Author: Aldous Huxley
Six hundred years in the future, society is tightly controlled via a rigid caste system and genetic engineering, with citizens kept passive and obedient by recreational drugs and promiscuous sex. Based on a novel of the same name, first published in 1932. Featuring Joseph Kearns, William Conrad, Lurene Tuttle.
Author: George R. Stewart
A violent storm, called Maria, hits the west coast of America. Based on a novel first published in 1941. Featuring William Conrad (narrator).
Author: Ray Bradbury
Season of Disbelief — An elderly woman tries to persuade a pair of disbelieving children that she, too, was once young. Based on a short story first published in Collier’s magazine, on 25 November 1950; and later as a chapter in Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, in 1957. Featuring Ray Bradbury (narrator), John Dehner, Virginia Gregg.
Hail and Farewell — A twelve-year-old boy is forced to move from town to town every few years, finding new ‘parents’ each time, because he appears never to age. Based on a short story first published in Today, on 29 March 1953; and later in Ray Bradbury’s short-story collection The Golden Apples of the Sun, in 1953. Featuring Ray Bradbury (narrator), John Dehner, Virginia Gregg.
Original script: Norman Katkov
A series of snapshots of life in New York city. Featuring Clifton Fadiman (narrator).
Original script: Stanley Niss
Real-life former detectives solve a fictional crime. Featuring Larry Haines, Ken Lynch, Elspeth Eric, John Sylvester.
Original radio play: Ed Vertier and Don Clark
The classic story of Cinderella told in two ways: the traditional version and an updated modern one. Featuring Vincent Price, Lurene Tuttle, Harry Bartell, Jeanne Bates, Vic Perrin, Jack Kruschen, Jeanette Nolan, Virginia Gregg, Peter Leeds.
Authors: Aldous Huxley and Christopher Isherwood
When a farm worker’s mysterious power of healing, which allows him to cure both animals and people just with his hands, is revealed to the world, he soon discovers that his gift may also be a curse. Based on an unproduced film treatment from the 1930s, later published as Jacob’s Hands: A Fable, in 1998. Featuring Raymond Massey, Herb Butterfield, Helen Kleeb, Vic Perrin, Lawrence Dobkin, Christopher Isherwood, Janet Stewart.
Original script: William Woodson, Lou Houston and Larry Thor
A pair of record collectors is interviewed about their collections, with their preference for older, ‘classical’ popular music causing them to be caustically dismissive of more modern recordings. Featuring Howard McNear, Margaret Whiting, Margaret Young, Lyn Murray, John Dehner.
Author: John Cheever
A couple purchases a new radio, but after discovering that it is picking up conversations from nearby apartments, the wife finds it impossible to resist listening in on their neighbours’ lives. Based on a short story first published in The New Yorker magazine, on 17 May 1947; and later in John Cheever’s short-story collection The Enormous Radio and Other Stories, in 1953. Featuring William Conrad (narrator), Helen Kleeb, Charlotte Lawrence, Hans Conried, Virginia Gregg, Irene Tedrow, Eve McVey, George Walsh.
Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
An aviator who has crashed in the desert encounters an alien boy whom he calls the Little Prince, who has arrived on Earth from his home ‘planet’ of asteroid B-612. Based on a novella first published in 1943. Featuring Raymond Burr, Richard Beals, Joseph Kearns, Ben Wright.
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The CBS Radio Workshop was an experimental dramatic radio anthology series that aired on CBS from January 27, 1956, until September 22, 1957. Subtitled “radio’s distinguished series to man’s imagination,” it was a revival of several earlier series on CBS — Columbia Experimental Laboratory (1931), Columbia Experimental Dramatic Laboratory (1932) and Columbia Workshop (1936-1943, 1946-47). Some of the same writers and directors employed on the earlier series were involved in the 1950s revival. The CBS Radio Workshop was one of American network radio’s last attempts to hold on to, and perhaps recapture, some of the demographics they had lost to television in the post-World War II era.