Viewing page 9 of 48

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

might want, the actor might need and what the audience will appreciate the most. Authors usually run the gamut of visual ideas from A to Z--starting with no visual sense whatsoever to a highly detailed description of background. According to Mielziner, who did the sets for Carousel, one of the authors with the strongest visual sense is Hammerstein. Tennessee Williams loves experiments, wanted to have the set for his Glass Menagerie a huge room with a screen at the back. On this screen were to be flashed blue roses (a descriptive name for Julie Haydon) and the errant father--six feet high and blazing. Mielziner persuaded him that the beauty of his words would have more effect on an audience than pictures and so designed the simple, somber set used. 

Both men insist that sets give the feeling of having been lived in. Jenkins' set for I Remember Mama is one of the greatest examples of this warm, intimate designing. His houses in the set of Memphis Bound all seem to wobble with age, with heavy, hard living, are drawn purposesly to achieve such a result. One special trick Jenkins has for giving luminosity and depth to his stage is to make his sketches on transparent paper which he holds up to different lights. Using this method of lighting from the back for Dark of the Moon, he obtained a strange, shining quality of eerie realism.

Making the sketches is only the beginning. Blueprints must be made, color schemes decided, props and materials found, instructions given to costumers, electricians, workshop carpenters, painters, stage managers. All this is complicated by discussions with the author, the director, the man who does the staging - "the whole thing's cockeyed, let's begin all over again." All we can say is that audiences should take careful looks at the sets for both Pinafore versions, realizing what amount of effort, time, thought and agony have gone into them.

[[image: black and white photograph of two men and a woman in a radio studio, looking at a script]]
[[caption]] Eddie Saulpaugh, radio producer, in a control room conference with singer Georgia Gibbs and maestro Paul Whiteman over their Philco Hour, which replaces Radio Hall of Fame for the Summer months [[/caption]]

[[image: black and white photo of Victor Borge]]
[[caption]] That lean, dark, very funny Victor Borge, night club satirist, takes over the Fibber McGee and Molly show toward the end of June. For all the other Summer airwave changes and highlights, see col. 1 [[/caption]]

Radio's Summer Rialto

GOOD news today as Mr. Gabriel Heatter would say. Good news. Many of radio's best shows are staying on the air without vacation during the Summer months, and when the big stars do go off they are being replaced by some mighty interesting people. Victor Borge is one of these. When he replaces the Fibber McGee and Molly show the end of June, it will be the first time the night club satirist has had his own show. It should be a highlight. Norman Corwin is another outstanding personality coming to the Summer air waves on Kate Smith's time. He brings one of his arresting and original series of radio plays to this Sunday evening hour. Most of the good mystery shows remain on the air: Mystery Theatre, Tuesdays at nine over WEAF, about the best of its kind you'll find; The Thin Man, light mystery comedy over CBS, Fridays at eight-thirty. The debonair Herbert Marshall returns with The Man Called X, international spy drama, in Bob Hope's Tuesday night spot. Mr. District Attorney and the new thriller, Your FBI, both scripted by Jerry Devine, stay on at their current time. (See radio listings, page 29.)

Good news, too, concerning Beulah of the Fibber McGee and Molly show. Beulah is to have a show of "her" own this Summer on CBS, Saturdays, 10:15 p.m. Other good comedy shows will be led by Billie Burke, Wednesdays at 8:30 over WEAF, Ray Bolger in the Durante-Moore time on CBS, Edward Everett Horton on Bing Crosby's half hour....

Most of the good music programs such as The Telephone Hour and the General Motors Symphony continue on with the welcome addition of Rise Stevens who replaces the sages of Information Please on June 25th.

If you're looking for good jazz you'll find Harry James replacing Danny Kaye, Fridays at 10:30 on CBS, Tommy Dorsey on the RCA Victor Show, Sundays at 4:30; Georgia Gibbs singing along with Paul Whiteman's Orchestra on the Philco Summer Show (formerly, Hall of Fame, Sunday, WJZ, 6 p.m.). Wayne King in Jack Benny's spot and Fred Waring with his innovation of a five times a week morning show (beginning June 4th, WEAF, 11 a.m.). Can you see the handwriting on the wall for the soap operas?

There is undoubtedly an Overseas Club for Radio Stars now forming as the list of G.I. entertainers grows longer and longer. Abroad go Jack Benny, Dinah Shore, Bing Crosby, Amos 'n' Andy,

CUE, JUNE 2, 1945

7