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Radio drama is a form of audio storytelling broadcast on radio. This article is about radio broadcasting for other uses see Radio (disambiguation. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the story. Drama is the specific mode of Fiction represented in Performance. A dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog) is a reciprocal Conversation between two or more entities. Music is an Art form in which the medium is Sound organized in Time. For the album by The Jam see Sound Affects. Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced Sounds Imagination is the ability to form Mental images/sounds/feelings or the ability to Spontaneously Generate images/sounds/feelings within one's own Mind

Radio drama achieved widespread popularity within a decade of its initial development in the 1920s. By the 1940s, it was a leading international popular entertainment. With the advent of television in the 1950s, however, radio drama lost some of its popularity, and in some countries, has never regained large audiences. Television ( TV) is a widely used Telecommunication medium for sending ( Broadcasting) and receiving moving Images, either monochromatic However, recordings of OTR (old-time radio) survive today in the audio archives of collectors and museums. Old-Time Radio (OTR and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of Radio programming lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until

The single best-known episode of radio drama is probably the Orson Welles-directed adaptation of The War of the Worlds (1938), which some listeners believed to be real news broadcast about an invasion from Mars. George Orson Welles (May 6 1915 – October 10 1985 was an Academy Award -winning director, writer actor and producer for film stage radio and television

As of 2006, radio drama has a minimal presence in the United States. Much of American radio drama is restricted to rebroadcasts or podcasts of programs from previous decades. A podcast is a series of audio or Video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated Download However, other nations still have thriving traditions of radio drama. The BBC produces and broadcasts hundreds of new radio dramas per year on Radio 4, BBC 7 and Radio 3, - On Radio 4 as afternoon plays, Friday evenings, woman's hour daily short dramas, Saturday plays, Sunday classic serials and on Radio 3 Sunday evening drama on 3 and the once-monthly experimental wire slot. BBC7 output tends to be comedy, sci-fi, 7th dimension - and predominantly archived programs. Podcasting has also offered a means to create new radio dramas in addition to the distribution of vintage programs. A podcast is a series of audio or Video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated Download

The terms "audio drama" or "audio theatre" are sometimes used synonymously with "radio drama" with one notable distinction -- audio drama or audio theatre is not intended specifically for broadcast on radio. This article is about audio performance for other uses see Radio (disambiguation. Audio drama --whether newly produced or OTR classics -- can be found on CDs, cassette tapes, podcasts, webcasts and conventional broadcast radio. A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an Optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a Magnetic tape sound A podcast is a series of audio or Video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated Download A webcast is a media file distributed over the Internet using Streaming media technology

Contents

History

Early years

English language radio drama seems to have started in the United States. "A Rural Line on Education," a brief sketch specifically written for radio, aired on Pittsburgh's KDKA in 1921, according to historian Bill Jaker. KDKA (1020 AM) is a Radio station in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and is often said to be the oldest commercial radio station in the United States Newspaper accounts of the era report on a number of other drama experiments by America's commercial radio stations: KYW broadcast a season of complete operas from Chicago starting in November 1921. In February 1922, entire Broadway musical comedies with the original casts aired from WJZ's Newark studios. Actors Grace George and Herbert Hayes performed an entire play from a San Francisco station in the summer of 1922.

An important turning point in radio drama came when Schenectady, New York's WGY, after a successful tryout on August 3, 1922, began weekly studio broadcasts of full-length stage plays in September 1922, using music, sound effects and a regular troupe of actors, The WGY Players. Schenectady (skəˈnɛktədi Θkahnéhtati in Tuscarora) is a City in Schenectady County, New York, United States WGY is a 50000 Watt Radio station licensed to Schenectady, New York. Events 8 - Roman Empire General Tiberius defeats Dalmatians on the river Bathinus. Year 1922 ( MCMXXII) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Aware of this series, the director of Cincinnati's WLW began regularly broadcasting one-acts (as well as excerpts from longer works) in November. The success of these projects led to imitators at other stations. By the spring of 1923, original dramatic pieces written especially for radio were airing on stations in Cincinnati (When Love Wakens by WLW's Fred Smith), Philadelphia (The Secret Wave by Clyde A. Criswell) and Los Angeles (At Home over KHJ). That same year, WLW (in May) and WGY (in September) sponsored scripting contests, inviting listeners to create original plays to be performed by those stations' dramatic troupes.

