St. Paul Minnesota has A Praire Home Companion. North Little Rock has Tales from the South.
If things go well, a Sunday night tradition at a local watering hole could become Fayetteville’s public radio claim to fame.
Sunday Night Service, the weekly rotating variety show held at 7 p.m. each Sunday night at Maxine’s Tap Room, was picked up for radio airplay by local NPR affiliate KUAF. The show will air on KUAF’s HD3 digital radio station.
Sunday Night Service has four rotating shows; Speak For Yourself (a storytelling open mic featuring stories from attendees), All You Need To Know Show (a variety show featuring songs, poems and performances around a specific topic), Whosie Whatsit (a panel game show), and Singled Out (featuring performances by individual members of popular local bands hosted by local songwriter, Adam Cox).
All four shows are developed and produced by Erika Wilhite of local theatre company, Artists Laboratory Theatre.
Maxine’s partner Hannah Withers said the original plan was to turn the weekly event into a radio show, and that Wilhite was the perfect person for the job.
“We were admirers of her work with Artists Laboratory Theatre,” Withers said. “Everything they do is so smart, relevant and professional. She’s the only person we know that has the vision to translate something that is happening live at a bar into a radio show.”
Withers said the bar has been recording the episodes for about a year, developing it and making tweaks here and there. Maxine’s recently enlisted former KUAF producer Meredith Martin-Moats to edit the shows for the radio format, and after a series of meeting with KUAF, the station agreed to make it part of their programming lineup.
“We’re thrilled that the folks at KUAF think it’s almost ready,” Withers said.
The Sunday night shows at Maxine’s typically run for over an hour, but the new radio program will be edited down to 29 minutes.
According to KUAF station manager Rick Stockdell, the first episodes will begin airing on Sunday evenings this fall. A specific start date and air times will be announced soon.
KUAF’s HD3 can be accessed using an HD radio, the KUAF mobile app, or online at KUAF.com.
