Stacy Keach and Jane Kaczmarek in Arthur Miller's classic Death of a Salesman directed by Eric Simonson 2011/02/25

Stacy Keach and Jane Kaczmarek in Arthur Miller's classic Death of a Salesman directed by Eric Simonson 2011/02/25
LOS ANGELES, CA - February, 2011 - Meet hard-working salesman Willy Loman as he chases the American Dream in Arthur Miller's Pulitzer Prize winning tragedy, Death of a Salesman. Stacy Keach and Jane Kaczmarek head the cast when Academy Award-winning filmmaker Eric Simonson directs one of the most important dramas of all time for L.A. Theatre Works. Five performances will be recorded March 16-20 at the Skirball Cultural Center for future radio broadcast; L.A. Theatre Works' nationally syndicated radio theater series airs locally in Southern California on KPCC 89.3 every Saturday from 10 pm -midnight and can be streamed on demand at www.latw.org.

Read more: http://losangeles.broadwayworld.com/article/Stacy_Keach_and_Jane_Kaczmarek_in_Arthur_Millers_classic_Death_of_a_Salesman_directed_by_Eric_Simonson_20110225##ixzz1qZAD3jDT

Radio Sound Effects with Curtis Takahashi

A video from Seattle TV station KING-TV Channel 5. We get a brief glimpse behind the scenes for the live local Holiday Play "Green and White Christmas" which was aired live last December 2010.
The Sound Effects man interviewed in the video is Curtis Takahashi. He not only does sound effects for for this production but he is also the regular Sound Effects man for the live productions of Jim French's Imagination Theater. You may also recall Curtis form his work at the REPS Showcase.

A Special Slide Presentation featuring THE SHADOW at REPS Meeting Sat Mar 5th

Martin Grams is the author and co-author of more than twenty books about old-time radio, retro television and classic movies. All of his books provide welcome detail about the creation and life of these shows and for the extensive logs that make up the bulk of each volume.

Martin's new book on THE SHADOW has a release date of April 2011. Martin has put together a special slide show presentation about the Shadow. He has sent the presentation to Seattle, which he will narrate via telephone connection, for the next REPS meeting.
For more information go to www.repsonline.org.

Next REPS Meeting Sat March 5th, 2011 2:00 - 4:00 pm
REPS Meetings are held in the Norse Home Social Hall
5311 Phinney Ave North Seattle, WA 98103

What Ever Happened to Arch Oboler?

By Seattle based Matthew Rovner.
(REPS will be presenting an Arch Oboler story at the 2011 REPS Showcase ).
As a filmmaker he was certainly no Orson Welles, but Oboler deserves better than oblivion. In the 1940s, Oboler was one of the highest paid writers in the world and the most successful radio playwright in America. Radio, prior to the advent of television, was the most powerful and influential mass communication medium on the planet. Oboler stood shoulder to shoulder with the two other giants of American radio, Norman Corwin and Orson Welles. READ FULL STORY 

REPS Meeting Saturday March 5th 2010 2:00 - 4:00 pm

We spoke to Martin Grams this afternoon. Martin has authored a new book, due out in April, which many are calling the definitive history of "The Shadow" on radio. The book covers the origin of the Shadow as a mysterious voice narrating several series in the the early 30s and then winding up as the main character in the long running, legendary crime series on Mutual. Martin will join us by telephone to discuss his amazing research and to narrate a special slide presentation featuring rare photos and newspaper advertisements. It's an afternoon we're looking forward to!

REPS Meetings are held in the Norse Home Social Hall
5311 Phinney Ave North Seattle, WA 98103 ( Just across the street from the Woodland Park Zoo ).

Radio: Hollywood Show

Radio: Hollywood Show

For the last six years the nearest thing to super-stupendous on the air has been the Lux Radio Theatre. Its casts have included all varieties of cinema hotshots. Its productions have often been so lavish that they overflowed the stage of CBS's Music Box Theatre in Hollywood. Even its rehearsals are a Hollywood event, with autograph seekers pounding at the doors. This week, after its usual summer pause, Lux Radio Theatre begins a new season with Myrna Loy and William Powell in the aerial version of Manhattan Melodrama.

Consulting wizard of the Radio Theatre is...

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,764693,00.html#ixzz1qZ6kaZlq

Radio: Platters for the Pacific

Radio: Platters for the Pacific

Firmest rule of network broadcasting is "no recordings." Reasons given: 1) when NBC set the style 13 years ago, recordings ("platters") were pretty scratchy; 2) the radio audience likes programs better fresh than canned. Many a recording man retorts that if recorded Jack Bennys, Charlie McCarthys and other big-name shows were centrally recorded and delivered to individual broadcasters for local transmission, they could have higher fidelity to the original than can be attained over the present wire hookups.

Just who would profit by such a system, except for recording companies and some finely trained audience ears, is still problematical, but sure losers...

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,762479,00.html#ixzz1qZ65Mi6M

Radio: At This Same Time Tomorrow...

Radio: At This Same Time Tomorrow...

It was a moment that thousands of U.S. moppets would long remember. Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy,* had just leaped, with suitable sound effects, from a plane. The hero wore a suit of armor and two parachutes. But one chute failed to open. Then it developed that something was wrong with the other chute, too. Jack plunged earthward. . . .

By that time it was 6:44 p.m., E.D.T. and the announcer broke in with the standard cliffhanger: tune in tomorrow and hear what happened. Next day, listeners learned that Jack had survived: he..

