WEBVTT - The Drama of Radio Theater 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.880 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.440 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.400 and a lot of all things tech and on Monday 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:26.920 we released a special episode about three D audio, and 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.280 in it I had some examples of three D audio 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:34.000 within the show. Now, typically for a show like tech Stuff, 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.080 three D audio isn't you know, a natural fit. I mean, 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.760 I don't think anyone needs the experience of hearing me 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:47.639 virtually walk around them while I explain technology. We might 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.880 do the occasional soundscaping for an episode, but that's about 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:54.120 the extent of it. Where three D audio really shines 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:59.040 is in dramatized audio fiction podcasts, or maybe the occasional 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.840 re enact it for something like true crime podcasts. And 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.520 that got me thinking about the old art form of 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:10.440 radio theater or radio drama. I have a personal connection 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.280 with radio drama. I used to be a member of 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:17.399 the board for the Atlanta Radio Theater Company or art 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.440 c a r TC. I also wrote and performed with 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:26.160 Artsy for several years, as did another Stuff host Stuff 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.360 You Missed in History Classes Tracy Wilson did the same. 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.840 My father still writes and performs with them. The Atlanta 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:38.880 Radio Theater Company typically doesn't perform or record old radio 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:44.000 drama scripts, like existing ones from the forties or fifties. Rather, 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:49.320 the company mainly focuses on original works and radio adaptations 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:54.840 of existing works, and largely in the speculative fiction genres, 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:59.120 so stuff like science fiction and horror and fantasy. When 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.080 I was writing ups for them and performing in shows, 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.200 it was really before podcasts had become a big thing. 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.840 There wasn't much place for radio drama outside of a 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.840 niche market here in the United States. We might once 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:16.720 in a while have a piece that would be broadcast 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.720 on local public radio, but otherwise we were pretty much 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.959 limited to doing live performances, typically at things like science 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:29.240 fiction conventions, and making recordings. That was pretty much it. 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.840 Flash forward just a few years and now radio drama 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.520 or audio drama or audio theater or theater of the 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:41.880 mind is back in full force. There are so many 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:46.720 podcasts that fall into that general category. Some do close 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:50.760 to the old style of the original serials of the 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:55.639 radio days. Some take the art form to really unusual places, 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.720 freed from the concerns of broadcast standards, people can really 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.280 ex floor of the medium. So today I thought we'd 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:04.840 look a little bit at the history and evolution of 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:08.680 radio theater. We can talk about how art and technology 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.919 combined to create an experience for the listener. And it's 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:15.720 really cool stuff because it's not just the technology, it's 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:19.480 how do you use that technology to do something specific? 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:23.240 How do you create an outcome with that technology that 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:27.679 involves not just tech but art and psychology. But let's 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.880 get a few basic ideas out of the way. Theater 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:34.960 in general relies partly upon the imagination of the audience, 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.800 and I referenced this in the three D audio episode 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:41.200 in which I recited the prologue to Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth. 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.360 In that prologue, a member of the theater known as 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:48.600 the chorus implores the audience to utilize their imaginations to 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.720 fill out the action of the play. The actors can't 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:56.920 bring up horses on stage or fill up the theater 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.320 with an entire army, and yet the action of Henry 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.040 the Fifth references such things. Is talking about a war 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.880 between England and France. So it's the audience's job to 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:12.200 supply the show with those elements they have to imagine 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.880 them to be. Thus, it's part of the willing suspension 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:20.400 of disbelief. Yes, you know that in reality you are 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:24.719 actually inside a theater, perhaps standing on the ground, looking 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:28.960 at a stage, and you're watching actors in costumes pretending 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:31.440 to be people who have been dead for more than 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:36.000 a century. But you suspend that disbelief to get lost 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:40.960 in the story. Stories are powerful things. I mean, they 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:45.040 connect us to our history and to each other. It's 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:49.000 an ancient form of communication and one that still has 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:54.920 incredible power today. Well, radio drama has no visuals whatsoever. 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.159 So the challenge for a radio drama writer, as well 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:02.960 as for perform and producers, is to create an audio 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:08.200 experience that compels the audience to engage their imaginations and 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:12.560 supply everything that you cannot. The brilliant part of this 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.800 is that an audience's imagination can always exceed anything you 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.640 might manage to do were you to produce the show 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.880 in some other medium. So Peter Jackson had a budget 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.480 of hundreds of millions of dollars to make The Lord 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.560 of the Rings movies, but a good radio production can 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.159 make a comparable experience for a fraction of the price. 