The Columbia Workshop Radio Program

Background

The Columbia Chain (CBS) began expanding its programming efforts beyond its traditional studio ensemble variety, daily and weekly sketch programs, and farm programming with the advent of the 1930s. In January 1931, CBS introduced an extensive and far more ambitious slate of new programming beginning on New Years Day 1931. Georgia Backus, CBS' head of Dramatic Programming Division assembled an innovative team of CBS' engineers, directors and producers to mount CBS' first series of 'experimental' dramatic productions. The first result was CBS' Columbia Experimental Dramatic Laboratory, an initial series of eleven, cutting edge--for the era--dramatic experiments airing on Wednesday evenings at 10 o'clock EST and 9 o'clock CST. The series premiered on December 26th 1930 and ran for 12 weeks until March 11th 1931. While reportedly well received, Columbia Experimental Dramatic Laboratory was more important for setting the stage for a remarkable history of experimental dramatic programming eventually spanning twenty-six years--and retrospectives spanning over seventy years:

• 1931 The Columbia Experimental Dramatic Laboratory, Season 1
• 1932 The Columbia Experimental Dramatic Laboratory, Season 2
• 1936-1947 Columbia Workshop
• 1940-1941 CBS Forecast
• 1941 26 By Corwin
• 1942 An American In England
• 1944-1944 Columbia Presents Corwin
• 1947 Once Upon A Tune
• 1956-1957 CBS Radio Workshop

The Columbia Chain's first dalliance with experimental drama debuted on December 26th 1930, as the announced "first of three" experiments in radio drama from Columbia Dramatic Director Georgia Backus:

• December 26th 1930 -- Behind the Words: A Drama of Thoughts
• December 29th 1930 -- Evidences. A psychological mystery drama
• January 7th 1931 -- The Threshold. A psychological play.

Thereafter followed another eight experimental dramas of one genre or another between January 14 1931 and March 11 1931.

From the January 23rd 1931 edition of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

ELL, my lad," said the Man With the Big Ear cheerily as he removed his made-to-order earmuff from his megaphonic organ, "I have good news for you. I'm going to read you something."

     Our sigh was lost in the rustle of the sheaf of papers that he pulled from his frockcoat pocket.

     "This," he said triumphantly, "is an advance script of the next of those experimental dramas. As one who has played--when you were but an unimportant tyke, my lad--with De Wolfe Hopper and Otis Skinner and--well let me read."

     "Ladies and gentlemen, we present another play in the series which comprises Columbia's Dramatic Laboratory. These radio dramas are designed to stimulate an interest in experiments made in that art and tonight we are presenting a murder mystery that is baffling the minds of the greatest detectives in the country. We are doing this in the hope that some one of you who are listening in may be able to give the authorities the solution.

     "On the night of Dec. 3 Dave Cross, announder of Station WTAZ, of Newton, Ill., was alone in the studio. A few minutes before midnight some one entered the announcer's booth and killed him. Although there were no sight witnesses, may people were listening to WTAZ on their radio sets that night, heard the events that led up to the tragedy. There's the opening."

     "Now," said our jolly old snooping Auricle, "the chief claim of this play to virtue is the exposition by implication. Not a bad way of putting it. I mean by that the indirect methods of approach and the fairly clever application of the old movie flashback.

     "I cannot say that it is original, this play of Tazwell's. Let me say that it is unique, however, albeit not quite as deftly handled as might be. You see, there are three who have threatened the announcer with death. After he is shot in the studio, realizing the microphone is still alive--as is he--he starts to give the name of his assailant over the air but is silenced by a crushing blow on the head."
He stuffed the script back into his pocket and brought forth one of our missing cigarettes. He winked slyly.

     "But I want you," he said, "to listen to WABC next Wednesday night and see if your somewhat underdeveloped brain can react to the surprise element. Also see if the idea doesn't suggest a rehash of the play "Remote Control" and the murder of that announcer chap out in the Middle West which happened a few months ago."

     He missed the yawn which we were forming in order to disconcert him, for his snooping impulse had caught hold of him and he was at our mail again.
"Ha," he remarked triumphantly, "I knew that remark about underdeveloped grain was justified. Here's some one called R.I. Sheppard, who takes you to task for your criticism of Joyce Kilmer's 'Trees.'

