Dion Graham was the first name on the cast list
Publisher’s note: this is one of fifteen short pieces introducing the actors of The Real Education of TJ Crowley: Coming of Age on the Redline. Fifteen actors, twenty-four roles, nine hours of audio. One actor at a time, with a scene to hear.
MEET THE CAST · No. 1 of 15
May Wuthrich was casting the book in her head before she finished reading it. The first name on the list was Dion Graham.
She cast him in two key roles. Dr. Robert Washington is the physician who moves his family next door to the Crowleys. Leon Bowman is a seventh grader, a gifted athlete, and the voice of Black pride in TJ’s hallway. The scriptbook’s cast list calls Leon a “rival classmate.” He starts out as TJ’s problem and does not stay that way. Having one actor hold both ends of that argument is something only audio can do.
Graham is an AudioFile Magazine Golden Voice and was named Nonfiction Narrator of the Year at the 2024 Audie Awards for King: A Life, Jonathan Eig’s biography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The drama opens with a radio broadcast about Dr. King’s assassination. The actor who had just spent a whole book inside King’s life is the one who walks a white thirteen-year-old through the weeks that follow.
In this scene, Dr. Washington studies TJ in the garage, calls him a live wire, and asks whether he’s ever thought about joining the track and field team. Then he opens the blue trunk in the corner and shows him his own Howard University jersey and press clippings.
TJ, the Washingtons, and Leon are invented. The 1968 Wichita around them is not.
“As I was reading this book, the very first actor who came to mind was award-winning narrator, Dion Graham. Dion is THE actor to portray the dual roles of TJ’s new neighbor, the distinguished Dr. Robert Washington as well as Leon Bowman, a strapping 7th grader with a lot of attitude. Dion’s versatility as an actor, his gravitas, sensitivity, and depth make him the ideal choice for both pivotal characters.”
May Wuthrich, director
More on Dion Graham: AudioFile Magazine
Follow along in the scriptbook
Adapted from Grant Overstake’s novel, winner of the Kansas Authors Club book award. The scriptbook prints the word-for-word performance script, exactly as the cast performs it. Bonus material, discussion questions, and educator guides included.
Get the scriptbookThe audio drama has won
- 2025 Audie Award, Young Adult
- IPPY Gold Medal, Outstanding Books of the Year
- AudioFile Earphones Award
About this project
This series is published by Grain Valley Publishing Company, LLC, in support of The Real Education Project, the nonprofit arts and education effort that carries the drama into classrooms and public listening events.
A note on how this happened. At the 2025 Audie Awards, the Young Adult category came down to five finalists. Four were the audio divisions of some of the largest publishers in the world: Macmillan Audio, Simon & Schuster Audio, Penguin Random House Audio, and HarperAudio. The fifth was a publishing company in Wichita, Kansas, working with Blackstone Publishing. That one won.
Made possible by the fiscal sponsorship of the Youth Educational Empowerment Program and in part by the Kansas Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Fifteen actors voice twenty-four roles across 9:07:47 of audio. Directed and produced by May Wuthrich. Executive producer Grant Overstake. Recorded at John Marshall Media, New York City, and distributed by Blackstone Publishing.
The scriptbook these actors perform from is also free to perform yourself. The Redline Scenes releases scene cuttings from The Real Education of TJ Crowley for speech and forensics competition and classroom use, free to perform and cleared to compete, at no charge and with no separate contract.