Listings in the New York Times and other sources for May 1923 reveal at least 20 dramatic offerings were scheduled (including one-acts, excerpts from longer dramas, complete three- and four-act plays, operettas and a Moliére adaptation), either as in-studio productions or by remote broadcast from local theaters and opera houses. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, also known by his Stage name, Molière, ( January 15, 1622 – February 17 1673) was a French

Serious study of American radio drama of the 1920s and early 1930s is, at best, very limited. Unsung pioneers of the art include: WLW's Fred Smith; Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll (who popularized the dramatic serial); The Eveready Hour creative team (which began with one-act plays but was soon experimenting with hour-long combinations of drama and music on its weekly variety program); the various acting troupes at stations like WLW, WGY, KGO and a number of others, frequently run by women like Helen Schuster Martin and Wilda Wilson Church; early network continuity writers like Henry Fisk Carlton, William Ford Manley and Don Clark; producers and directors like Clarence Menser and Gerald Stopp; and a long list of others who were credited at the time with any number of innovations but who are largely forgotten or undiscussed today. Freeman Fisher "Gozzie" Gosden ( May 5, 1899 – December 10, 1982) was an American Radio Comedian, Charles James Correll ( February 2, 1890 &ndash September 26, 1972) was an American Radio Comedian, best The Eveready Hour was the first commercially-sponsored variety program in the history of broadcasting Elizabeth McLeod's recent book on Gosden and Correll's early work is a major exception, as is Richard J. Elizabeth McLeod (born 1963 is a journalist and broadcast historian who lives and works on the coast of Maine. Hand's 2006 study of horror radio, which examines some programs from the late 1920s and early '30s.

Another notable early radio drama, one of the first especially written for the medium in the UK, was Danger by Richard Hughes, broadcast by the BBC on January 15, 1924, about a group of people trapped in a Welsh coal mine. Richard Arthur Warren Hughes OBE ( 19 April, 1900 — 28 April 1976) was a British writer of poems short stories novels Events 588 BC - Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem under Zedekiah 's reign Year 1924 ( MCMXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. One of the earliest and most influential French radio plays was the prize-winning "Marémoto" ("Seaquake") by Gabriel Germinet and Pierre Cusy which presents a realistic account of a sinking ship before revealing that the characters are actually actors rehearsing for a broadcast. Translated and broadcast in Germany and England by 1925, the play was originally scheduled by Radio-Paris to air on October 23, 1924 but was instead banned from French radio until 1937 because the government feared that the dramatic SOS messages would be mistaken for genuine distress signals. Events 4004 BC - Creation of the world begins according to the calculations of Archbishop James Ussher 42 BC - Early developments Before the development of radio communication in the early 1890s seagoing vessels had already adopted a wide variety of visual and audio distress signals using

In 1951, American writer and producer Arch Oboler suggested that Wyllis Cooper's Lights Out (1934-47) was the first true radio drama to make use of the unique qualities of radio:

Radio drama (as distinguished from theatre plays boiled down to kilocycle size) began at midnight, in the middle thirties, on one of the upper floors of Chicago's Merchandise Mart. Arch Oboler ( December 7, 1909 - March 19, 1987) was a scriptwriter novelist producer and director who was active in films radio and television Wyllis Oswald Cooper ( January 26, 1899 - June 22, 1955) was an American writer and producer Lights Out was an extremely popular American Old-time radio program an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the The pappy was a rotund writer by the name of Wyllis Cooper. [1]

Though the series is often remembered solely for its gruesome stories and sound effects, Cooper's scripts for Lights Out were well-written and offered innovations seldom heard in early radio dramas, including multiple first person narrators, stream of consciousness monologues and scripts that contrasted a duplicitious character's internal monologue and his spoken words. A monologue is an extended uninterrupted speech or poem by a single person Internal monologue, also known as inner voice, internal speech, or stream of consciousness is Thinking in Words It also refers

The question of who was the first to write stream-of-consciousness drama for radio is a difficult one to answer. By 1930, Tyrone Guthrie had written plays for the BBC like Matrimonial News (which consists entirely of the thoughts of a shopgirl awaiting a blind date) and The Flowers Are Not for You to Pick (which takes place inside the mind of a drowning man). Sir William Tyrone Guthrie ( 2 July 1900 &ndash 15 May 1971) was an Anglo-Irish Tony Award -winning theatrical director After they were published in 1931, Guthrie's plays aired on the American networks. Around the same time, Guthrie himself also worked for the Canadian National Railway radio network, producing plays written by Merrill Denison that used similar techniques. CNR Radio or CN Radio (officially the Canadian National Railways Radio Department) was the first national Radio network in North America. A 1940 article in Variety credited a 1932 NBC play, Drink Deep by Don Johnson, as the first stream-of-consciousness play written for American radio. The climax of Lawrence Holcomb's 1931 NBC play Skyscraper also uses a variation of the technique (so that the listener can hear the final thoughts and relived memories of a man falling to his death from the title building).

