Like most arts organizations, the Northwest Arkansas Audio Theater was largely stymied by the covid-19 pandemic. The five-year-old organization, dedicated to keeping the magic of radio drama alive, spent most of 2020 hunkered down, releasing the occasional video of short radio dramas in order to keep in touch with its audience. But, starting April 3, they’ll return to full-length performances with William Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors,” presented outdoors — and thereby allowing audiences to view the fun in a safe, socially distanced environment.

“It’s a big comedy, it’s farcical — even in our radio theater-style production, we’ve got some pretty big physical humor, some pretty big visual costume humor,” says director Jacob Christiansen. “It will be a fun show, I think, even for kids. It’s really accessible; ‘The Comedy of Errors’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ are probably the most accessible Shakespearean plays.”

In the NWAAT tradition, the cast of around 15 actors will be dressed in costumes that suggest their characters, while the Foley artists — the members of the cast who create the sound effects in the traditional manner of radio dramas — and musicians are on stage with them. It is, notes Christiansen, a bit of a hybrid performance, somewhere between reader’s theater and radio theater, that pulls back the curtain and allows audiences to see the ingredients that make up the magic of a radio play performance.

“It’s actually a pretty fun little endeavor,” enthuses Christiansen, who is an active director in Northwest Arkansas theater, though this is his first time working with NWAAT. “You set out to make an audio experience, but you have this added bonus of creating a visual experience. For the audience, they get to see, first of all, how the audio work is done: the microphones, the sound effects, things like that. And then you get to add in fun costumes and props and representative actions to help the story a little bit, and it ends up being a nice little hybrid. I think people have really enjoyed what the audio theater has done in the past, and I think this is a show they will really like.”

“Some of us kind of visualize this as a 1940s radio show, and you’re in the live audience of the performance,” explains NWAAT founder Scott Anderson. “Now you get to hear the production, you get to see how it works, how the sound effects play. For example, if we need fire, our fire source is a crumpled up chip bag. If you crumple it up and kind of flex it around, it sounds like a fire. But you would never guess that by just looking at it. ‘That’s what’s making that noise?’”

In the spirit of “Shakespeare in the Park,” NWAAT will be performing “The Comedy of Errors” in two area parks: Turnbow Park in Springdale and Gulley Park in Fayetteville. A third performance will be live-streamed (and available for later viewings) through the Fayetteville Public Library. Parks, say Christiansen and Anderson, are a logical choice for performances while folks are still being careful about covid-19.

“We feel very comfortable doing outdoor performances and having a medium-sized audience there,” says Christiansen. “We’ll ask everybody to continue to wear masks and sit in family pods, distanced from each other.”

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FAQ

‘The Comedy of Errors’

WHEN/WHERE — 2 p.m. April 3 at Shiloh Square, 106 W. Emma Ave. in Springdale; 2 p.m. April 10 at Gulley Park gazebo, 1850 E. Township Blvd. in Fayetteville; 2 p.m. April 17, Fayetteville Public Library (streaming), faylib.org

COST — Free

INFO — facebook.com/NWAAudioTheater