     "Trees," we said with some dignity, "are far too personal things to us to be so coldly immortalized. Kilmer might have written that only God could make the spirit of a tree. Trees have all the human attributes. Kindness and meanness and friendship--oh, never mind. You wouldn't understand, you old snooping fossil. I bet Sheppard would though.

     "And on the other hand," we continued, "Ray Knight's letter here complimenting me on a story I wrote about him balances it a bit. Here's one from Marietta Gretchin which I wish your insatiable curiosity had led you to first.

     "And please tell the Man With the Big Ear," she writes, "that I wish he wouldn't smoke so much. He makes me nervous. If he doesn't stop soon he'll be getting yellow teeth, and then see what kind of an impression he'll make on Lois Bennett. Ha, yourself, you Auricle."

     And a letter from an "Ardent Listener," who is certain that WIlliam Shelley on Death Valley Days, is Harvey Hays. The listener realizes that Hays is broadcasting from Chicago, and is wondering if he hops to New York every Monday night to ake part in the Tuesday broadcast.

     That voice and laugh of William Shelley, "Ardent Listener," have often puzzled even the studio experts. It is Shelley, however, who plays the Death Valley Days. We've seen him, and, besides, we are absolutely certain that Hays does not leave Chicago after his Monday broadcasts.

     It is remarkable though, isn't it?

CBS continued its 1931 series of experimental dramatic offerings with its Second Season of Columbia Experimental Dramatic Laboratory which premiered on Sunday evening, June 5th 1932, running for eighteen installments until October 9th 1932. Equally well received, by the end of its run Columbia Experimental Dramatic Laboratory had introduced many of early Radio's most innovative and creative writers, producers, directors and engineers to the airwaves. Columbia's 1931 and 1932 experimental dramatic undertakings set the standard for hundreds of new programs that began appearing over 1930s Radio throughout the decade.

CBS undertakes its longest-running experimental drama series

The Columbia Broadcasting System's Columbia Workshop built even futher on Columbia's earliest, ground-breaking experimental dramas. It continued--and greatly expanded--the initiatives by CBS engineers, writers and producers to demonstrate the full capabilities of many of the emerging communication and broadcasting technologies of the era. Initiated in 1936 by CBS playwright, engineer, and director, Irving Reis, Reis became the chief engineer, director and production supervisor for the series. Reis' initiatives inaugurated one of Columbia's longest-running network-sustained programming efforts, eventually spanning almost seventy years, on and off, the most famous of which was its Columbia Workshop series:

• Columbia Workshop Experimental Series
• Columbia Workshop Festival Series
• Columbia Workshop
• Columbia Workshop Time Out for Comedy cycle
• Columbia Workshop [1946-1947 post-War series]
• Columbia Workshop Once Upon A Tune cycle

Reis was aided by the best and brightest of the producers, directors, writers and engineers of the entire CBS network. In one instance, all 500 writers, producers, directors and engineers from Columbia's Hollywood studios were deployed to Los Angeles' Olympic Memorial Colliseum for Columbia Workshop's 1st Anniversary production, "The Fall of The City" inspired by Archibald MacLeish.

'Out of the box' thinking was the driving force behind the eventual 370+ productions mounted by the Columbia Workshop initiatives over the years. The Columbia Workshop series introduced America to such Radio luminaries as Norman Corwin, Orson Welles, William Spier, William N. Robson, Charles Vanda, Norm MacDonnell, Lynn Murray, Benjamin Britten, Fletcher Markle, Brewster Morgan, George Zachary, Lud Gluskin, Wilbur Hatch, Leith Stevens, and Elliott Lewis, to name but a handful.

The Columbia chain wasn't the only network experimenting with the technical, contextual and aural broadcast limits of early Radio by any means, but over the course of the twenty year span of Columbia Workshop and its follow-on, CBS Radio Workshop (1956-1957), Columbia produced some of Radio's most enduring, historic, and memorable, cutting edge programming from The Golden Age.

