NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Radio plays

Radio drama (audio drama), which had its greatest popularity in the United States and in most other countries before the spread of television, depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the story in her or his "mind's eye". In the television era, some audio drama has been produced and marketed that owes much to radio drama, without ever being broadcast on radio.

Among the most famous radio dramas are Under Milk Wood, a 'Play for Voices' by Dylan Thomas, and Orson Welles's 1938 radio version of The War of the Worlds, which convinced large numbers of listeners that an actual invasion from Mars was taking place. Often considered the first radio drama is Danger by Richard Hughes, broadcast by the BBC on 15 January 1924. Under Milk Wood was originally a radio play and later a stage play by Dylan Thomas. ... Dylan Marlais Thomas, (October 27, 1914 â€“ November 9, 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer. ... Orson Welles on the set of Citizen Kane. ... The War of the Worlds, a radio adaptation by Orson Welles based upon H. G. Wells classic novel, was performed by Mercury Theatre on the Air as a Halloween special on October 30, 1938. ... Richard Arthur Warren Hughes (19 April 1900-28 April 1976) was a British professional writer of poems, short stories, novels and plays. ... Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom (see British television). ... January 15 is the 15th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

Radio drama remains popular in much of the world. Many film, stage and TV writers got their start in radio drama, including Tom Stoppard and Caryl Churchill. 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 is a good training medium for drama writers as the words written form a much greater part of the finished product; bad lines cannot be obscured with 'stage business'. Sir Tom Stoppard, OM (born 3 July 1937) is a Czech-born British playwright, famous for plays such as The Real Thing and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and for the screenplay for Shakespeare in Love. ... Caryl Churchill (born September 3, 1938) is a English writer of stage plays known for her use of non-realistic techniques and feminist themes. ...

The lack of visuals also enable fantastical settings and effects to be used in radio plays where the cost would be prohibitive in a visual medium. 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 cover of the first novel in the Hitchhikers series, from a late 1990s printing. ...

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 organisation 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 and Thunderbirds. Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom (see British television). ... Main article: History of Doctor Who Doctor Who first appeared on BBC television at 5:15 p. ... Dadâ€™s Army was a British sitcom about the Home Guard in World War II, written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft and broadcast on BBC television between 1968 and 1977. ... Brains Thunderbirds is a mid-1960s Sylvia and Gerry Anderson television show which used a form of puppetry called Supermarionation. Cast, crew, and production notes Thunderbirds was the fourth and by far the most successful of the childrens series made by AP Films (APF) for the British television company...

Radio dramas can be regularly heard on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Radio 1), on RTÉ in Ireland, and the BBC's Radio 4, Radio 3, and BBC 7. Radio 4 in particular is noted for its radio drama, with strands such as The Afternoon Play broadcasting hundreds of one-off plays per year, in addition to serials and soap operas such as The Archers. The British commercial station Oneword, though broadcasting mostly book readings, also has some radio plays in instalments. Radio drama can also be found on ACB radio produced by the American Council of the Blind. 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. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known by the abbreviation CBC, is Canadas government-owned radio and television broadcaster. ... Radio TelefÃs Ã‰ireann (RTÃ‰; Irish for Radio and Television of Ireland) is the national publicly-funded broadcaster of Ireland. ... BBC 7 is a digital radio station broadcasting comedy, drama, and childrens programming 24 hours a day. ... Serial is a term, originating in literature, for a format by which a story is told in contiguous installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication. ... soap operas are boring Soap Opera redirects here. ... The Archers was also a film production company responsible for many classic British films in the 1940s and 50s. ... Oneword Radio is a British commercial radio station featuring books, drama, comedy, childrens programming & discussion. ... The American Council of the Blind (ACB) is a nation wide organisation in the United States. ...

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. Old-Time Radio (OTR) and the Golden Age of Radio are phrases used to refer to American radio programs mainly broadcast during the 1920s through the late 1950s when music radio started to supplant it. ...

With 21st-century technology, modern radio drama, also known as audio theater, has begun an exciting new movement. Local radio drama groups such as Crazy Dog Audio Theatre (from Ireland), Texas Radio Theater, and FreeQuincy Radio Theater (from Wisconsin) have kept the spirit of radio drama alive.

Audio drama released directly to CD or cassette tape rather than ever being broadcast is a related format to radio drama. CD may stand for: Compact Disc Canadian Forces Decoration Cash Dispenser (at least used in Japan) CD LPMud Driver Centrum-Demokraterne (Centre Democrats of Denmark) Certificate of Deposit ÄŒeskÃ© DrÃ¡hy (Czech Railways) Chad (NATO country code) Chalmers DatorfÃ¶rening (computer club of the Chalmers University of Technology) a 1960s...