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.039 As long as the audience goes along for the ride, 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:39.720 your imagination is going to be far more spectacular than 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:44.160 any big budget special effects. But it also means that 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.919 the audio production has to supply enough information for the 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:50.640 audience to know what's going on so that they can 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:55.800 imagine things. That is its own challenge. So how do 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.479 you convey action in a way that seems natural to 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.200 the list her? There's nothing like listening to say, a 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.560 horror story on the radio, and here one character say 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:10.480 to another, Oh, no, he's reaching into his coat and 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:14.200 pulling out what is it? It's a knife, a big, sharp, 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.320 pointy knife, and now he is holding the knife in 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.280 a threatening way and advancing upon us with malicious intent. 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.839 I mean, that doesn't That doesn't really come across well, 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.200 does it? Now? Granted I read that with you know, 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.039 a tongue in cheek, goofy approach. But even if I 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.840 had tried to read that like I was scared, it 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.720 doesn't come across naturally at all. Right, So radio drama 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.440 has its own challenges. Balancing out elements like suspense or 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:45.919 a comedy or action with keeping things sounding natural is tricky. 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.600 So in the great history of radio drama. There are 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:52.840 examples that are really fun and some that are real clunkers, 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.080 which is no surprise there. It's the same with any 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.839 art form. Now, storytelling and theater are ancient forms, and 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.320 so it should stand as no surprise that once clever 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.040 humans figured out a way to transmit sounds over great distances, 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:09.360 they would use that technology to tap into this very 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:13.840 human activity. And arguably we can say that the birth 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:18.200 of the radio drama goes back to our buddy Clement Otter. Now, 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:20.640 if you listen to my episode about three D Audio, 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:23.920 you heard me talk about how Otter or aider set 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:28.160 up what was effectively a selection of telephone microphones at 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.240 the Paris Opera and he ran lines to a suite 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.000 of rooms in a building that was a couple of 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:37.280 kilometers from the opera house. So guests of the Paris 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.840 Electrical Exhibition could go into one of these rooms and 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:45.480 hold up a receiver to each year, so a telephone receiver, 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.200 but one for each year left end right, and they 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:52.080 could hear audio from those different microphones on the stage, 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:56.880 which created a kind of primitive stereo effect. Otter's invention 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.960 predated the age of radio by a couple of decades. 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.720 Honors work formed the basis of a new type of 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:08.920 business called the teatro phone or the theater phone. The 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:13.280 company Do Teatrophone was incorporated near the end of the 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:18.280 nineteenth century and promoted the service They made honors demonstration 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.960 an ongoing business. They would get permission to set up 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:26.240 microphones at various performance venues and then people would be 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.120 able to listen in on those and you could either 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.520 listen in by using a coin operated telephone, which were 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:37.120 located in places like hotels and clubs and cafes, and 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.440 you just pay a small fee to listen to about 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:44.640 five minutes worth of transmission. Alternatively, you could subscribe to 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.439 the service for a recurring fee and listen more frequently. 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.960 For those Parisians who were more important and rich enough 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.800 to have a telephone installed in their own home, they 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.839 could even subscribe to the service from home and listen 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.280 in whenever they liked the perform Minses carried by the 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:05.560 tatra phone weren't catered for audio. Rather, it was a 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.520 way for tech savvy and trendy Parisians to take in 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:13.920 the latest opera or play in an innovative way. In 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.480 some ways, it helped increase accessibility to art, since each 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.839 theater house has a limited number of seats, and the 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.240 theater phone created opportunities for someone to experience a show, 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.319 even if it was only an audio and even if 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.079 the show had sold out. But the shows were being 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:34.160 performed in front of audiences as fully staged productions, so 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:36.240 if you were in the audience, you were seeing a 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:40.080 full play, So they weren't designed to be experienced just 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.000 through sound alone. And I'm sure there were cases of 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.760 people wondering exactly what the heck was going on on 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:49.640 stage while they were listening in the theater phone got 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.040 started around eight ninety, which was well before what we 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:58.520 would consider radio broadcasts. There were people experimenting with radio 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.240 around that time. It took a lot of work and 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:03.800 a lot of convergence in the world of physics to 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:07.199 get a deep enough understanding of what radio waves are, 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.040 how they work, how you can generate them, how you 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:15.400 can encode information onto them, and how you could receive 