Remembering Bill Herz, War of the Worlds Actor

Fourth from right, Bill Herz with cast and crew members of “Too Much Johnson” in 1938 (including Orson Welles, seated). CreditTheater of Orson Welles

Hello America,

Hear Again Radio Project morns the loss of the last surviving cast member from Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater's landmark War Of The Worlds, Bill Herz. Next time you are at Sardi's in New York, look for Mr Herz at table 4.

Read about Bill and his role in with Mercury Theater here

More on It's A Wonderful Life

Hello Hear Again Fans!

Just four more days until the Hear Again Holiday Hullabaloo! Join us all at Plays and Players this weekend to see Lux Radio Theater's It's A Wonderful Life!

Did you know that this radio episode was adapted from the classic holiday film? The film was adapted four different times into radio episodes, and every adaptation featured Jimmy Stewart, the star of the film. Three out of the four adaptations featured Donna Reed, who played Mary in the film.

Lux Radio Theater was dedicated to using the original stars in their adaptations of popular films and plays. They payed the actors $5,000 an appearance, which would be around $80,000 today!

Here's another fun fact: the radio premier of It's A Wonderful Life aired on March 10, 1947. In fact, only one of the four radio adaptations aired anywhere near the holidays (Screen Guild Theater's version aired on December 29, 1947). What we know today as a holiday classic is a good story any time of the year!

See you all this weekend!

It's a Wonderful Life

In preparation for our own Holiday Hullabaloo, where we will present Lux Radio Theater's It's a Wonderful Life, we found this article from the Washington Post about the actress who played Zuzu in Frank Capra's film. You can find the story HERE.

We hope to see you all at Plays and Players next weekend so we can share the season with you, our friends and family in radio.

Lights Out for Halloween Spooktacular

Hello America,

It...is...later...than...you...think.

For our Halloween Spooktacular Oct 22- 23 at 4 & 7pm this year, we here in the Hear Again Radio Project sound labs decided that we would use the Halloween show this year as a chance to explore one of the most influential and pioneering radio programs from the golden age of radio, Lights Out.

Lights Out was a series created by Wyllis Cooper in the fall of 1933, and later taken over by Arch Oboler in 1936. Full details on the history of the popular anthology series can be found here. In addition to the taut and engaging stories, one of the other things that drew audiences to this series was the interesting and creative sound effects that the show featured. In researching the effects we stumbled upon this image of an article highlighting the stars and the foley artists from the series.

For our Halloween Spooktacular, we will be featuring one script by each writer. First, Slurp! Goes the Amoeba by Wyllis Cooper which is a spooky tale about a lab experiment that goes horrifically wrong. It is tasty! We follow that with one of our favorite Arch Oboler scripts, last performed in the inaugural Hear Again performances for the 2009 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, entitled Special to Hollywood. As always, we have many treats for our audience, including Halloween candy and a special give away courtesy of our friends in Old Time Radio, the Old Time Radio Researchers group. Please visit their terrific site: http://otrr.org/

Look for us on The Face Book: http://www.facebook.com/HearAgainRadioProject

National Archives raided by ex-employee

Hello America,

We were on our way to rehearsal this morning for the Hear Again Radio Project's Halloween Spooktacular, and I almost drove the car off the road when I heard this story on NPR. In short, an ex-employee of the National Archives stole recorded archive material and sold it on eBay. As a group that is dedicated to the idea of finding a new audience for Old Time Radio, we are horrified that someone would be so callous as to steal any of the source recordings from the Archive and rob future generations a chance to hear the original broadcast.

You can read and hear the story HERE.


Our Halloween Spooktacular will be at Plays and Players, and will feature two episodes of Lights Out! (Oct 22 & 23 at 4pm & 7pm). More details can be found HERE and on The Face Book HERE.

Another passing of a radio legend. Nat Allbright.

I found this article about legendary Dodgers radio announcer Nat Allbright and thought it might be of interest to our Hear Again friends.  You can read all about Nat and his contributions to the  HERE

Happy Birthday, Gracie.

Hello America,

Today is actress and radio comedienne Gracie Allen's birthday. Happy Birthday, Gracie. Whereever you are!

For more on her work, go HERE