Theatre and Thirst

Hi folks,

Wishing you the very best for the coming week from everyone at Rusty Towers!

This week, we are gearing up for our event in Manchester: Statement Begins. On Thursday, creators of The Magnus Archives, Jonathan Sims and Alexander J Newall, will be reliving fan-favourite statements, performing them live to a sold-out audience. This is the first event of this type that we’ve done, and we cannot be more excited to bring it to you all. We very much hope to see some of you there!

Meanwhile, on the Magnus feed this week, Alice is continuing her investigations. This week’s episode is written by Jon Ware, who you may know from his work as co-creator of incredible horror podcasts, I Am in Eskew and The Silt Verses. If you enjoy this week’s episode, be sure to check out these two very different shows. I Am in Eskew is a dark, meditative horror where the narrator, David, has become trapped in the strange city of Eskew, where the rain never stops and the building change at will. David carefully documents his bizarre experiences, hoping that someone might eventually hear his recordings. Meanwhile, The Silt Verses is a full-cast folk horror, following the worshippers of an outlawed god as they travel the length of their deity’s holy river. In a world of ritual and sacrifice, they must ask themselves: how deep does their faith really run?

The Magnus Protocol episode 43 will be available in early access on Tuesday at 4pm BST and on the public feed on Thursday at 4pm BST.

In news from the RQ Network, last week The Penumbra Podcast launched the first episode of their brand-new series: Thirst. Thirst is a horror-satire about exploitative entertainment in a crumbling world. A young couple prepares to join a twisted reality TV competition, hoping to win a grand prize that promises safety and security in frightening times. Just how far would you go for love, $100,000,000, and a house far away from the sea?

(Image description: Podcast artwork for Thirst. A dark blue ocean, seen from above, the surface breaking into pale waves. In bold, golden text is the title: Thirst. It casts a dark shadow on the sea below. Text about the title reads: The Penumbra Podcast presents.)

The first episode of Thirst is available now, wherever you find podcasts - just search "The Penumbra Podcast" or "Thirst". For our exclusive Patreon interview series, we spoke to co-creators, Harley Takagi Kaner and Kevin Vibert, to find out more about this new series. You can also read their previous interview, where they spoke about their other series, Juno Steel and The Second Citadel, in our newsletter from a few weeks ago.

Tell us a bit about yourselves and your brand-new show, THIRST

HARLEY TAKAGI KANER: I’m the co-creator, director, and sound designer of Thirst, our brand new satirical nightmare about climate change, entertainment, and whatever the hell is going wrong in America right now and also forever. Thirst takes place in the Forty-Seven Habitable States of America, where temperatures are out of control, the water level keeps rising far more than should be possible, and nobody can figure out what the mosquitoes are plotting. With the news too frightening to watch, entertainment reigns supreme – especially reality competition shows like Can’t Tear My Eyes From You, a romantic competition where eight desperate “lovebirds” vie to win one hundred million dollars and a home far away from the sea through challenges designed by a cheerfully violent Algorithm and presented by a sadistic host. 

KEVIN VIBERT: I’m the co-creator and lead writer of The Penumbra Podcast, including Thirst. When we started our previous series, Juno Steel and Tales of the Second Citadel, I was a public high school teacher, and in the US that subjects you to a whole lot of public scrutiny, so we had to design those series to be squeaky-clean and family-friendly… but thanks to our supporters I’m full-time writing these stories now, so we’re free to explore the kind of ridiculous, over-the-top horror and humor I love. (Speaking of which: if it turns out you like Thirst and you want us to keep making it, maybe check out our Supercast or Patreon to get a few bonuses and support us, yeah? Let’s just say there’s some stuff in this story that’s gonna make it real hard for me to go back to teaching.)

What was the inspiration for the show?

HARLEY: I’ve always been a huge fan of reality TV shows–my first obsession was America’s Next Top Model, but I’ve logged countless hours watching my way through What Not to Wear, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Selling Sunset, and I’d hate to tell you how many others. In the depths of 2020, we started watching Too Hot to Handle, which I immediately rechristened Fuck Island. I watched the first half sober and the second half exceedingly stoned, and I couldn’t stop yelling “Why aren’t they at each other’s throats?! This should be like Lord of the Flies!” That was the beginning of an idea, and a couple of years later when I dived headfirst into environmental activism, my fears about imminent climate collapse got mashed up into our ideas for Thirst. So the thing is packed full of reality TV tropes, climate horrors, AI discourse, and a bunch of other stuff that I cannot yet disclose. Is there too much in there? Maybe! But everything could come crashing down at any moment and I’ve gotta get all  these ideas out while I still can. 

KEVIN: Look: I don’t think I’m going to surprise anybody when I say that things are looking pretty grim here on planet Earth, between climate change and the global resurgence of fascism. Harley and I have each been wrestling with it in our own ways, but one thing we’ve been talking about a whole lot is how maddening and terrifying it can be when otherwise smart, reliable people insist on ignoring the crises around us, like if we all act like this is just business as usual we might manifest the world back to business as usual. This obviously has a ton of nasty effects, but one I’ve been chewing on for a while now is how absolutely crazy it’s making us all feel – like if nobody will admit the horrors are at our door, doesn’t that make us the crazy ones? Writing Thirst, I’ve been really interested in the question of what the hell we’re supposed to be doing with ourselves emotionally in a world teetering on the edge of disaster, and hopefully you find the way we explore that fun, funny, and frightening.

What are you most proud of about THIRST

HARLEY: Thirst is insane. It’s a very angry show, because Kevin and I are very angry these days, but I would like to say it is not a hopeless show. I think it will be divisive for people who have enjoyed our previous work–it’s more explicit, the characters are largely not kind to each other, and by no stretch of the imagination can it be called escapism–but I think the ways in which it is different show our growth as people and as artists. I have also worked very hard to challenge myself creatively as a sound designer on this one, and I’m very proud of how I’ve brought my vision (what is the audio equivalent of vision??) to life. 

KEVIN: I genuinely think that the characters we’ve written in Thirst so far are some of the most compelling, detailed, and complicatedly human characters we’ve ever managed. The actors (and Harley) have given me a fair amount of completely-deserved teasing for the parenthetical notes on character in the production scripts, which are embarrassingly long. But Thirst is of a pretty different style from our previous series, one that took a few years of attempts to really get right, and now that we’ve figured it out the characters have completely come to life for me. There are no angels here – just people, messy and beautiful, petty and wise, hateful and loving. I hope you love the terrible ones just as much as I do.

You can listen to Thirst now on The Penumbra Podcast feed, wherever you find podcasts, on the Rusty Quill website or on the Penumbra website. If you enjoy the show, please consider leaving a rating or a review, as this is a great way to support your favourite creators!

Here is our full schedule for this week:

Tuesday 15th July

The Magnus Protocol 43 – Sink or Swim (Patreon & Kickstarter Backers) (4pm BST)

Thursday 17th July

The Magnus Protocol 43 – Sink or Swim (Public) (4pm BST)

Have a good week all!

The Rusty Quill team