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:19.040 and then decode the information to play those signals back 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.720 and get audio to go through. All of that work 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.120 would be way too much for this episode, and besides, 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.160 I've actually covered this a few times before. It's also 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.120 a story that has some really big personalities in it, 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:36.920 like Marconi and Tesla and Edison. It gets really complicated 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:41.800 and really dramatic, but that's drama about radio, not drama 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:46.240 performed on radio. So we're gonna move on now. You 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.800 could argue that the first radio broadcast was in n 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.839 six with Reginald Fessenden sending out a radio signal of 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:57.360 him playing you know, Christmas songs on violin and reading 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.200 passages from the Bible. But that was a bit of 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:02.360 a one off, and the only folks who really heard 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:06.600 that broadcast were somewhat confused radio operators on ships in 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:12.440 the Atlantic Ocean. Fessenden's broadcast used amplitude modulation or a M, 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:14.920 and I suppose we should talk about modulation for a second, 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:18.000 just to understand how it works. So with radio, you 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:22.520 need to generate a signal of a specific frequency or hurts. 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.000 So when you look at a radio station, those numbers 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:29.480 of the radio station relate to the frequency of the 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.520 radio signal, and frequency refers to the number of cycles 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.800 of a radio wave passing a given point per second. 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.200 All radio waves travel at the same speed, which is 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.960 the speed of light, but the actual length of those 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:48.480 waves themselves are different. So a radio wave that has 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.240 you know, that's really long is going to have fewer 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.040 cycles per second than a radio wave that's really short. 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.680 Both are traveling at the speed of light, but the 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.360 long waves are is going to be fewer of them 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.520 per second. It So, let's say you have got a 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.320 way to broadcast a radio wave of fifty killer hurts. 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.640 That means fifty thousand radio waves will pass a given 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.680 point in a second. This is the approximate frequency that 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:16.520 Festenden used. Well, if you just sent out a smooth 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.720 radio wave of fifty killer hurts and you didn't do 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.840 anything to it, someone with a radio receiver tuned to 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.760 the frequency of fifty killer hurts would really only see 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.400 if a signal was coming through or not. But no 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.880 meaningful information is coming across. You have to transform that 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.559 signal in some way. Now, the way a m works 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:40.320 is by changing or modulating the amplitude of a radio signal. 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.520 That is, changing the height of the peaks and the 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:48.040 depths of the valleys that the radio wave makes. And 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.760 you've got your carrier wave of fifty killer hurts. You 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.800 encode information on top of that carrier wave with modulating 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:56.840 an amplitude, and a receiver picks up the fifty killer 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.360 hurt signal and decodes those modulations, and that's how you 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:04.239 get the playback of the audio. FM radio or frequency 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:08.160 modulation works a little differently. Rather than changing the amplitude 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:10.640 of a carrier wave, and you make slight changes to 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:14.280 the radio waves frequency. Now you don't change it a lot, 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.400 because if you go too far outside the carrier waves 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.880 home frequency, the receiving radio won't be able to stay 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.000 tuned to it. But either way, you can modulate that 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:28.040 wave to carry information with it, and the receiving radio 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.280 tuned to that frequency can demodulate it and play the 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.840 transmitted audio. It would take a decade and a half 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.560 for the first commercial radio stations to begin operations. One 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.400 reason for that was a little thing called World War One, 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:45.160 or what people back then referred to as the Great War, 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:49.160 because you know, calling something world War one right from 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:53.000 the start marks a level of pessimism we just don't need. Now, 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.240 that's not to say people weren't experimenting and creating early 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:00.480 radio broadcast stations during this time. They were. There was 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:05.320 the predecessor to San Jose's k CBS, there was Canada's 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.160 x w A, which would evolve into c I in 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:12.800 w A. Few colleges established their own small stations as well, 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.760 like Union College, which had a station called to YU, 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:21.320 which evolved into w r U c UH. Some people 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.760 called Pittsburgh's k d K a station the first real 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:29.040 commercial radio station. It's hard to give a definitive first 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:33.040 because many of these early stations were only broadcasting some 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.480 of the time, like for a couple of hours a day, 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.160 and sometimes to a relatively small service area, and there 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.920 were very few people who could, you know, actually listen 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:44.600 in on them. There were also radio stations that served 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:48.360 as wireless telegraph stations. In the United States, the military 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:50.880 took control of those types of stations because they were 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.440 part of a vital communications infrastructure during World War One, 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.040 and at the conclusion of the war, the U. S. 