What happens
Jack Benny, learning that Michael Curtis will direct a dramatic sketch on the Lady Esther Screen Guild Players, phones producer Jean Hersholt to ask for a part. Hersholt turns him down, so Benny pursues the role by calling Curtis and then the sketch's star, Barbara Stanwick, who suggests he speak to Hersholt. Benny then arrives at Stanwick's home for a rehearsal, where Basil Rathbone is already waiting and a rivalry over the lead develops. The sketch is a domestic drama about a strained marriage, and Benny is cast first as a butler before the rehearsal grows increasingly chaotic. The episode is a comedy program in the Screen Guild Theater series, first broadcast on March 27, 1944. The leads include Barbara Stanwick, Basil Rathbone and Jack Benny.
Telephone calls between Hollywood figures and a rehearsal at Barbara Stanwick's home for a Lady Esther Screen Guild Players radio sketch
Characters: Jack Benny, Jean Hersholt, Barbara Stanwick, Basil Rathbone, Michael Curtis, Truman Bradley, Smedley
Listen for: Jack Benny's repeated telephone mix-ups and his attempts to win a part, followed by the rehearsal scene at Stanwick's house with Rathbone's exchanges with Benny
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.