1945–1953 · ABC, then NBC

Theatre Guild on the Air

Broadway's own company, restaged for the microphone

The Theatre Guild had spent twenty-five years putting O'Neill and Shaw on Broadway before it agreed to put them on radio, and it insisted on doing the job properly: its own producers, its own repertoire, and wherever possible the actors who had created the parts on stage. What resulted is the closest thing American radio has to a recording of the mid-century Broadway company at work. The catch, and it is worth saying plainly, is that these are studio remounts rather than transmissions from a theatre. The house you hear is a radio audience in a broadcast studio. But the performances are the stage performances, cut to fit fifty-two minutes and a steel company's commercials.

23 broadcasts · 7 seasons held · Belasco Theatre, New York