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Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a
dramatized
Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...
, purely acoustic
performance
A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.
Management science
In the work place ...
. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story: "It is auditory in the physical dimension but equally powerful as a visual force in the psychological dimension." Radio drama includes plays specifically written for radio,
docudrama
Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event".
Docudramas typic ...
, dramatized works of
fiction
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditi ...
, as well as
plays
Play most commonly refers to:
* Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment
* Play (theatre), a work of drama
Play may refer also to:
Computers and technology
* Google Play, a digital content service
* Play Framework, a Java framework
* P ...
originally written for the theatre, including
musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movemen ...
, and
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
.
Radio drama achieved widespread popularity within a decade of its initial development in the 1920s. By the 1940s, it was a leading international popular entertainment. With the advent of
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
in the 1950s radio drama began losing its audience. However, it remains popular in much of the world.
Recordings of OTR (
old-time radio
The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the early ...
) survive today in the audio archives of collectors, libraries and museums, as well as several online sites such as
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
.
By the 21st century, radio drama had a minimal presence on terrestrial radio in the United States, with much American radio drama being restricted to rebroadcasts of programmes from previous decades. However, other nations still have thriving traditions of radio drama. In the United Kingdom, for example, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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...
produces and broadcasts hundreds of new radio plays each year on
Radio 3,
Radio 4, and
Radio 4 Extra
BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC Radio 7) is a British digital radio station from the BBC, broadcasting archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes nationally, 24 hours a day. It is the sister station of BBC Radio 4 and the p ...
. Like the US, Australia
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
has abandoned broadcasting drama but in New Zealand
RNZ continues to promote and broadcast a variety of drama over its airwaves.
Thanks to advances in digital recording and Internet distribution, radio drama experienced a revival around 2010.
Podcasting
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...
offered the means of inexpensively creating new radio dramas, in addition to the distribution of vintage programs.
The terms ''audio drama'' or ''audio theatre'' are sometimes used synonymously with ''radio drama''; however, audio drama or audio theatre may not necessarily be intended specifically for broadcast on radio. Audio drama can also be found on
CDs,
cassette tape
The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...
s, podcasts,
webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, web ...
s, or other digital downloads as well as broadcast radio.
History
The Roman playwright
Seneca
Seneca may refer to:
People and language
* Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname
* Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America
** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people
Places Extrat ...
has claim as a forerunner of radio drama because "his plays were performed by readers as sound plays, not by actors as stage plays...
this respect Seneca had no significant successors until 20th-century technology made possible the widespread dissemination of sound plays."
1880–1930: Early years
Radio drama traces its roots back to the 1880s: "In 1881 French engineer Clement Ader had filed a patent for 'improvements of Telephone Equipment in Theatres (
Théâtrophone
Théâtrophone ("the theatre phone") was a telephonic distribution system available in portions of Europe that allowed the subscribers to listen to opera and theatre performances over the telephone lines. The théâtrophone evolved from a Clément ...
). English-language radio drama seems to have started in the United States. ''A Rural Line on Education'', a brief sketch specifically written for radio, aired on
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
's
KDKA in 1921, according to historian Bill Jaker. Newspaper accounts of the era report on a number of other drama experiments by America's commercial radio stations:
KYW broadcast a season of complete operas from Chicago starting in November 1921. In February 1922, entire
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
musical comedies with the original casts aired from
WJZ's Newark studios. Actors
Grace George
Grace George (December 25, 1879 – May 19, 1961) was a prominent American stage actress, who had a long career on Broadway stage and also appeared in two films.
Biography
Grace George was born on December 25, 1879. She married producer Willia ...
and
Herbert Hayes
Herbert Harrison Heyes (August 3, 1889 – May 31, 1958) was an American film actor. He appeared in nearly 100 films between 1915 and 1956, including the famed 1947 film ''Miracle on 34th Street'', in which he played an ahistorical "Mr. Gimbel, ...
performed an entire play from a San Francisco station in the summer of 1922.
An important turning point in radio drama came when
Schenectady, New York
Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...
