The Author's Playhouse Radio Program

Background

The 'playhouse' format was a popular staple of Radio Drama throughout the Golden Age of Radio. Given the 'theatre of the mind' that Radio had become almost from its first dramatic broadcasts, the notion of live theatre being brought to the living rooms and parlors of post-Depression America was both uplifting and entertaining for the exponentially growing Radio audiences of the 1930s and 1940s.

Even as other popular genres waxed and waned in popularity throughout the Golden Age of Radio, the 'playhouse drama,' usually starring one or two major Film or Stage stars of the era brought fine drama--and fine dramatic performances--to audiences who, for the most part, had never had the opportunity to enjoy such performances on Broadway or the larger, more prestigious drama venues of the era. And indeed, by the mid to late 1930s and early 1940s, the playhouse drama genre became a highly competitive programming vehicle among the three, then four major networks.

• 1930 Paramount Playhouse
• 1937 Your Parlor Playhouse
• 1938 Campbell Playhouse
• 1939 Gulf Musical Playhouse
• 1939 Hollywood Playhouse
• 1939 Knickerbocker Playhouse
• 1940 Listener’s Playhouse
• 1940 Wheatena Playhouse
• 1941 Author’s Playhouse
• 1941 People’s Playhouse
• 1941 Philip Morris Playhouse
• 1943 Dreft Star Playhouse
• 1944 NBC Star Playhouse
• 1946 Carrington Playhouse
• 1946 Spotlight Playhouse
• 1946 Summer Playhouse
• 1946 Your Playhouse of Favorites
• 1948 Hallmark Playhouse
• 1948 Manhattan Playhouse
• 1948 Radio City Playhouse
• 1949 Comedy Playhouse
• 1949 Four Star Playhouse
• 1949 Screen Director’s Playhouse
• 1950 Hollywood Star Playhouse
• 1950s Broadway Playhouse [AFRS]
• 1950s Playhouse 25 [AFRS]
• 1951 Philip Morris Playhouse On Broadway
• 1952 Jergens Hollywood Playhouse
• 1953 NBC Star Playhouse
• 1953 Radio Star Playhouse
• 1953 Philco Radio Playhouse
• 1955 Sunday Playhouse

The more popular, longer running 'playhouse' format programming of the era featured something unique in an attempt to set themselves apart from competing similar dramatic productions. And indeed the playhouse format productions of the era varied from great to small throughout the period. The greater playhouse-type productions of the era featuring major stars in either tried and true Stage plays or a combination of newly penned scripts written specifically for the starring talent for that production.

It wasn't just the large networks producing these playhouse features. Some of the playhouse productions of the era were transcribed, syndicated programs from independent syndicators. Others, as in the case of Author's Playhouse, were produced by key-stations of a given network, such as NBC's 50,000 Watt key station, WMAQ, Chicago. WMAQ had been a prolific producer of original dramatic and educational productions throughout the Golden Age of Radio.

WMAQ debuts Author's Playhouse nationwide

NBC's midwest key station, WMAQ, Chicago, was one of the more prolific--and successful--programming originators in the NBC Network. Though not quite the equal of NBC's Radio Citys on either coast, WMAQ enjoyed a talent pool every bit the equal of the largest regional key stations in the network. Competing head-to-head with CBS' WBBM, ABC's WENR, and Mutual's W-G-N, WMAQ brought several successful--and popular--local, regional and national programs to Radio throughout the Golden Age:

1927 The Three Doctors
1930 Tony Won’s Scrapbook
1931 Marquette The Little French Girl
1931 University of Chicago Round Table
1932 Kaltenmeyer’s Kindergarten
1934 The Story of Mary Marlin
1937 Don Winslow of the Navy
1941 Author's Playhouse
1942 Fountain of Fun
1946 The Dave Garroway Show
1947 Hobby Horse
1948 Destination Freedom
1948 It's Our Turn
1950 Destination Freedom [Paul Revere format]
1950 Uncle Ned’s Squadron
1952 Hello, Sucker
1953 Americana
1954 Case Dismissed
1954 Just For You

While the above list is by no means exhaustive, it gives an indication of the diversity and depth that the station enjoyed throughout its Golden Age of Radio years. Especially noteworthy were the public service programs developed by WMAQ's Department of Education and Public Service. Among the most successful--and collectable--of their public service offerings were WMAQ's long running University of Chicago Round Table, Destination Freedom and Case Dismissed.

