What happens
Broadway producer Oscar Jaffe, a flamboyant impresario whose recent productions have failed badly, is facing financial ruin and creditors. His former lover, the actress Lily Garland, is returning from Hollywood on the same train he is riding. Jaffe's loyal assistant Owen O'Malley and business manager Oliver Webb help him plan a way back into the theatre. The opening of the episode of The Mercury Theatre on the Air, based on the Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur play, was broadcast on March 24, 1939. Orson Welles and Alice Landy lead the cast, with Sam Levine as O'Malley.
Broadway theatre offices in New York and a passenger train, the Twentieth Century, travelling from Chicago
Characters: Oscar Jaffe, Lily Garland, Owen O'Malley, Oliver Webb, Max Jacobs, Mildred Plotkin
Listen for: Jaffe's grand speeches about the theatre and the sharp exchanges between Jaffe, O'Malley and Webb as the train departs
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.