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,853197,00.html#ixzz1qZ5iyUSL

Radio: Beulah

Radio: Beulah

It was a big week for Beulah, the maid on Fibber McGee & Molly's famed air show (NBC, Tues., 9:30 p.m., E.W.T.). Her sponsor, Johnson's Wax, gave her a fat, new two-year contract.

Few of Fibber McGee & Molly's millions of listeners know that Beulah is neither female nor Negro. She is a husky, 6-ft., 39-year-old radio actor named Marlin Hurt.

Beulah breezed into the show four months ago with an immediately successful trademark — "Love that man!" (meaning Fibber McGee).

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,850967,00.html#ixzz1qZ5CDRIj

July 7th, 1949: Dragnet Premieres on the Radio

By Marie Page, Yahoo! Contributor Network.
Dragnet, created by Jack Webb, a popular detective show of the 1950's actually premiered on the radio, with low expectations.

Jack Webb also played the title character, Joe Friday, in both the radio and television premier.

The origins of the show comes from Webb's role as a forensic scientist, working with police in He Walked by Night, a 1948 film based on the murder of a California Highway Patrol officer. READ MORE

RADIO DRAMA

From Yahoo. A link to 40 individual stories about Radio Drama:
Includes: A Look at Star Wars: The Radio Drama, The Slide: A Classic BBC Sci-fi Radio Drama Serial, Star Trek: The Continuing Mission: Audio Drama Review, Radio Dramas Reborn on the Internet, Vintage Radio Theatre Podcasts Offer Variety, Radio Dramas Reborn on the Internet and more . . . .

The Return of Radio Dramas

By David Finniss, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Mar 4, 2010
Decades ago, before every household had a television, people would gather around the radio and listen to shows that would spark the imagination and keep listeners in suspense. While radio is still a pretty strong media outlet, the entertainment style has faded into a fringe interest. Leonard Nimoy has done his part to keep it alive with his Alien Voices productions and a few come out now and again, but it hasn't caught on.

My roommate brought up his interest and I mentioned that with the prevalence of podcasts, it was odd that someone didn't try to do their own sort of radio drama. READ MORE 

Green Hornet swarm: Four other actors who wore the mask

by Susan King, Los Angeles Times.
The mask of the Green Hornet belongs to Seth Rogen these days — the film opened to a solid $40 million in domestic box office over the weekend — but the role has a history that dates back farther than the debut of  Superman or Batman. The tales of Britt Reid, a newspaper publisher who fights crime as a masked vigilante with a fierce-fighting sidekick named Kato, go back to the mid-1930s, and here’s a look at four other actors who brought the Hornet to life.    READ MORE. 

Mickey Rooney will be the featured guest at the Feb 5th Meeting via special live telephone hookup

Breaking News. The Saturday February 5th REPS meeting will feature a special live phone interview with the legendary Mickey Rooney. If you are in the Seattle area, come join us at 2:00pm for this very special occasion. ( The Archie Andrews presentation which was originally scheduled for this meeting will be rescheduled. The date to be determined ). REPS Meetings are held in the Norse Home Social Hall ( just across the street from the Woodland Park Zoo) at 5311 Phinney Ave North Seattle, WA 98103.

Classic Chandler – The Big Sleep Ep 1/4 Saturday 5 February 2.30-4.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Toby Stephens stars as Raymond Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe
Starting this spring, BBC Radio 4 brings listeners another major series of dramatic adaptations as it broadcasts all of Raymond Chandler's ground-breaking Philip Marlowe novels, starring Toby Stephens as Marlowe.

In 1939, Chandler created a different kind of detective, the fast-talking, trouble-seeking Philip Marlowe, for his great novel, The Big Sleep. This story of Marlowe's entanglement with the Sternwood family kicks off the series.

Dramatised by Robin Brooks, the cast also stars: Kelly Burke as Vivien Sternwood; Barbara Barnes as Agnes Lozelle; Madeleine Potter as Mona Mars; Leah Brotherhead as Carmen Sternwood; Sam Dale as Joe Brody; Sean Baker as General Sternwood; Iain Batchelor as Lash Canino; Henry Devas as Eddie Mars; and Jude Akuwudike as Cronjager.

The other plays in this and the next series include: Farewell My Lovely (1940); The High Window (1942); The Lady In The Lake (1943); The Little Sister (1949); The Long Goodbye (1953); and two lesser-known novels, Playback (1958) and Poodle Springs, unfinished at the time of Chandler's death in 1959.

The second series completing the Classic Chandler collection will be broadcast in the autumn.

The Classic Chandler series follows Radio 4's Complete Smiley broadcast in 2009/10 with Simon Russell Beale as John le Carré's Smiley.

Producer/Claire Grove for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

Television ended it all

By Carol Weimer
People don’t have to think of what they will be doing on these long winter’s nights. Computers and TVs provide lots of entertainment.

Not so as I was growing up. The winter nights really dragged on, but we found ways to amuse ourselves once everything was cleaned up in the kitchen. We always got our homework right after we got home from school. If there was still time before supper, we would go out and play in the snowbanks or go skating on the Erie Canal.

Long winter nights would make my grandpa restless. He would sit in his rocking chair by the radio to Lowell Thomas and H. V. Kaltonborn for the news and commentaries. We kids didn’t like those shows, but they would be followed by the Lone Ranger, Amos ‘n Andy, the Jack Benny Show and Montana Slim, who sang cowboy songs and grandpa liked country songs. READ MORE