Mercury Theatre Online

[Jaime N. Christley]

I think there might be some interest in this - they appear to be entire episodes available for download, and they're free. You can save them as Real Audio files, at poor quality, or MP3s, at good quality.

Here's a description from the page...

The finest radio drama of the 1930’s was The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a show featuring the acclaimed New York drama company founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman. In its brief run, it featured an impressive array of talents, including Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Herrmann, and George Coulouris. The show is famous for its notorious War of the Worlds broadcast, but the other shows in the series are relatively unknown. This site has many of the surviving shows, and will eventually have all of them.

The show first broadcast on CBS and CBC in July 1938. It ran without a sponsor until December of that year, when it was picked up by Campbell’s Soup and renamed The Campbell Playhouse. All of the surviving Mercury Theatre shows are available from this page, in both streaming and downloadable RealAudio format. (MP3s are also available for some shows.) There are several Campbell Playhouse episodes available here as well; the rest are being added gradually.

this-a way......

[Jeff Wilson]

I think this got mentioned on the old version of this board, before the software update nuked everything. It bears mentioning again, though, as it provides a nice way to sample the Mercury work. It's too bad there haven't really been any updates with new programs, though. Still, what there is provides a good amount of material to start with.

[nathan_h]

What's the best next step for listening to the radio shows? I've been thinking of picking up one of those CDs full of MP3s...

[Le Chiffre]

Actually, Kim Scarborough, who apparently writes a consumer electronics column for USA Today as "Kim Komando", has added a couple of Mercury rehearsals to the site recently, including the one for THE 39 STEPS. But no, not much else besides that has been added for well over a year now. I wonder if the site is running into copyright issues with RADIO SPIRITS. Kim has done an excellent job with the site overrall, though. Besides WELLESNET, it's probably the best OW-related website there is. Check out HUCKLEBERRY FINN sometime. It has pretty clean sound - might have been taken directly from the 70s LP reissue.

[Jeff Wilson]

The CD-R collections of MP3s are good, but you have to realize that you're getting a real grab-bag, and of varying quality. It's a nice way to get instant access to a large chunk of Welles' radio work, though.

[nathan_h]

Thanks, yeah, for some reason the other thing that has got me hesitating is that in actually looking at the listings for CDroms on, eg, ebay, is that there don't seem to be many shows on them that aren't on the web site (though perhaps the quality would be better...)

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

no. there are really no others to get to them. the best thing i've found, so far, is Radio Spirits. you can pay $11.98 per show, or 2 half-hour shows.

other than that, good luck fella.

bye now!