• Looking for a hotel where one had been as a child.
• Gravely distorted voice of an elevator operator.

Music

• Unknown chamber music
• "Ravinia / Vancouver" - Jon Hassell (from The Surgeon of the Nightsky Restores Dead Things by the Power of Sound, 1987) | YouTube [15:30]

• "Skin Deep" - Duke Ellington (from Ellington Uptown, 1951) | YouTube [17:45]
• "Hard Work" - John Handy (from Hard Work, 1976) | YouTube [24:20]

Shared Material

• Great Lives
• The Death Of Trotsky
• Joe Frank In Concert
• The Rare Recording
• Five Part Dissonance (Remix)
• Laughing Back - A Movie For Radio

Additional credits

The original broadcast credits state: "With Eric Sears, Arthur Miller, Avery Hart, Paul Mantell, F. Murray Abraham, Annalee Jefferies, and Joe Frank. The musicians in the live concert segment were Jesse Boggs, Larry Massett, Henry Dennis, and Van Williamson."

Commentary

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