First show date: 1963

Last show date: 1970

Number of shows: Unknown

The Black Mass was a horror-fantasy radio drama produced by Erik Bauersfeld, a leading American radio dramatists of the post-television era. The series aired on KPFA (Berkeley) and KPFK (Los Angeles) from 1963 to 1967, on an irregular schedule. Bauersfeld was the Director of Drama and Literature at KPFA from 1966 to 1991.

Bauersfeld's sound designer for most of the episodes was John Whiting, KPFA's production director. Their collaborations were later credited in a Ph.D. dissertation with "keeping radio drama alive in America in the 1960s."

Music for the series was by several Bay Area composers, including KPFA's Music Director Charles Shere, a composer and music critic who later wrote books on American composers and also serves on the board of the Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse.

Bauersfeld's Black Mass productions were an influence on writer-producer Thomas Lopez (ZBS), who noted, "In the 1960s, I was inspired by someone at KPFA in Berkeley, Eric Bauersfeld. who did a series called The Black Mass, adaptations of H. P. Lovecraft and such. He helped me a lot. I consider Eric my mentor. He also did some fine Eugene O'Neill plays for radio."

DATE

TITLE

                 LISTEN TO EPISODES

All Hallows

The Ash tree

Atrophy

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The boarded window

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A country doctor

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Death of Halphin Frayser

Diary of a madman

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Disollusionment

Tales by Lord Dunsany

Esme

An evenings entertainment

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The Feeder

The haunted house

The imp of the perverse

The jolly corner

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The judgement

The man in the crowd

The moonlit road

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MS found in a bottle

Nightmare

Oil of the dog

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O mirror, mirror

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The outsider

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The predicament

Proof positive

The rats in the walls

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Shidah and Kuziba

The squaw

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The tell tale heart

The witch of the willows