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.440 Government told the Navy, hey, you should return those stations 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.080 to the original owners, which wasn't something that the Navy 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:06.960 was too terribly keen on doing. And part of the 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.240 reason for that, you know, why the Navy was so 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.360 reluctant was that a lot of those stations were owned 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.880 by foreign companies, and the Navy viewed the radio communication 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:20.440 system as critical to the national security of the United States, 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:22.920 so there was a lot of pressure to move ownership 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:27.120 of these radio stations to domestic companies, which again, these 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:31.160 stations were mostly about sending wireless telegraphs rather than you know, 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.360 radio broadcasts as we would think of them. From this situation, 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.640 the Radio Corporation of America or r c A was formed. 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.720 The technology had reached a stage that allowed for the 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.280 transmitting and receiving a radio signals, and companies like our 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:51.040 CIA had the opportunity to sell radio sets to American consumers. 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.560 But these Americans would need stuff to listen to or 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.800 else the radios wouldn't be very useful, and so our 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.480 CI A was also in the business of creating radio 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:04.000 station networks and producing content to air over the radio. 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:06.920 When we come back, we'll look at how this gave 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.320 birth to the art form of radio theater. But first 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:21.600 let's take a quick break. So in the nineteen twenties, 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.080 radio was starting to become a popular medium. Lots of 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:30.080 places began to establish real, honest to goodness radio stations. A. 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.000 T and T began investing in radio stations and formed 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:36.680 a network of stations in various cities before the company 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:41.080 decided to exit the industry in nineteen six. At that point, 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:44.960 our c A purchased a stake in the network that A. 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.280 T and T had been running, and General Electric and 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.800 Westinghouse divided up the other fifty percent of ownership, and 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:56.160 together they formed the National Broadcasting Company or in BC. 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:59.760 R c A would later acquire full ownership of NBC 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.320 in nineteen thirty. Over in the UK you had the 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:08.560 foundation of the British Broadcasting Corporation, which was the predecessor, 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:12.359 was established in nineteen twenty two with a radio service 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.520 called two l oh. It would become the BBC in 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:20.159 nineteen twenty seven. Companies like our c A began offering 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.960 up consumer radios for sale, and r c A promoted 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.520 radio by selling tickets to venues that had radios that 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.159 could play a live broadcast a big events from across 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:35.359 the country, such as a heavyweight championship boxing match in 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:39.160 nineteen twenty one. It wasn't that dissimilar to the old 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.960 theater phones when you think about it, but the whole 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:44.800 point was to lure people in and convince them that 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.359 getting a radio set for the home would be a 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.960 really great idea, and it proved to be a huge winner. This, 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:54.560 by the way, was in the pre transistor days, so 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:58.919 radio amplifiers relied on vacuum tubes, and so a radio 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.080 set was a hefty piece of furniture. The typical radio 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.080 looked a bit like a side table, and for many 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:07.640 people in the US and the UK, it was considered 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.560 a must have for the home. There's a bit of 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.800 a debate about what the earliest audio drama was that 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.480 was produced for the radio. In nineteen two, w g 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.439 Y station in Schenectady, New York, produced an adaptation of 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.520 the stage play by Eugene Walter titled The Wolf. The 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:29.720 original play had a three act structure, but w g 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:35.120 Y program director Colin Hagar was concerned that audiences wouldn't 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:38.480 have that kind of patience for a full length show, 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.400 so the production team decided to edit the story down 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:45.320 to a tight forty minutes script. Now, I have never 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:48.040 seen a production of this play, nor have I heard 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:52.119 the radio version. There's apparently a novelization out there, but 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.280 I haven't read it. I did read a synopsis and 0:18:55.440 --> 0:19:00.080 it sounds like pure melodrama, and pretty dated mel of 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.639 drama at that, But then the original play debuted around 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:08.320 nineteen o eight. So in the play, there's a naive, young, 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:12.720 innocent woman. There's a man who's intent on seeking revenge 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:14.920 for the death of a step sister he never knew 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:19.040 he had. There's the villainous cad who was responsible for 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:24.639 leading said step sister astray, and then there's the the 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:28.240 young woman I mentioned earlier. Her her crusty old father 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:32.240 is in it too. And it sounds terrible. At least, 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.040 it sounds like I would hate it. But apparently it 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.640 was a big hit for w g Y, and that 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.640 was enough to convince the program director to commission more 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:45.160 adaptations of stage plays for broadcast. Between nineteen twenty two 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:51.120 and nineteen twenty three, that station broadcast forty three different productions, 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.400 and from what I gather, these were all just strictly 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:59.400 readings of existing plays, rather than plays that were catering 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:03.080 specific lead to audio. However, one thing to keep in 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:07.960 mind is that these performances were all live. Nothing was 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:12.679 prerecorded unless it was very very short. Typically, a large 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:16.520 station would produce a performance live in studio, and if 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.040 it was a production that was shorter than fifteen minutes long, 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:24.320 they might record that performance to aluminium discs and then 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.960 send those aluminium discs to regional stations to play from there. 