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Columbia Workshop was a radio series that aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from 1936 to 1943, returning in 1946–47.
Irving Reis
The series began as the idea of Irving Reis.[1] Reis had begun his radio career as an engineer and developed a fascination with the possibilities of the relatively new medium. His idea was to use experimental modes of narrative to enhance the way a narrative was conveyed over the radio. Reis had isolated attempts to experiment on the radio: Before the Columbia Workshop's debut, he had directed at least a few radio dramas. For Reis, the Columbia Workshop was a platform for developing new techniques for presentation on radio as noted in the debut broadcast:
- The Columbia Workshop dedicates itself to the purposes of familiarizing you with the story behind radio, both in broadcasting, as well as in aviation, shipping, communication and pathology, and to experiment in new techniques with a hope of discovering or evolving new and better forms of radio presentation, with especial emphasis on radio drama; to encourage and present the work of new writers and artists who may have fresh and vital ideas to contribute.[2]
As a sustaining program, the Workshop served as a symbol to prove to the public (and the Federal Communications Commission) that CBS was concerned with educating and serving the public.
Early shows on the Workshop exemplified Reis's penchant for experimentation through narrative and technical means. The second program, Broadway Evening followed a couple as they meandered down Broadway during an evening. A subsequent show had at least 30 characters functioning within a half-hour drama. Among the technical demonstrations were sound effects, the use of various kinds of microphones to achieve various aural effects and voice impersonators (including sound effects produced by voice).
Reis called upon others to try their hand in writing new or adapting existing material for the experimental nature of the Workshop. Orson Welles did a two-part adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet (mentioned along with the Workshop in the fictitious film Me and Orson Welles), as well as a 30-minute condensation of Macbeth. Irwin Shaw contributed one show, and Stephen Vincent Benét adapted several of his short stories. Reis also experimented with readings and dramatizations of poetry, including works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Masefield and Edgar Allan Poe. One of the most notable presentations of Reis's tenure was Archibald MacLeish's original radio play, The Fall of the City. With a cast that included Burgess Meredith, Orson Welles and 300 students, the play was notable for its portrayal of the collapse of a city under an unnamed dictator, a commentary on fascism in Germany and Italy.
Reis recognized music as an important part of radio presentation. As part of CBS's commissioning of five classical composers to write original works for radio, Deems Taylor narrated a concert (November 7, 1936) which demonstrated the possibilities of idiomatic music composition for radio by playing orchestrations of three works by staff arranger Amadeo de Fillipi.[3]
Among the most significant musical contributions Reis made was appointing Bernard Herrmann music director of the Workshop.[4] Herrmann had previously worked on CBS primarily as a conductor. He had composed his first radio drama for the Workshop, but it was only after his second program, Rhythm of the Jute Mill (broadcast December 12, 1936) that the appointment was made. Thereafter Herrmann composed many radio shows himself, also conducting the music of others and even proposing a show entirely devoted to music composed for the Workshop.[5]
Other significant musical contributions during Reis's directorship include Paul Sterrett's and Leith Stevens's score for a two-part presentation of Alice in Wonderland in which music took the place of all sound effects, and Marc Blitzstein's half-hour musical I've Got the Tune, which similarly tried to convey sound effects and long-distance travel through purely musical means.
William N. Robson
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On the broadcast of December 23, 1937 (the first of a two-part dramatization of Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking-Glass), it was announced that William N. Robson had succeeded Irving Reis as director of the Columbia Workshop. Reis moved to Hollywood and continued his career in the film industry. Though the Workshop continued some experimentation, Robson placed greater emphasis on good dramatic adaptations, rather than didactic explanations of radio techniques.
Robson was not averse to experimentation. His San Quentin Prison Break, originally broadcast prior to the Workshop on January 16, 1935 was based on an actual incident. To achieve a sense of realism, the dramatization was a combination news report or documentary. Unlike most radio dramas, there was no narrator involved. This was later rebroadcast as part of the Workshop on September 10, 1936.
Under Robson's aegis, the Workshop was able to broadcast a number of notable shows. Known more as a film director, Pare Lorentz wrote and directed Ecce Homo, a story concerning the relationship of man and technology. Both Irwin Shaw and Archibald MacLeish were invited back to write and direct shows as they had done under Reis's leadership. The Workshop extended its experimental mode by preceding the new MacLeish play, Air Raid with a broadcast of its rehearsal. Stephen Vincent Benèt continued to write for the Workshop, and author Wilbur Daniel Steele made his own adaptations of his previously written short stories. Arch Oboler, known for Lights Out! series, contributed one script, as did Thornton Wilder and budding writer Arthur Laurents.