Neither was The Columbia Workshop an overnight success. By the mid-1930s Radio was already congested with predominantly musical, melodramatic serial, and juvenile adventure programming. Mystery, crime and detective genre programming was also beginning to surface over every network. The proliferation of purely commercial programming made it somewhat difficult for Columbia Workshop and other similar, network-sustained programming to find a substantial audience.

Once it did find an audience, both popular and critical acclaim soon followed. The topics and techniques covered by The Columbia Workshop ranged from aural sound shaping breaktroughs, to tone poems for Radio, huge choruses and multiple orchestras, inventive modern compositions by some of America's newest composers and conductors, and even putting The Constitution to music. At its worst, the series was a cutting edge breath of innovative programming during even the earliest years of Radio. At its best, The Columbia Workshop set the bar for innovation, creativity and technical breakthroughs that influenced Radio for the remainder of Radio history.

While Irving Reis deserves the lion's share of the praise for launching and setting the tone for The Columbia Workshop, great CBS Director William N. Robson took over directorial duties with Reis's departure to Paramount Studios in December of 1937. Robson continued Reis's innovative tradition, adding his own extraordinary inventiveness, resourcefulness, and talent-spotting to the succeeding productions.

From the October 2nd 1932 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

     Although there seems to be a general feeling among broadcasters that the listening audiences write fewer and fewer letters as days go by, an interview with Don Clark, Columbia's director of dramatics, disproves it.
     Clark, now in his 16th week with the Columbia Dramatic Laboratory, has found, among other things, that the radio fan will write when he has something of value to say and not just for the sheer fun of writing to someone connected with a broadcasting company.
     His plays and productions, put on the air Sunday nights over WABC, were, as you no doubt know, somewhat out of the ordinary. Consequently they aroused listener interest and the audience was quick to respond by making known its likes and dislikes in letters to the C.B.S.
     It is interesting to observe that of all the mail received a goodly 80 percent applauded the ultra modernistic scientific play "1890 AD." Clark believes that isteners like this kind of play second best only to the mystery thriller which is running the top lanes at the present writing.
     Clark and his able staff of dramatists at WABC are learning much about the technique of presenting radio drama. So successful has been the Columbia Dramatic Laboratory series that it will be continued indefinitely, according to Clark.
     In the earlier broadcasts, Clark arranged to pick up realistic sund effects for the production from points of origination. Clark found that these sound effects were far from realistic and finally substituted man made noises which listeners reported "much more realistic!"

Columbia Workshop debuts it's Experimental Radio Series

From the July 18, 1936 edition of the Oakland Tribune:

NEW EXPERIMENT

     Broadening its experiments in the field of radio drama, the Columbia Broadcasting System announces a new series entitled "Columbia Workshop," in which Irving Reis, young CBS playwright and director, will be given an opportunity to attempt anything new and unusual in voice and sound effect which might help to further radio technique.
     Reis is the young engineer--author who deserted the control room to use his technical knowledge in original productions which won wide acclaim for their new patterns and treatment. The "Workshop" series will consist of half-hour presentations to be heard each week beginning today from 4:30 to 5 p. m. Reis, as producer, will be given a free hand. New writers will create some of the plays; in others, new actors and actresses will be given an opportunity to try out anything unique in microphone manner which they may have conceived.
     During some of the broadcasts, the listening audience will be asked to participate in offering constructive criticism of new production methods. It might be a series of five sounds, with the audience being requested to determine which is the most pleasant to the ear. Then again, they will be asked comparative opinions on five-minute one-act plays, presented first by a carefully rehearsed group of actors, then by a second group which has simply "read over" the lines individually.
     Reis has been responsible for the writing and production of several trail-blazing experimental productions heard over the Columbia network. Outstanding among them were three which evoked wide comment—"St. Louis Blues," "Half Pint Flask" and "Meridian 7-1212."
     "We do not plan to abide by any preordained concept of radio drama," Reis says. "We plan to do almost anything that lends itself to unique treatment and interesting experiments with sound effects and voices."

