The Columbia Workshop ||The Fall of the City || 1937

The Columbia Workshop ||The Fall of the City || Broadcast: April 11, 1937

Written by Archibald MacLeish, is the first American verse play written for radio. The 30-minute radio play was first broadcast April 11, 1937, at 7 p.m. ET over the Columbia Broadcasting System (today CBS) as part of the Columbia Workshop radio series. The cast featured Orson Welles and Burgess Meredith. Music was composed and directed by Bernard Herrmann. It is an allegory on the rise of Fascism.

Cast of characters:

House Jameson as Studio Director; Orson Welles as Announcer; Adelaide Klein as Dead Woman; Carleton Young as 1st Messenger; Burgess Meredith as Orator; Dwight Weist as 2nd Messenger; Edgar Stehli as Priest; William Pringle as General; Guy Repp, Brandon Peters, Karl Swenson, Dan Davies, and Kenneth Delmar as Antiphonal Chorus

Production:

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The play was broadcast live from the drill hall of the Seventh Regiment Armory in Manhattan, New York. The site was chosen for the acoustic properties needed for the production. The principal director was Irving Reis who was also the producer. Music was composed and directed by Bernard Herrmann, music director of the Columbia Workshop. William N. Robson was responsible for crowd supervision; Brewster Morgan was editorial supervisor; and the stage manager was Earle McGill.

The production involved the construction of a soundproof isolation booth for Welles. Two hundred extras were used for the crowds, drawn from New York University students, New Jersey high school students and boys clubs.

To simulate a crowd of 10,000, Reis recorded the sounds of the extras during rehearsals, including their shouts. During the actual performance, these recordings were played at four different locations in the Armory; the recordings were played at slightly different speeds to give the effect of a larger crowd.

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