In 2012 and 2013, I taught voiceover classes at Eastern Arizona College. Those classes spun off a class in Radio Theatre. We searched the Internet for scripts of old time radio shows. Over the course of several semesters we produced 19 radio programs based on programs from the Golden Age of Radio. Sadly, one of the members of our group, Sandy Leavitt, passed away shortly before I posted these programs. Here are all 19 programs we produced:
A Study in Wax
Two men trapped in an arctic blizzard with nothing but a phonograph to drive them both mad. Originally aired on “Escape” on February 1, 1953.
Performed by:
Dan Curtis – Narrator
Tim Howell
Brian Friend
Alive in the Grave
The cemetery caretaker and the ashen-faced trembling young man make an odd pair as they stand by an open grave in the pale moon. In the grave is a coffin. The lid has been opened and inside is the freshly buried corpse of a middle aged man who has spent the previous two days in the city morgue. The caretaker assumes the young man is a grave robber and tells him that the police are on their way. The young man tells him that he thinks the man has been buried alive and starts to recount the tale of why he should believe such a strange thing.
Performed by:
Narrator, various voices: Dan Curtis
Caretaker: Kay Curtis
Joe: Brian Friend
Lil: Maddie Hibbard
Cop: Tim Howell
Blondie
Blondie was a radio situation comedy adapted from the long-running Blondie comic strip by Chic Young. The radio program ran on several networks from 1939 to 1950.
Performed by:
Narrator: Dan Curtis
Blondie: Sandy Leavitt
Dagwood: Kay Curtis
Happy Jack: Roger Martin
Appliance Salesperson (Lou Lou): Maddie Hibbard
Blondie – The Picnic
The Bumsteads go on a picnic.
Performed by:
Narrator: Roger Martin
Blondie, Baby Dumpling: Sandy Leavitt
Dagwood/Pladberry: Kay Curtis
Beefum: Roger Martin
Duffy’s Tavern
Duffy’s Tavern was an American radio sit com that ran for a decade on several networks from 1941 to 1951. The program often featured celebrity guest stars but always hooked them around the misadventures of Archie, the tavern’s manager. Archie was often lured into get-rich-quick schemes and romantic missteps, and constantly communicated with malaprops and mixed metaphors.
Performed by:
Archie: Brian Friend
Eddy: Kay Curtis
Miss Duffy: Sandy Leavitt
Finnegan: Tim Howell
I Saw Myself Running
A surrealistic story about a woman’s battle with nightmares. The original ran on February 22, 1953. The dream is one where she sees herself running away from a stranger. Then there are two of her running. After telling her husband of the dream she has the same dream again, except this time she finds herself talking to another version of herself who is afraid because she is trapped in the dream, unable to wake up from the nightmare.
Performed By:
Dan Curtis
Roger Martin
Sandy Leavitt
Maddie Hibbard
My Friend Irma: Ghosts
Jane/Mrs. O’Reilly: Sandy Leavitt
Irma/Mrs. Martin: Maddie Hibbert
Maestro: Kay Curtis
Al: Dan Curtis
Clyde: Brian Friend
Ozzie and Harriett – Halloween
Ozzie and Harriet, or The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, was a family sitcom launched on CBS Radio on October 8, 1944. It starred a real-life family, the Nelsons, who consisted of Ozzie and his wife Harriet, and their kids David and Eric.
Performed by:
Dan Curtis
Harriet, Ricky: Alita Tripp
David: Tim Howell
Ozzy: Nephi Nelson
My Favorite Husband: George’s Will
My Favorite Husband was a radio program and network television series. The original radio show, starring Lucille Ball, evolved into the groundbreaking television sitcom I Love Lucy.
Performed by:
Narrator: Dan Curtis
Liz: Sandy Leavitt
George: Roger Martin
Atterbury: Kay Curtis
Katie: Brianna Friend
Doctor: Brian Friend
My Favorite Husband: Spring Cleaning
Narrator/George: Roger Martin
Liz: Sandy Leavitt
Katie: Brianna Friend
Atterbury: Kay Curtis
My Friend Irma: Irma Meets Jane
This radio show was so popular in the late 1940s that its success led to films, television, a comic strip.
Dependable, level-headed Jane Stacy began each weekly radio program by narrating a misadventure of her innocent, bewildered roommate Irma, a scatterbrained stenographer from Minnesota. The two central characters were in their mid-20s. After the two meet in this first episode, they lived together in an apartment rented from their Irish landlady Mrs. O’Reilly.
Jane: Sandy Leavitt
Irma: Maddie Hubbard
The Abominable Snowman
A horror story set in the Himalayas originally broadcast in 1954. You are high on the frozen float of a great mountain terrified and caught in a blizzard while the thing for which you’ve been hunting has suddenly become the hunter and if it finds you then for you and your companions there can be no escape…
Narrator: Dan Curtis
Paul: Kay Curtis
Nahsong: Brianna Friend
Allen: Tim Howells
Lama: Dan Curtis
Frank: Brian Friend
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Fall of the House of Usher” is based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839.
Performed by:
Narrator: Roger Martin
2nd Narrator/Roderick: Marlin Whetton
Valet: Dan Curtis
The Outer Limit
A pilot flies his ship to the outer limit of the gravitation field. It’s supposed to be a 10 minute flight. In flight he reports a UFO and decides to chase it. He disappears from radar and is missing for hours before reappearing and landing his plane.
Performed by:
Narrator/Charlie/Sarge: Dan Curtis
Hank: Tim Howell
Steve: Steven Garcia
Elsie: Maddie Hibbert
Donaldson: Kay Curtis
The Tenth Planet
A man’s search for his missing brother, an atomic scientist, leads to an alien conspiracy to kidnap Earth’s leading minds..
Walker: Tim Howell
Jean: Maddie Hibbert
Webster: Brian Friend
Bobby: Ethan Curtis
Collins: Kay Curtis
Torgood: Roger Martin
The Time Machine
HG Wells immortal classic is brought to life in this Radio Theatre production.
Performed by:
Steven Garcia
Brianna Friend
Three Skeleton Key
Three Skeleton Key is a classic story of terror about three men who are in a lighthouse when it is attacked by a horde of ravenous rats.
Narrator: Roger Martin
Jean: Brian Friend
Louis: Kay Curtis
Auguste: Steven Garcia
Voice on the Wire
Trapped on an island, a voice on the telephone warns a woman that she has only four hours to live. “No doubt the telephone is an ingenious invention but as far as I know no one as yet has been able to commit murder over it although many people have wanted to. Still there are worse things you can get on the phone than the wrong number especially if you happen to call the voice on the wire…”
Narrator: Dan Curtis
Doctor: Brian Friend
Geraldine: Brianna Friend
Voice/Harvey/David: Kay Curtis
Laura: Maddie Hibbert
Sorry Wrong Number
This one-woman radio drama was voiced by Agnes Moorehead, who went on to play Endora in Bewitched. Produced for radio in 1943, Orson Welles declared it ‘the greatest single script ever written.’
Mrs. Stevens, an ill-tempered handicap accidentally intercepts a phone call between two men plotting a murder. She tries to get help from the operator, the police and a hospital and becomes more frantic as time passes. In the final moments of the program, she realizes that she is the intended victim.
Performed by Sandy Leavitt
Audio Coming January 22, 2025