The Columbia Workshop debuted with relatively little fanfare. And in fact, throughout The Columbia Workshop's history, CBS never quite knew what to do with it, showing almost no interest in promoting the various series' and their derivatives. Of course when it came time for CBS to mount retrospectives of its network history of the past 25, 40, or 70 years it was quick to take credit for its own genius in sustaining the various Columbia Workshop series' for so many years. Orson Welles' and John Houseman's own Mercury Theatre air productions over the years experienced much the same arm's-length treatment from Columbia, as did Norman Corwin with his numerous independent productions over CBS' history. A case in point: the articles to the left on the unprecedented success of Corwin's On A Note of Triumph that garnered CBS the single highest number of North American Radio listeners in history--an estimated 70 million. The timing for CBS' criticism of Columbia Presents Corwin is all the more ironic in the face of the dateline of the Billboard article--August 13, 1945. It was between August 13, 1945 and August 14, 1945 that Norman Corwin--and Orson Welles--hurriedly assembled yet another historic CBS broadcast, Fourteen August--and the follow-on God and Uranium on August 19. To say that CBS' observations about Corwin's body of work were ill-timed is putting it mildly. But Fred Friendly and Edward R. Murrow experienced much the same treatment throughout their own history with CBS. CBS was overjoyed when one of their brilliant teams produced cutting-edge Radio efforts that garnered a lot of press. But insofar as proactively promoting their young geniuses went--not so much, to put it as sanguinely as possible.

Even more ironic, throughout the Workshop's history, CBS' flagship station, WABC [later WCBS], showed the least interest in the series of the various CBS key stations across the chain. The Columbia chain's midwest and west coast key stations and affiliate stations clearly loved the innovative new series. WABC, for its part, didn't even update The New York Times regarding the Workshop's productions for its first year and a half on the air. Contemporaneous newspaper articles cited simply a new series to be collectively referred to as 'Columbia Workshop', and to be produced and directed by Irving Reis as an experiment in sound and voice.

The initial 'experimental Radio' series was an Irving Reis production all the way. A former Engineering Director for the Columbia Chain, Reis' passion was to illustrate, in every tangible, technically demonstrable, and visceral way, the extraordinary possibilities and technologies upon which modern Radio could capitalize to broaden, enhance and expand Radio's reach, application and listening experience.

An out-of-the-box thinker, Irving Reis, with the full cooperation of the Columbia chain, devised--and executed--showcase after showcase of Radio innovations through which to push the envelope of Radio broadcasting technologies and techniques to their absolute technical and artistic limits for the era. The listening audience didn't always grasp the significance of Reis' on-air innovations, but his peers and competitors alike--across America and the world--took notice almost immediately.

The experimental series' first outing foretold what future installments might bring. A two-part presentation, the first half of the program, A Comedy of Danger, sought to create, through state of the art sound-shaping, the most visceral experience yet to air of miners trapped in a flooding coal mine. The second half of the premiere presentation, The Finger of God, utilized a parabolic microphone pickup to trace the movements of performers in a stage play--while the players were moving about the specially designed set (see Popular Mechanics article in the sidebar). Both presentations lent a new perspective to Radio Drama; the ability to tranform one dimensional audio presentations over Radio as a multidimensional experience for the listener.

Over the course of its impressive canon of experimental Radio productions, The Columbia Workshop presented several deliberately distinct cycles of programming, which we'll attempt to summarize here:

• The Experimental Radio cycle [75 Episodes]
• The 1939 Summer Festival cycle [13 Episodes: 8 revivals and 5 new productions]
• The 26 By Corwin cycle [27 Episodes]
• The All Out For Comedy cycle
• The Old Vic cycle
• The Once Upon A Tune [Once Upon A 'Toon] cycle

The Experimental Radio cycle was Irving Reis' pet project and helped to both launch the controversial series as well as pique the interest of Radio engineers, writers and artists the world over.

The Festival Series -- Summer 1939

The first subtle departure in the Columbia Workshop series was its Summer 1939 series of thirteen special request rebroadcasts from The Columbia Workshop's by then prolific output of over 145 original, experimental Radio productions. The thirteen programs were selected in response to the hundreds of thousands of requests, critiques, cards, letters and suggestions sent to The Columbia Workshop over its three previous years. The Summer Series of rebroadcasts also afforded The Columbia Workshop's team a bit of a breather to regroup, reorganize and plan for another full season of innovative Radio presentations.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were newspaper listings and our own correspondence with Norman Corwin.