Programs/series

This page is being rewritten at Adventures in Odyssey/temp. ... Illustrator J.J. Goulds 1930 drawing of Amos and Andy for New Movie Magazine Amos & Andy (also rendered as Amos n Andy) was a situation comedy popular in the United States from the 1920s through the 1950s. ... The Black Mass was a radio drama program broadcast on KPFA Episodes of The Black Mass (Except as noted, these programs can be obtained from the Pacifica Radio Archives. ... E.G. Marshall, host of The CBS Radio Mystery Theater from 1974 to 1981. ... Dimension X was an old-time radio program broadcast April 1950 to September 1951 on NBC. Dimension X was the first notable adult science fiction series on radio, preceded only by the short-lived Two Thousand Plus, scattered episodes of anthology dramas, and juvenile fare, such as Flash Gordon. ... X Minus One was a half-hour radio program broadcast in America from April 1955 to January 1958 on NBC. A revival of Dimension X, X Minus One is widely considered among the finest radio dramas ever produced. ... Earplay The longest-running of the formal series of radio drama anthologies on National Public Radio in the U.S., Earplay for more than a decade in one form or another provided a showcase for original and adapted work; eventually, the less-sustained successor series NPR Playhouse drew episodes from... Escape could mean any of the following: Look up Escape on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Escape is the act of leaving a dangerous or unpleasant situation. ... The General Mills Radio Adventure Theater Himan Brown, already producing the CBS Radio Mystery Theater for the network, added this twice-weekly (usually aired on weekends on stations which cleared it) anthology radio drama series to his workload in 1977. ... It has been suggested that The Teahouse of the August Goon be merged into this article or section. ... The Green Hornet (above) and Kato (below). ... Gunsmoke was a long-running old-time radio and television Western drama program set in Dodge City, Kansas during the settlement of the American West. ... Inner Sanctum Mysteries was a popular old-time radio program that ran from January 7, 1941 to October 5, 1952. ... Panel from Jane Arden strip dated August 29, 1941. ... Book 1 in the Left Behind Series Left Behind is a series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, dealing with Christian dispensationalist End Times: pretribulation, premillennial, Christian eschatology. ... The Life of Riley is an expression meaning an ideal life of carefree prosperity and contentment. ... see Lights Out (radio show) for the radio program, and Lights Out (game) for the game. ... The Lone Ranger The Lone Ranger was an early, long-running radio and television show based on characters created by George W. Trendle of Detroit, Michigan and developed by writer Fran Striker of Buffalo, New York. ... Wikicities has a wiki about lotr: The Lord of the Rings Wiki Lord of the Ring tour reviews Council of Elrond - news and scholarship The Encyclopedia of Arda - Mark Fishers tribute site to the works of Tolkien Tolkien Herr der Ringe - Portal (ger. ... Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom (see British television). ... Lum and Abner was an American radio comedy which was on the air as a first-run network program from 1932 to 1954. ... An anthology series, devoted to hourlong radio adaptations of film productions, usually with some of the films stars in the cast. ... The Mercury Theatre was a theatre company founded in New York City by Orson Welles and John Houseman. ... An anthology series that began as a local program in 1973, but always had national aspirations (and was listed in writers market-guides in the 1970s). ... The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was an old-time radio show which aired from October 2, 1939 to July 7, 1947. ... Nick Danger is the name of a film noir style hard-boiled detective who is featured in several of the albums produced by the comedy group Firesign Theatre. ... Firesign Theater is a comedy troupe, most famous for their radio and album works. ... Dear Friends is the name of a 1972 album by comedy group Firesign Theatre. ... A successor to the NPR series Earplay (1971-1981) and an expansion (as a sort of umbrella title for several dramatic projects) of National Public Radios commitment to radio drama, the various series under the Playhouse aegis were essentially discontinued in September, 2002. ... Quiet Please was an old-time radio horror program created by Wyllis Cooper, also known for creating Lights Out (radio show). ... An anthology series of radio drama which ran weeknightly on CBS Radio in 1979, sponsored by the department-store chain; in its second year, 1980, it moved to the Mutual Broadcasting System and became the Mutual Radio Theater; the MBS series was repeats from the CBS run, until September of... An expanded radio dramatization of the original Star Wars trilogy was produced in 1981, 1983, and 1996. ... The Shadow, as seen on the cover of the July 15, 1939 issue of The Shadow Magazine. ... One of the premier programs of the Golden Age of Radio (now known as old-time radio), Suspense advertised itself as radios oustanding theater of thrills and was heard in one form or another from 1942 through 1962. ... Unshackled is a radio drama series produced by Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, Illinois that first aired in 1950, the longest-running radio drama, and one of very few still in production, in the United States. ...

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