At times, Robson reached beyond the typical crop of radio authors, selecting at least one script (Anita Fairgrieve's Andrea del Sarto), from his class in radio writing at New York University as well as soliciting scripts on the air from the listening audience.
With Bernard Herrmann continuing as music director, Robson (probably at Herrmann's insistence) included a few extended musical works and opera on the Workshop. Frederick Delius's Hassan, and two operas by Vittorio Giannini, Beauty and the Beast and Blennerhasset, were among those heard. Robson apparently stepped down sometime in mid-1939, after which the Workshop was somewhat adrift. Brewster Morgan and Earle McGill are credited as being those responsible for continuing the series.
Norman Corwin
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Norman Corwin had been a rising star at CBS for a few years, and had even some of his work aired on the Workshop as early as 1938, when his adaptation of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage aired. But his sense of social justice again changed the direction of the Workshop into one frequently addressing current issues. By the fall 1940, Corwin was leading the Workshop, and in 1941, the series was giving the subtitle 26 by Corwin, attesting to the author's seemingly indefatigable energy. Given Corwin's strong interest in issues of the day, it is ironic he left the Workshop just one month prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Final years
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It is not entirely clear who led the Columbia Workshop during 1942, but interest in the program was clearly waning. There were a few significant programs (historically the most interesting of them is probably the airing of John Cage's and Kenneth Patchen's The City Wears a Slouch Hat). There are only a few references to shows in 1943. The show had a revival in the 1946–47 season. When it was revived in 1956, it was retitled the CBS Radio Workshop.
Radio techniques
The Columbia Workshop gave authors, directors, sound engineers and composers many opportunities to experiment with the use of sound as a device for enhancing narrative.
Sound filters
Buck Rogers was broadcast from a 21st-floor studio that had been troubled with air conditioning noises. At a bend in a duct the air gave a whoosh that had been difficult to dampen. Later, when it became necessary to suggest a rocket traveling through outer space, someone remembered the duct and put a microphone in the bend. Whenever Buck Rogers was on the move, the microphone was opened, producing the sound of a spaceship. This was the first development in sound filters.
Filters developed upon the need for radio directors to find a way to portray a voice over the telephone. The filters were generally small boxes through which a microphone circuit could be shunted. The box had dials on its surface. Its inner mechanism could remove upper or lower tones or a combination of them to give an incomplete reproduction, as given by a telephone. The dials allowed the engineer to vary the effect, creating varieties of incompleteness.[6] It became common for radio personnel to play around with the filters to find new sounds, and then having radio shows based upon their discoveries.
Staff
Many of the staff who worked on the Columbia Workshop would continue with CBS and work for television.
- Bernard Herrmann, composer
- Earle McGill, writer, director
- Irving Reis, writer, director
- William N. Robson, writer, director
- Leith Stevens, composer
- Guy Della-Cioppa, writer
Award
The Columbia Workshop received a 1946 Peabody Award for Outstanding Entertainment in Drama.[7]
List of Columbia Workshop programs
This is a list of all the Columbia Workshop programs, giving known information about authors, adaptors, directors/producers, composers.[8] Occasional remarks have been included. Gaps in dates usually refer to programs that were pre-empted. Information for the years 1942–43 is difficult to come by.
