Hindsight: The Day Before is a six-episode dramatic audio series from Mark Haynes Productions (MHP) starring Santiago Cabrera, Sibongile Mlambo, Ian Anthony Dale, M.C. Gainey, Nolan Gerald Funk, Merrin Dungey, Aaron Stanford, and John Goodman. The series, a supernatural thriller, follows Professor John Gabriel Strasser, who, after an impulse purchase at a Harlem curio shop, is sent on a life-changing journey.
Audio series are, in general, a much-misunderstood genre. They feel a little like podcasts and don’t get nearly the love or the appreciation they deserve. On the heels of Hindsight: The Day Before releasing on podcast apps, Fangirlish spoke to writer and director Kely Lyons about the challenges inherent to the process, how the cast of Hindsight: The Day Before came together, and writing a story for this medium.
Lyons walked us through the process for recording scripted fiction, explaining: “The standard practice for recording scripted fiction audio is to have the actors sit or stand, with scripts and mics on music stands in front of them.” She went on. “They don’t get to move around, and are basically acting “at” one another, instead of interacting, which gives something of an artificial quality.”
For Hindsight: The Day Before, Lyons wanted to do something different. “While it’s fairly easy to produce a show that way, my producing partner Mark Haynes and I had listened to many of those kinds of audio dramas and weren’t satisfied with what we were hearing. We really wanted to give the audience a fully immersive experience – and make sure the actors had the ability to connect.”
It was then all about finding a way. “When Ted Bonnitt – our co-producer, editor, sound designer, and technical director – came on board, we brainstormed to come up with a different way. We set up a sound stage and blocked and rehearsed each scene as you would a stage play. Once the scenes were ready, we recorded as many takes as we needed, scene by scene. The actors wore lavalier mics and were followed by boom mics, which allowed them to move freely and seamlessly interact.”
The results are obvious in the finished product. “Doing it the way we did means there are lots of moving parts and complex details, so no, not “easy” per se, but certainly simpler than a filmed show, where you have to stop frequently for camera resets, lighting, costume, hair and makeup, etc,” Lyons shared. And she wasn’t the only one who was pleased with the result. “The actors told us how much they enjoyed it – coming to work as is, no worries about wardrobe or having their makeup touched up, not having to wait for lighting and camera setups. So not easy – but definitely fun.”
Before there was filming there was the writing process, which Lyons was also intimately involved with. “Mark and I started the company just months before the COVID pandemic hit,” Lyons told us. Which meant that they had several television series in development when the industry completely shut down. Then, they had to pivot. “I took a look at several pilots Mark had written before we’d joined forces, and in one of them I found the kernel of an idea that later became Hindsight.”
“Once I started researching and really dug in, I realized it had a lot of the elements that always attract me to a project – a seemingly unknowable mystery, suspense, humor, a touch of the supernatural, themes of social justice and inequality, the opportunity to create fascinating characters drawn from history and, perhaps most importantly, a time-traveling love story. It held my interest on so many levels that I felt the story I was discovering would also be entertaining and relatable to the audience. And audio was the available way we could tell it.”
Then came finding the right people to bring that story to life, which isn’t always as easy as it sounds. “The story of the casting of this project is the story of an incredible number of strokes of luck,” Lyons shared. “I’d met our casting director, the amazing Russell Boast, at a diversity event at CBS almost a decade ago, and when someone suggested him, I asked him to read the script and was amazed and grateful when he said he’d work with us.”
But having the right casting director is only the first step. “I’d seen Santiago Cabrera – who plays Gabe Strasser and Harry Houdini – in a number of shows, frequently playing more than one character (Salvation, Picard). When I finished the script, I realized he was my first choice. It felt like serendipity of a very mysterious kind when he read it and signed on.”
Then, the chips just fell into place, as they say. “John Goodman came through our sound designer Ted; they’ve been friends for decades, and when Ted called, John said yes. I had a number of actresses in mind for Bess Houdini, but none of them were available. Then Russell asked me to look at Sibongile Mlambo – and once I did, Bess was cast. Russell had apparently had Sibongile in mind the whole time.”
And things just kept going right when it came to casting. “More luck came our way when two of the actors we originally cast had to drop out for unforeseen reasons, and each time that happened, we were able to recast – often within hours – with actors who leaped gamely in at the last moment and were fantastic.”
For Lyons, the story of Hindsight: The Day Before has been the one she wanted to tell from the beginning, and she was able to tell it how she wanted to, with the cast she wanted and in the way she wanted. Well, the way the characters wanted.
“I expect that each writer has their own way into character and storytelling. In my case, the characters tell me who they are and what they’re doing, and that leads the story wherever it’s going to go,” she told us. “I’ve never really been able to bend a script or character to a pre-determined template; I just listen to what the characters and the stories are saying – and try my best to keep up!”
Hopefully, you can give Hindsight: The Day Before a listen. The story Kely Lyons and this wonderful cast weave in these six episodes is absolutely worth a listen.
Hindsight: The Day Before is available on all podcast apps.