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.080 But the disc can only hold fifteen minutes of audio, 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:34.439 so anything longer than fifteen minutes absolutely had to be 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:38.240 performed live because there just wasn't enough capacity to record 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:42.439 them at that time. That meant that, just as is 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:45.800 the case with live stage theater, there was the opportunity 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:48.840 for stuff to go wrong. An actor could drop a 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.400 line or skip a queue, or a sound effect might 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:56.399 come in too late or too early. The audience probably 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.840 wouldn't be as aware of any problems as the cast 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:04.480 crew would be unless it was something, you know, really spectacular, 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.000 but it did create a type of energy to the performances. 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:10.600 I mean, there's no take two and the show must 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:15.160 go on. It's generally believed that the first theatrical piece 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:19.480 written specifically for radio was a play titled A Comedy 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:23.959 of Danger, which aired in January fift nineteen twenty four 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:27.919 in the UK. It was produced in the Savoy region 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.760 and in London, and it was written by Richard Hughes, 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:35.000 who later wrote the novel A High Wind in Jamaica. 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.960 The story behind how A Comedy of Danger it came 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:42.320 to be as pretty entertaining just by itself. Hughes was 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:47.560 meeting with a director named Nigel Playfair on January eleven, 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:51.800 nineteen twenty four. Playfair had agreed to provide two hours 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:57.239 of entertainment to broadcast on the radio by and he 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:01.120 had planned to have some poetry readings and some readings 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:04.760 of excerpts from Jane Austen works, but he hadn't quite 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:07.879 found enough material to fill up the two hours, and 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:09.960 he lamented that it sure would be nice to have 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:14.240 something that was composed specifically for the medium of radio, 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:19.160 rather than just adapted from some other source. Hughes agreed 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:22.159 with Playfair and said he wished that he could have 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:25.399 written such a piece, and Playfair essentially set the hook, 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:28.320 and Hughes, eager to try his hand at the task, 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:31.760 agreed to try and write something for Playfair, and he 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:34.320 stayed up all night in order to have a finished 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:38.040 play in Playfair's hands by the following morning. And that's 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:42.200 how the first radio play was written, in haste, behind 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:46.080 deadline and in a desperate attempt to fill up air time. 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:49.960 It would not be the last time those criteria would 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:52.679 apply to a piece that was written for radio, the 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:56.720 play would also feature sound effects, something pretty novel at 0:22:56.720 --> 0:22:59.960 the time. While actors would read the lines, other performers 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.439 would use a mishmash of various props and odds and 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:06.800 ends to create the soundscape for the show. In the 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:11.200 film world, these became known as Folly effects, named after 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:15.240 a great artist in the field, Jack Effects. Wait, no, 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:19.000 I'm sorry, I meant Jack Foley. Whether for audio, theater 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:23.600 or film, the folly effects artist has to have impeccable timing. 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:27.400 The sound effects complete the scene and give the audience 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:30.920 information that they normally would pick up with their eyes. 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:34.640 If it were a standard play, characters in motion might 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:39.560 be accompanied by the sound of crunching shoes on gravel, 0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:44.600 or maybe squishy sounds to represent walking through a muddy field. 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:48.639 A door opening might signal that someone has entered or 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:51.480 left a room, and you know, a good sound effect 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:53.840 can really lift the need for characters to have to 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:57.320 say all that clunky stuff I mentioned earlier. In this episode, 0:23:58.320 --> 0:24:01.800 Hughes also wanted to avoid having a narrator. He felt 0:24:01.840 --> 0:24:04.240 that that would be a bit like cheating, and he 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:07.520 wanted to convey all the necessary information through the action 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:11.200 of the play and through the dialogue, and again this 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:13.680 is tricky stuff. When I was writing for the Atlanta 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:17.600 Radio Theater Company, I frequently would use a narrator, mostly 0:24:17.640 --> 0:24:20.600 for comedic effect, but otherwise I tried to avoid it 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:23.320 as much as I could, because I agree it does 0:24:23.480 --> 0:24:26.760 take the listener out of stuff. A comedy of Danger 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:31.280 takes place deep below ground and a coal mine in Wales. 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:34.359 An early line in the play is the lights have 0:24:34.520 --> 0:24:38.240 gone out, something that Playfair had actually suggested, as he 0:24:38.280 --> 0:24:42.080 and Hughes were first musing about the possibility of radio 0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:45.639 play and an audience that might listen to the piece 0:24:45.760 --> 0:24:49.639 in total darkness. The studio they broadcast from was a 0:24:49.680 --> 0:24:52.960 padded room with a single microphone. So in order to 0:24:53.000 --> 0:24:57.280 create the effect of people in an underground gallery in 0:24:57.320 --> 0:25:00.360