| Date | Title | Writer | Adaptation | Director/Producer | Music | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 18, 1936 | A Comedy of Danger | Richard Hughes | - | Myron Sattler | - | First show |
| The Finger of God | Percival Wilde | |||||
| July 25, 1936 | Broadway Evening | Leopold Proser | - | Irving Reis | - | - |
| August 1, 1936 | Technical Demonstration | - | - | Irving Reis | - | - |
| Cartwheel | Vic Knight | |||||
| August 8, 1936 | Experiment | Mary Parkington | - | Irving Reis | - | - |
| Highway Incident | Brian J. Byrne | |||||
| August 15, 1936 | Case History | Milton M. E. Geiger | - | Irving Reis | - | Fantasy of pilot in airline crash |
| August 22, 1936 | The March of the Molecules | Orestes H. Caldwell (FRC commissioner) | - | Irving Reis | - | Demonstration of how radio works |
| There Must Be Something Else | Helen Bergovoy | |||||
| September 5, 1936 | San Quentin Prison Break | William N. Robson | - | William N. Robson | - | Rebroadcast of a play originally broadcast January 16, 1935 |
| September 12, 1936 | Voyage to Brobdingnag | Jonathan Swift | Leopold Proser | Irving Reis | - | - |
| September 19, 1936 | Hamlet, Acts 1-2 | William Shakespeare | Orson Welles | Orson Welles | - | - |
| September 26, 1936 | The Dream Maker | Charles Burton | - | Irving Reis | - | Fantasy of how dreams are made |
| Shadows That Walk In | - | Ghost analysis | ||||
| October 3, 1936 | St. Louis Blues | |||||
| October 10, 1936 | Sound Demonstration | |||||
| October 17, 1936 | Dauber | John Masefield | Burke Boyce | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | |
| October 24, 1936 | Letting the Cat Out of the Bag | - | - | - | - | Interview on vocal sound effects with Brad Barker and Madeleine Pearce |
| November 7, 1936 | Music for Radio | Narration by Deems Taylor | - | Davidson Taylor | Debussy: Golliwogg's Cakewalk, Schumann: Traumerei, Bizet: Farandole (from L'Arlesienne Suite) orchestrated by Amadeo di Fillipi |
To illustrate idiomatic use of radio orchestration for the Columbia Composers' Commission |
| November 14, 1936 | Hamlet, acts 3-5 | William Shakespeare | Orson Welles | Orson Welles | - | |
| November 21, 1936 | The Use of Theaters for Broadcasts | E. E. Free | - | Irving Reis | - | Electrical demonstration |
| 2000 Were Chosen | E.P. Conkle | - | ||||
| November 28, 1936 | The American Patent System | Irving Reis | - | Irving Reis | - | Honoring 100th Anniversary of the U.S. Patent Office |
| December 12, 1936 | Rhythm of the Jute Mill | William N. Robson | - | William N. Robson | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| December 19, 1936 | The Gods of the Mountains | Lord Dunsany | - | - | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| December 26, 1936 | The Happy Prince | Oscar Wilde | - | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| January 2, 1937 | Public Domain | Eustis Wyatt | - | Earle McGill | - | Fantasy of PD characters yearning for release from stories |
| January 9, 1937 | Interview with a Control Engineer, part 1 | van Voorhees, control engineer | - | - | Clyde Borne, singer | Control sound engineering |
| A Voyage to Lilliput | Jonathan Swift | (Irving Reis?) | Irving Reis | - | ||
| January 16, 1937 | Interview with a Control Engineer, part 2 | - | - | - | - | microphone mixing |
| An Incident of the Cosmos | Paul Y. Anderson | - | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | Extraterrestrials witness the end of Earth | |
| January 23, 1937 | The Signal-Man | Charles Dickens | - | Irving Reis and Earle McGill | - | - |
| January 30, 1937 | Evolution of the Negro Spiritual | - | - | Irving Reis | arrangements by Clyde Barry & Helen Bergeron | - |
| February 6, 1937 | Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Leopold Proser | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| February 13, 1937 | Sound and the Human Ear | Narrated by Dr. John Steinberg | - | Irving Reis(and pro.) | - | demonstration of pitch perception |
| February 28, 1937 | Macbeth | William Shakespeare | Orson Welles | Orson Welles | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| March 7, 1937 | - | - | - | - | (unidentified show) | |
| March 14, 1937 | Split Seconds | Irving Reis | - | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | Script first broadcast in 1931 |
| March 21, 1937 | Danse Macabre | Helen Bergeron, George Zachary | - | Irving Reis | Camille Saint-Saëns | - |
| March 28, 1937 | Eve of St. Agnes | John Keats | Edward A. Byron | Edward A. Byron | - | - |
