What happens
Luigi Basko, a newly arrived immigrant, is a night school student who is cast as Christopher Columbus in his class's Columbus Day play. He writes letters to his mother in Italy describing his life in America. After he loses the three pages of the script, he tries to memorize the lines in a rush, and his classmates help him piece the play back together. His teacher, Miss Spalding, is upset with him for the chaotic result, and the story follows the fallout as the class performs in front of the principal and the head of the Board of Education. The series is Life with Luigi, first broadcast on October 11, 1949, starring J. Carol Nash as Luigi, with Alan Reed in the cast.
A night school class in Chicago, and the Franklin High School Columbus Day program
Characters: Luigi Basko, Miss Spalding, Pasquale, Rosa, Schultz, Horowitz, Olson, Miss Pauling
Listen for: Luigi's letters to his mother, the lost script, and the class's uneven Columbus Day performance
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.