Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

For those who recall those thrilling days of yesteryear when adventure, derring-do, comedy, and romance ruled the airwaves, old-time radio is not just a dusty memory. Consider Brian Chetelat and Theater on the Air.

Chetelat and his friends in Hampton, Md., (pop. 5,004) have proved that the golden age of radio is still alive and well and can have a positive influence on senior citizens—those who thrilled to the adventures of The Lone Ranger and The Shadow, or laughed along with My Friend Irma.

Back in 1999, Chetelat, now 37, gave those radio shows new life when he created—with the help of two start-up grants from the Maryland State Arts Council—Theater on the Air, a nonprofit theater company. Chetelat and his friends stage old-time radio dramas, comedies, and soap operas, complete with radio commercials.

“I created Theater on the Air because I was interested in doing theater as community outreach for seniors,” Chetelat says. “As I looked around, there were plenty of programs serving children, Baby Boomers, and Generation X members. But there was little to nothing aimed at senior citizens.”

Once Chetelat settled on the notion of creating theater for senior audiences, performing radios shows seemed natural. “Radio was something central to the lives of many (who are now) senior citizens. It was the big form of entertainment back when they were young.”

Re-creating popular shows from the 1930s through the 1940s in front of audiences of seniors also had the one particular advantage that Chetelat and his fellow troupe members were looking for.

“We can easily bring the cast members and props of Theater on the Air to wherever the senior citizens live,” he says. “For many seniors living on a fixed income, a trip out to see a play performed in a theater just isn’t possible.”

“Being able to watch Brian and his troupe perform in front of our residents is just like taking a step backward in time to radio’s golden age,” says Annette Watson, activities assistant for Manor Care-Towson, a senior residential community in nearby Towson, Md. “When they perform the old radio shows, they dress in ’40s-style clothing and speak their lines into old-style microphones as they read from hand-held scripts,” a re-creation of the way the shows originally were broadcast.

“I jumped at the opportunity when Brian asked me to become a member of the troupe,” says Bethany Brown. “It’s challenging as an actor to use your voice to project any range of age and gender. And it’s a wonderful opportunity to work with seniors.”

Even the sound effects are faithfully re-created. Thunder is made by waving a sheet of metal or the sound of running footsteps by shoes being brought up and down in a bowl of gravel.

Yet faithfully re-creating an entire old-time radio program such as Fibber McGee & Molly isn’t always simple. “There are websites which post some of the scripts from the old shows,” Chetelat says. “But most of the time I have to listen to the original broadcast tape of the show and transpose it—from opening credits, commercials, and show acts, to closing credits.” It can take hours, he says, to transpose just one 30-minute radio show.

The only exception they make to altering a show is when they perform Fibber McGee & Molly.

“There was a running joke about Fibber McGee’s (junk-filled) closet that, while used only a few times when the series originally aired, is highly popular and expected by our audience,” Chetelat says. “So we work in the ‘junk-falling-out-of-the-closet joke’ in every Fibber McGee & Molly we do, because the audience loves it.”

Applause is not the only way Chetelat judges the success of a show’s performance. “An audience with eyes closed during a performance is the best indication we have of success,” he says.

“When they listen with their eyes closed, they’re transporting themselves back to when they listened to the original radio show with their imaginations opened wide—just like they used to do when they were young.”

Joseph Baneth Allen writes from his home in Jacksonville, Fla.

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