There were probably earlier examples of stream-of-consciousness drama on the radio. For example, in December 1924, actor Paul Robeson, then appearing in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's "The Emperor Jones," performed a scene from the play over New York's WGBS to critical acclaim. Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson ( April 9, 1898 &ndash January 23, 1976) was a multi-lingual American Actor, athlete Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16 1888–November 27 1953 was a Nobel -prize winning American playwright This article is about the play Some productions have separate pages see productions and spinoffs below for links Some of the many storytellers and monologists on early 1920s American radio might be able to claim even earlier dates.

Widespread popularity

Perhaps America's most famous radio drama broadcast is Orson Welles's The War of the Worlds, a 1938 version of the H. G. Wells novel, which convinced large numbers of listeners that an actual invasion from Mars was taking place. George Orson Welles (May 6 1915 – October 10 1985 was an Academy Award -winning director, writer actor and producer for film stage radio and television Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 &ndash 13 August 1946 He was an outspoken socialist and a pacifist, his later works becoming increasingly political

By the late 1930s, radio drama was widely popular in the United States (and also in other parts of the world). There were dozens of programs in many different genres, from mysteries and thrillers, to soap operas and comedies. A soap opera is an ongoing episodic work of Fiction, usually broadcast on Television or Radio. There were occasional efforts at more "literary" works, such as Under Milk Wood (1954) and "Play for Voices" by Dylan Thomas. Under Milk Wood is a play for radio by Dylan Thomas, later adapted for the stage. Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953 was a Welsh poet who wrote exclusively in English Many playwrights, screenwriters and novelists got their start in radio drama, including Caryl Churchill, Rod Serling, Irwin Shaw and Tom Stoppard. Caryl Churchill (born 3 September 1938) is an English Dramatist known for her use of non- naturalistic techniques and Feminist Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling ( December 25, 1924 &ndash June 28, 1975) was an American Screenwriter, best known Irwin Shaw ( February 27 1913 &ndash May 16 1984) was an American playwright screenwriter and novelist who was also a highly regarded short Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE (born 3 July 1937 is a British Screenwriter playwright

Decline in the United States

By the mid-1950s in the United States, television had achieved massive popularity, and radio drama was on the decline. Some successful radio programs were able to make a successful transition to television (such as Gunsmoke, Dragnet, Guiding Light, and Jack Benny's program), but radio drama never recovered its popularity in the U. Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston Dragnet, aka LA Dragnet (new title in USA is a long-running radio and television Police procedural drama about the cases of a dedicated Guiding Light (known as The Guiding Light prior to 1975 or simply GL) is an Emmy award winning American Television Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky February 14, 1894 - December 26, 1974) was an American Comedian, vaudevillian S.

There have been some efforts at radio drama since the late 1950s. In the 1960s, Dick Orkin created the hugely popular syndicated comic adventure series Chicken Man. Inspired by The Goon Show, "the four or five crazy guys" of the Firesign Theatre built a large following with their satirical plays on recordings exploring the dramatic possibilities inherent in stereo. The Goon Show was a British Radio comedy programme originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960 The Firesign Theatre is a Comedy troupe consisting of Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and Philip Proctor. A brief resurgence of production beginning in the early 1970s yielded veteran Himan Brown's CBS Radio Mystery Theater and works by a new generation of dramatists, notably Yuri Rasovsky, Tom Lopez of ZBS and the dramatic sketches heard on humorist Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion. CBS Radio Mystery Theater (aka Radio Mystery Theater and Mystery Theater) was an ambitious and sustained attempt during the 1970s Yuri Rasovsky (1944-) is an award-winning writer and producer working in the field of Audio theatre (aka Radio drama) in the United States. ZBS Foundation, a small non-profit audio production company was founded in 1970 by a grant from Robert E Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor (born August 7, 1942) is an American Author, Storyteller, Humorist, A Prairie Home Companion is a live Radio Variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor. Thanks in large part to the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, public radio continued to air a smattering of audio drama until the mid-1980s. From 1986 to 2002, National Public Radio's most consistent producer of radio drama was the idiosyncratic Joe Frank, working out of KCRW in Santa Monica. Joe Frank (born August 19, 1938) is an American Radio personality known best for his engaging often philosophical humorous and sometimes absurd KCRW (899 MHz FM) is a Public radio station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica California

Radio drama today

Radio drama remains popular in much of the world. Stations producing radio drama often commission a large number of scripts. The relatively low cost of producing a radio play enables them to take chances with works by unknown writers. Radio can be a good training ground for beginning drama writers as the words written form a much greater part of the finished product; bad lines cannot be obscured with stage business.

