John Wright opens the drama with the news
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 clip to hear.
Meet the Cast · No. 4 of 15
Before TJ Crowley says a word, a radio bulletin sets the date. The voice reading it belongs to John Wright, a veteran Wichita broadcaster.
The scriptbook’s cast list calls the Radio Announcer “the voice of local broadcasts.” In the Prelude he reports that President Johnson has denounced the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and condemned unnecessary force by local governments in more than 100 cities, Wichita among them. The bulletin places the story in the spring of 1968, and the ARISE Ensemble answers it with the spiritual Hold On.
Wright spent 35 years at KFDI Radio News in Wichita, where he and his colleagues earned an Edward R. Murrow Award. He covered the Hesston tornado in 1990 and the Andover tornado a year later, and in 2013 he moved to the assignment desk at KWCH-TV.
The sample below is the Prelude, which comes before Scene 1: Wright’s bulletin, then the choir. In the full drama it begins six and a half minutes in, after the opening credits, the dedication, and a short history of the project.
TJ is a storybook hero. The spring of 1968 in that bulletin is real history.
More on John Wright: Steckline Communications
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 Outstanding Book of the Year, Audiobook
- 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.