Newsstand Theater


(4 stars; 1 reviews)

Newsstand Theater was a production of ABC and featured dramatizations of short stories that originally appeared in Collier’s , Woman’s Home Companion , The American, and others of their publications . The publisher of these magazines was Crowell-Collier Publishing Company. Collier’s was its largest circulating publication. The company was not faring well in the early 1950s, even though circulation was strong, over 20 million for all of its titles. The Newsstand Theater program was viewed as a means of building circulation from a new audience of listeners. The program premiered in April 1951 and went off the air sometime in late 1953 . It was promoted as “presenting each week the best fiction from the three magazines” with “light-hearted comedies, romantic dramas, and serious treatments of contemporary affairs.” Authors occasionally appeared on the program. Nelson Olmstead played the narrator, “Mitchell MacIntyre.” Olmstead was an established actor, but was known for his skills in dramatic readings. The episode in the Hehn Collection is from November 6, 1952, Delayed Reaction , from Park East, the Magazine of New York , by Michael Sklar. It star red veteran New York radio voices Lesley Woods as Peg, George Petrie as Angelo, and Connie Lemke as Valerie. * * * These recordings are part of the Joe Hehn Memorial Collection. Mr. Hehn (1931-2020) was a pioneering collector of radio recordings when the hobby emerged in the 1960s. Digitizing his collection of reel tapes and discs is the effort of a wide range of North American volunteers, and includes assistance of some international collectors. The groups supporting this effort with their funds, time, technology and skills are the Old Time Radio Researchers and a small group of transcription disc preservationists who refer to themselves as the "The Knights of the Turning Table."

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.