Ohio Oral Histories
In the 2026/27 season, Radio on the Lake Theatre will record a variety of oral histories about the arts and culture scene in Northeast Ohio - how it started and how it has developed over the years. We kick it off with a series called Ohio Music Memories. Originally created as a program on local public radio station WCPN (now WKSU) Ideastream, host Eric Olsen interviews rock musicians who were born, raised and got their start in the NEO area. Check back throughout the coming year for oral histories on theater, dance, visual art and more!
Career media professional and serial entrepreneur Eric Olsen has an enviable track record of quality, leadership, and success. Over a decades long media career, he has written and spoken influentially on a vast array of topics including music, pop culture, and the paranormal for periodicals, books, TV, radio, and the Internet. Eric created and hosted the syndicated alternative rock music radio and TV show Cool Tunes in the early ‘90s, the first alt rock show on commercial radio in Northeast Ohio, which ran on Canton’s Rock 107, WENZ The End in Cleveland, and WAPS in Akron. He was a pioneer of internet radio in the '00s, creating and hosting the most listened-to show in BlogTalkRadio history, Storytellers, featuring interviews with everyone from Yoko Ono, to Tony Bennett, the Eagles, Pixies, Chicago, and Marshall Crenshaw. Founder/co-host of America’s Most Haunted radio show and podcast 2012-2018. Eric is the producer/writer/host “Heading For Home: A Ten Cent Beer Night Odyssey” podcast for Evergreen Podcasts in 2024. He co-authored NETWORKING IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, and was the lead author and editor of THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RECORD PRODUCERS (including the efforts of legendary local writers Carlo Wolff and Anastasia Pantsios), which includes interviews, bios, musical analysis, and discographies of the 500 most important producers in recorded music history, published by Billboard Books and released with a gala gathering of producers and writers at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in 1999.