The Makers and Shakers Society
audio drama series
“The Makers and Shakers Society from Clarke Mackey delighted me this week. It’s a serialized drama that tells the story of young activists today figuring out the climate apocalypse of tomorrow, told retrospectively, with lots of love and youthful drama woven in…It is so imaginative, and really brings us into that speculative fiction space without feeling all that unrealistic based on our present day. It walks that line of reality vs fiction that a lot of Kim Stanley Robinson’s work does.”
— Britt Wray on the Gen Dread blog. Britt is the author of Generation Dread.
“The Makers and Shakes Society is a compelling story that takes us from the present into a future most of us dread. But it doesn’t simply present the bleak climate apocalypse. The characters’ emotional journeys through the crisis also make us think about how we can prevent it from happening. It’s well-told, exciting and hard to stop listening.” – Rebecca Schechter, award-winning screenwriter: North of 60, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Little Mosque on the Prairie, and former Writer’s Guild of Canada President.
Grace, Seth, Leah and Oliver come from very different backgrounds. Inspired by Greta Thunberg, they meet in grade twelve at KCVI and become climate activists. Each in their own way, they struggle to survive the climate apocalypse. A climate-friendly government takes power in Ottawa, but is battered by backlash and scandal. By 2038, the four friends are forced to make hard choices.
The Makers and Shakers Society is a scripted audio drama in six parts written and directed by Clarke Mackey. All cast members have Kingston connections. Performers include Jackson Watt-Bowers, Vishmayaa Jeyamoorthy, Stephanie Fung, Paul Smith, Anna Sudac, Liam Karry, and Cassel Miles. The music is composed and performed by Kevin Bowers.
Funding for The Makers and Shakers Society was provided by The City of Kingston Arts Fund and The Community Foundation of Kingston and Area.
Listen free on your favourite podcast app.
The Makers and Shakers Society is a beautifully crafted and wonderfully acted radio play that at once offers a bleak and regretful future of climate catastrophe while simultaneously engaging with the present-day hopefulness of the people, the protests and the radical movements that may deflect the worst that climate breakdown has in store for us. A wonderful triumph in storytelling. – Stephen Lee Naish, author of Screen Captures: Film in the age of Emergency (Newstar books)
Radioland Media Collective
84 Earl Street, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
radiolandmedia@gmail.com
Radioland Media Collective 