What happens
Jimmy Connors, a high school drummer, forms a dance orchestra with his friend Mary Holden, who will sing with the band, after the school band's old-fashioned concerts stop appealing to him. Jimmy persuades the principal to allow a school dance in place of the usual concert, and he talks Mary into singing his new song. Meanwhile he struggles to tell his widowed mother that he wants a career in music rather than medicine. The program is Lux Radio Theatre, first broadcast on 1940-10-28, and it stars Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, adapted from the MGM film Strike Up the Band.
Riverwood High School and the Connors home in a small town, with a visit to a Hollywood news segment in the broadcast interval.
Characters: Jimmy Connors, Mary Holden, Mr. Judd, Mrs. Connors, Willie, Annie, Phil, Barbara Francis
Listen for: Jimmy's conversations with his mother about giving up medicine for music, and his planning with Mary to raise money for a trip to Chicago.
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.