On the BBC there are two ongoing radio soap operas: The Archers on BBC Radio Four and Silver Street on the Asian Network. The Archers is a British radio Soap opera broadcast on the BBC 's main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. Silver Street is a radio Soap opera, the first such to be aimed at the British South Asian community and is broadcast on the BBC Asian Network A third soap, Westway on the World Service was cancelled in October 2000 but continues in re-runs on BBC7. Westway was a radio Soap opera broadcast twice a week on the BBC World Service from 1997 to October 2005

The audio drama format exists side-by-side with books presented on radio, read by actors or by the author. Putting Books on the radio makes the Audio book format cheaply available to a wide audience In Britain and other countries there is also a quite a bit of radio comedy (both stand-up and sitcom). Together, these programs provide entertainment where television is either not wanted or would be distracting (such as while driving or operating machinery).

The lack of visuals also enable fantastical settings and effects to be used in radio plays where the cost would be prohibitive for movies or television. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was first produced as radio drama, and was not adapted for television until much later, when its popularity would ensure an appropriate return for the high cost of the futuristic setting. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series

On occasion television series can be revived as radio series. For example, a long-running but no longer popular television series can be continued as a radio series because the reduced production costs make it cost-effective with a much smaller audience. When an organization owns both television and radio channels, such as the BBC, the fact that no royalties have to be paid makes this even more attractive. Radio revivals can also use actors reprising their television roles even after decades as they still sound roughly the same. Series that have had this treatment include Doctor Who, Dad's Army, Sapphire & Steel, The Tomorrow People, and Thunderbirds. Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. Dad’s Army is a British sitcom about the Home Guard in the Second World War. Sapphire & Steel is a British television science-fiction series starring David McCallum as Steel and Joanna Lumley as Sapphire The Tomorrow People is a children's science fiction television series, devised by Roger Price which first ran between 1973 and 1979 Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of Puppetry

Regular broadcasts of radio drama in English can be heard on the BBC's Radio 3, Radio 4 and BBC 7, on Radio 1 from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and on RTÉ Radio 1 in Ireland. CBC Radio One is the English-language news and information Radio network of the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. RTÉ Radio 1 ( Irish: RTÉ Raidió 1) is the principal radio channel of Irish BBC Radio 4 in particular is noted for its radio drama, broadcasting hundreds of one-off plays per year in strands such as The Afternoon Play, in addition to serials and soap operas. Serials in Television and Radio are series often in a weekly Prime time slot that rely on a continuing plot that unfolds in a serial fashion The British commercial station Oneword, though broadcasting mostly book readings, also transmits a number of radio plays in installments. Oneword Radio was a British commercial digital radio station featuring Books, drama, comedy, Children's programming

In the U. S. , radio drama can be found on ACB radio produced by the American Council of the Blind and on XM Radio. The American Council of the Blind (ACB is a nation wide organization in the United States The networks sometime sell transcripts of their shows on cassette tapes or CDs or make the shows available for listening or downloading over the Internet. Transcription recordings of many pre-television shows have been preserved. They are collected, re-recorded onto audio CDs and/or MP3 files and traded by hobbyists today as old-time radio programs. Meanwhile veterans such as Rasovsky and Lopez have gained new listeners on cassettes, CDs and downloads. In the mid-1980s, the non-profit L. A. Theatre Works launched its radio series recorded before live audience, which continues a tenuous hold in public radio, while marketing its productions on compact disk.

With 21st-century technology, modern radio drama, also known as audio theater, has begun an exciting new movement. Local radio drama groups have kept the spirit of radio drama alive. The advent of inexpensive computerized production technology brought an explosion of activity. Not From Space (2003) on XM Satellite Radio was the first national radio play recorded exclusively through the Internet in which the voice actors were all in separate locations. As the podcasting phenomenon continues to grow, radio drama has found a new lease of life on the Internet. Podcasting provides a good alternative to mainstream television and radio because it has no restrictions regarding content.

Radio drama around the world

Programs/series

References

  1. ^ Theatre Arts (July 1951):"Windy Kilocycles" by Arch Oboler

See also

External links

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