OTRisms:

The Hickerson Guide cites only 318 Columbia Workshop broadcasts, including 26 By Corwin. In fact there were at least 370 broadcasts of The Columbia Workshop if one includes 26 By Corwin--which we also have. Indeed, if one were to count Once Upon A 'Toon [Once Upon A Tune], the various 'Specials', and the AFRS derivations in circulation the total would rise to well over 400.

We're frankly perplexed by all of the ambiguity and misinformation surrounding the existence--or non-existence--of the remainder of The Columbia Workshop canon not currently in circulation. Our own research disclosed numerous alleged available programs that could not possibly have been broadcast as cited by the collectors. The radioGOLDINdex, while one of the most helpful of the provenances we employed in scrubbing our own collection of 240+ exemplars, was uncharacteristically inaccurate in several instances.

From Hickerson's assertion that there were only 318 broadcasts of The Columbia Workshop, to the radioGOLDINdex's rare inconsistencies, it would appear that a handful of collectors alleging possession of "most of the programs" were exaggerating their own holdings--and the broadcast history of The Columbia Workshop in the process. Even excluding the twenty-seven 26 By Corwin exemplars--which Hickerson states they include--would yield at least 343 broadcasts of The Columbia Workshop.

The recently circulating 38-07-02 097 The Constitution of The United States, comprised of sections from U.S. Constitution is actually 40-11-03 049 The Constitution of The United States, a probable rebroadcast of the 38-07-02 program. The rebroadcast (or reperformed) program can be identified by its announcement of the following Tuesday being Election Day, promoting CBS' forthcoming election coverage. The proper title should probably be Sections from The Constitution of The United States--for at least the 1940 program, in any case.

The Wikipedia Columbia Workshop article cites some misinformation in their log of Columbia Workshop, as follows:

• Episode No. 6, broadcast 36-08-22, is a two part presentation. The first presentation is a technical demonstration entitled, 'March of The Molecules, ' not the Wikipedia cited 'Dance of The Molecules.' As usual, the proof is in the listening.
• Episode No. 13, broadcast 36-10-10 was indeed a 'Sound Demonstration', as were many of Columbia Workshop's 'experimental cycle' of broadcasts. The reported titles for the presentation were 'Imperfect Reception' and 'The Remedy.'
• Episode No. 9, broadcast 36-09-12 is titled 'A Voyage to Brobdingnag.'
• Episode No. 22, broadcast 36-12-19 is titled 'The Gods of The Mountain,' after the story by Lord Dunsany (Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett).
• Episode No. 35, Eve of Saint Agnes was announced as the broadcast of 37-04-04, not 37-03-28.
• Episode No. 30, broadcast 37-02-13, was announced in the closing credits as Pitch and Pitch Perception, one of several planned productions on 'sound and the human ear.'
• Misidentified as simply '(unidentified show),' there was no broadcast on 37-03-07. That broadcast was preempted for a nationally aired debate over the direction of the Supreme Court. The postponement was widely announced in the newspaper listings for that week.
• Episode No. 66, broadcast 37-10-31, was titled 'Sweep' one of several original scripts by Irving Reis.
• Misidentified as simply '(unidentified show),' there was no broadcast on 37-12-02. The series simply moved to Thursdays for the first program of its Third Season, coinciding with the 36th Anniversary of the first Trans-Atlantic radio message.
• The broadcasts of 37-12-23 and 37-12-30 were Parts 1 and 2 of 'Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass.'
• There were no Columbia Workshop broadcasts between 38-08-13 and 38-09-15. The closing announcement of The Devil and Daniel Webster states that it was the last program of the season and that Columbia Workshop "will return in the early fall."

There's absolutely no excuse for rewriting the history of The Columbia Workshop any longer. The research tools are now readily available to anyone on the internet to set Radio history right. The Columbia Workshop is a perfect example of a canon that can no longer go misrepresented--not with a straight face, anyway. This is our first attempt to log The Columbia Workshop. We fully expect to make numerous corrections to this log over the next couple of years. That disclaimer being said, this log is as accurate a representation of the broadcast history of The Columbia Workshop as currently exists from a freely available source--us. We welcome any further help in finally getting the broadcast history of this historically unprecedented canon straight.

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