's
WGY, after a successful tryout on August 3, 1922, began weekly studio broadcasts of full-length stage plays in September 1922, using music, sound effects and a regular troupe of actors, The WGY Players. Aware of this series, the director of
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
's
WLW
WLW (700 AM) is a commercial news/talk radio station licensed to Cincinnati, Ohio. Owned by iHeartMedia, WLW is a clear-channel station, often identifying itself as The Big One.
WLW operates with around the clock. Its daytime signal provides ...
began regularly broadcasting one-acts (as well as excerpts from longer works) in November.
[Lawrence Lichty, "Radio Drama: The Early Years" in Lawrence Lichty and Malachi Topping (eds): ''American Broadcasting'' (New York, Hastings House, 1975).] The success of these projects led to imitators at other stations. By early 1923, original dramatic pieces written specially for radio were airing on stations in Cincinnati (''When Love Wakens'' by WLW's Fred Smith),
Philadelphia (''The Secret Wave'' by Clyde A. Criswell) and Los Angeles (''At Home'' over
KHJ). That same year, WLW (in May) and WGY (in September) sponsored scripting contests, inviting listeners to create original plays to be performed by those stations' dramatic troupes.
Listings in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' and other sources for May 1923 reveal at least 20 dramatic offerings were scheduled (including one-acts, excerpts from longer dramas, complete three- and four-act plays, operettas and a
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...
adaptation), either as in-studio productions or by remote broadcast from local theaters and opera houses. An early British drama broadcast was of
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream
''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a comedy written by William Shakespeare 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict amon ...
'' on
2LO on 25 July 1923.
Serious study of American radio drama of the 1920s and early 1930s is, at best, very limited. Unsung pioneers of the art include: WLW's Fred Smith;
Freeman Gosden
Freeman Fisher "Gozzie" Gosden (May 5, 1899 – December 10, 1982) was an American radio comedian, actor and pioneer in the development of the situation comedy form. He is best known for his work in the radio series ''Amos 'n' Andy''.
Life and ...
and
Charles Correll
Charles James Correll (February 2, 1890 – September 26, 1972) was an American radio comedian, actor and writer, known best for his work in the radio series ''Amos 'n' Andy'' with Freeman Gosden. Correll voiced the main character Andy Brown, al ...
(who popularized the dramatic
serial); ''
The Eveready Hour
''The Eveready Hour'' was the first sponsor (commercial), commercially sponsored variety program in the history of broadcasting. It premiered December 4, 1923 (or, according to other sources, November 4, 1923, or February 12, 1924), on WFAN, WEAF ...
'' creative team (which began with one-act plays but was soon experimenting with hour-long combinations of drama and music on its weekly variety program); the various acting troupes at stations like WLW, WGY,
KGO and a number of others, frequently run by women like Helen Schuster Martin and Wilda Wilson Church; early network continuity writers like Henry Fisk Carlton, William Ford Manley and Don Clark; producers and directors like Clarence Menser and Gerald Stopp; and a long list of others who were credited at the time with any number of innovations but who are largely forgotten or undiscussed today.
Elizabeth McLeod
Elizabeth McLeod (born 1963) is a journalist and broadcast historian who lives and works on the coast of Maine. She is best known for her extensive research into the origin and history of ''Amos 'n' Andy'', an authoritative study first available o ...
's 2005 book on Gosden and Correll's early work is a major exception, as is Richard J. Hand's 2006 study of horror radio, which examines some programs from the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Another notable early radio drama, one of the first specially written for the medium in the UK, was ''A Comedy of Danger'' by
Richard Hughes, broadcast by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
on January 15, 1924, about a group of people trapped in a Welsh coal mine. One of the earliest and most influential French radio plays was the prize-winning ''Marémoto'' ('Seaquake'), by Gabriel Germinet and Pierre Cusy, which presents a realistic account of a sinking ship before revealing that the characters are actually actors rehearsing for a broadcast. Translated and broadcast in Germany and England by 1925, the play was originally scheduled by