There's no question that Author's Playhouse was an ambitious undertaking from the get-go. The production promised a new adaptation of original short stories every week. Drawing from some of the finest authors throughout history as well as a long list of new authors and their stories, Author's Playhouse more than met its charter in bringing fresh dramatizations to Radio week after week for over four years.

Of course, therein lay the rub for WMAQ. As WMAQ's Continuity Dditor laments in The Billboard article in the sidebar left, churning out new dramatized fiction week in, week out was no mean feat. WMAQ was paying Author's Playhouse writers only $100 each for their scripts. Granted, that national exposure over a major Radio network was far more valuable to emerging writers than the relatively humble direct compensation they received. But for many writers of the wartime 1940s, $100 could well have represented a month's room and board to any number of the emerging authors of the era.

As it turned out, the Continuity Editor's lament was quite prophetic, vis a vis the Author's Playhouse series. Within four months of that February 1945 article, Author's Playhouse left the airwaves. But during its four-year run, it brought over 200 unique dramatizations of the writer's craft to millions of late-night listeners throughout North America. And, in the process, invaluable exposure to many new authors of the era. All in all, a win-win for both WMAQ and the new writers for the series.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the radioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.

OTRisms:

Author's Playhouse announced--and aired--a special Summer 1944 season of repeats drawn from the previous three seasons of weekly Author's Playhouse broadcasts. The announcements in the circulating exemplars from that run repeatedly state that the special Summer series would consist of nine repeat broadcasts. The contemporaneous listings from both the New York Times and The Chicago Tribune show episodes of Men At Sea airing in that timeslot for what would have been the eighth and ninth special repeats. We're also mindful of the fact that Men At Sea was a wartime public service production that outlets aired whenever they could create space for it in their respective schedules. Given that WMAQ produced the Author's Playhouse, we're reasonably certain that the WMAQ listings in the Chicago Tribune might well be accurate. We do have listings indicating that the 8th and 9th repeats did air in other parts of the U.S.

There were numerous other repeats throughout the Author's Playhouse canon, but without access to those recordings we can't as yet determine whether those repeats were simply rebroadcasts or new performances of a previously aired script.

As best as we can account for the number of actual broadcasts, and the various schedule and sponsor changes we offer the following:

• Hickerson cites 207 broadcasts. We believe there to have been at least 220 broadcasts, including the seven [or nine] Summer 1944 special repeats.
• The NBC-Blue [WENR, Chicago] run of Author's Playhouse produced by WMAQ, Chicago, aired sustained from 41-03-05 to 41-10-22. NBC-Blue [WENR] was NBC's sustaining Chicago station and NBC-Red [WMAQ] was NBC's commercial key station in Chicago.
• NBC-Red [WMAQ] began both producing and broadcasting the series with the broadcast of 41-10-26 and continued broadcasting it either sustained or with local affliate sponsors--continuously--until 42-09-20. Hickerson and SPERDVAC state that there was a break between the broadcasts of 42-02-08 and 42-07-12. There wasn't a break during that period, though there were a couple of day changes during that sustained run.
• The first alleged widely sponsored run was supposed to have been under Philip Morris sponsorship beginning with 44-09-30, when the production moved back to Wednesdays. If, indeed, Philip Morris sponsored that run it wouldn't have discontinued its sponsorship at seventy-seven broadcasts. It would have discontinued at seventy-eight. The seventy-eighth broadcast during that run occured at 44-04-12, not 44-04-05, as cited by Hickerson.
• Hickerson cites the next series of productions continuing--sustained--on 44-04-14, a Friday. There were no Author's Playhouse broadcasts on April 14, 1944. The New York Times lists a special broadcast of Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. at a Federal Workers Fifth War Loan Rally in Washington D.C. on that date. That continuation of the run aired on Fridays until 44-09-29, the same period during which the special Summer 1944 series of repeats of Author's Playhouse aired on Saturdays as a replacement for Truth or Consequences.

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