| April 4, 1937 | Big Ben | John Mossman | - | John Mossman | - | - |
| April 4, 1937 | Crisis | Roy Winsower | - | Roy Winsower | - | - |
| April 11, 1937 | The Fall of the City | Archibald MacLeish | - | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| April 18, 1937 | R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) | Karel Čapek | - | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| April 25, 1937 | St. Louis Blues | Irving Reis | - | Irving Reis | Blues by W.C. Handy | Orig. written in 1932; first play for radio about radio; First heard on the Workshop Oct. 3, 1936 |
| May 2, 1937 | Drums of Conscience | - | - | Irving Reis | - | - |
| May 9, 1937 | Supply and Demand | Irwin Shaw | - | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | Worthington Minor, "director of dialogue and staging" |
| May 16, 1937 | Paul Revere | Stephen Vincent Benét | - | Bernard Herrmann | - | |
| May 23, 1937 | A Night at an Inn | Lord Dunsany | - | Irving Reis | Debussy, conducted by Bernard Herrmann | - |
| May 30, 1937 | Discoverie | Merrill Denison | - | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| June 6, 1937 | Downbeat on Murder | Charles Tazewell | - | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | voices change into musical notes |
| June 13, 1937 | The Young King | Oscar Wilde | - | Irving Reis | - | - |
| June 20, 1937 | Red-Head Baker | Albert Maltz | - | Joseph Losey | Bernard Herrman | - |
| June 27, 1937 | Babouk | Guy Endore | Lester Fuller | Edward A. Blatt, Irving Reis | Bernard Herrman | - |
| July 4, 1937 | Mr. Sycamore | Robert Ayre | Leonard Proser | - | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| July 11, 1937 | The Tell-Tale Heart | Edgar Allan Poe | Charles Tazewell | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | Used sounds of real heartbeats |
| July 18, 1937 | Fifty Grand | Ernest Hemingway | - | Bernard Herrmann | - | |
| July 25, 1937 | A Matter of Life and Death | Leopold Atlas | - | Irving Reis | - | - |
| August 1, 1937 | Daniel Webster and the Sea Serpent | Stephen Vincent Benét | Sheldon Stark | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| August 8, 1937 | An Incident of the Cosmos(rep) | Paul Y. Anderson | - | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| Last Citation | John Whedon | |||||
| August 15, 1937 | Escape (part 1) | John Galsworthy | Leopold Proser | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| August 22, 1937 | Escape (part 2) | John Galsworthy | Leopold Proser | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| August 29, 1937 | The Half-Pint Flask | Dubose Heyward | Irving Reis | William N. Robson | (Victor Young?) | - |
| August 30, 1937 | Twelfth Night | William Shakespeare | Orson Welles | Orson Welles, director, John Houseman, producer | - | Includes readings by Pepys, Manningham, Mazlitt, and Brandes |
| September 5, 1937 | S.S. San Pedro | James G. Cozzens | Betsy Tuttle | William N. Robson | Charles Paul | James Gould Cozzens |
| September 12, 1937 | Death of a Queen | Hilaire Belloc | Val Gielgud | Val Gielgud | - | Originated from BBC in London |
| September 19, 1937 | Riders to the Sea | John Millington Synge | - | Irving Reis | - | Originated from Dublin, Ireland |
| September 26, 1937 | Alice in Wonderland, part 1 | Lewis Carroll | William N. Robson | William N. Robson | Paul Sterrett | - |
| October 3, 1937 | Alice in Wonderland, part 2 | Lewis Carroll | William N. Robson | William N. Robson | Paul Sterrett and Leith Stevens | - |
| October 10, 1937 | Meridian 7-1212 | Irving Reis | - | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| October 17, 1937 | The Killers | Ernest Hemingway | Irving Reis | Irving Reis | - | - |
| October 17, 1937 | Illusion | Georgia Backus | - | Georgia Backus | - | - |
| October 24, 1937 | I've Got the Tune | Marc Blitzstein | - | Marc Blitzstein | - | |
| October 31, 1937 | Sweepstakes | Irving Reis & Charles Martin | - | Irving Reis & Charles Martin | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| November 7, 1937 | The Horla | Guy de Maupassant | Charles Tazewell | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | - |
| November 14, 1937 | Mr. Justice | Irving Reis | - | - | - | |
| November 21, 1937 | Georgia Transport | John Williams Andrews | - | Irving Reis | Bernard Herrmann | Repeat from Sept. 27, 1937 |
| November 28, 1937 | First Violin | Norman Davey | Sally Russell | Irving Reis | - | - |
| December 2, 1937 | - | - | - | Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=The_Columbia_Workshop