VOL. 133 | NO. 130 | Friday, June 29, 2018
Memphasis
Dan Conaway
Hearing Ann
Dan Conaway
KEPT IN MIND. As a copywriter and producer, radio has always been my favorite advertising medium. Radio is theater of the mind. Using sound alone, the medium must create images and experience, conjure up a world if you will, to take and place listeners just where you want them to be.
And compared to print and TV, radio is cheap. Outstanding graphic design and photography are not required. Audio and visual production values and execution that allow you to compete with every other TV commercial in a break are not required.
You can’t blame budget if it doesn’t work. You didn’t need a set. You didn’t go on location. You’re going to do what you’re going to do in a couple of hours. Only your creativity and the talents of those in the studio and on the board limit you.
It’s either magic when you leave, or it’s just noise.
Ann Sharp was magic every time. Any character I asked her to be, any age or accent, and sometimes more than one in the same 29.5 seconds. Every time, just about every single take, over 40 years.
When I put Jim Ostrander on one mic and Ann Sharp on the other, when Jack Parnell or Alan Tynes was on the board and did the sign-off, what they did with what I wrote made my clients a ton of money and won me a trunkful of awards. And all I had to do was listen.
Jim – for whom the Memphis theater awards are named – went silent 16 years ago. Ann – because of whom two generations of theater patrons and this copywriter are forever blessed – went silent two weeks ago.
Her husband, Ed, and her family, the troubled kids in Shelby County Schools whose troubles were eased by her counsel, the countless friends, her fellow cast members at Theatre Memphis and on all the stages under all the lights in the city all knew Ann better than I and their loss is absolute, but few have touched more, moved more, given more joy with their talent than she, and this city’s loss is absolute.
But anyone who ever heard Jim Ostrander laugh can still hear it, and anyone who heard Ann sing can still hear it, can still see that quiet smile, can still see others play the parts she played and say, “Nice, but it wasn’t Ann Sharp.”
I can hear the honey in her voice, or the anger, or the humor, or the sorrow – I can hear whatever I need to hear, because I wrote for that voice, for a talent that could move any of us in any moment.
In a business where people come and go, where deadlines and creative angst define your days, she was a consummate professional and a constant joy to be around. All of that will always play in my mind, and I can rewind it and play it again.
So it’s on to another stage. Break a leg, Ann.
I’m a Memphian, and bravo for another.
Dan Conaway, a communication strategist and author of “I’m a Memphian,” can be reached at dan@wakesomebodyup.com.