Question Regarding The STREETCAR Radio Production w/ Brando & Tandy

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 2/12/10 at 7:05pm

I have a question regarding the 30 minute 1948 radio production of STREETCAR honoring (and no doubt promoting) the play for winning the Drama Critics Award for Best Play. The announcement at the beginning of the show makes it sound like this was done every year on this program and I was just curious if any other recordings for plays like this existed. Obviously it would be incredible to hear scenes from original casts of plays like ALL MY SONS, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, GLASS MENAGERIE, etc.

Does anyone have any clue?

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 2/13/10 at 5:02pm

Bump?

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 2/13/10 at 7:12pm

Sort of related: The original cast of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? with Uta Hagen was recorded. It's brilliant.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 2/13/10 at 8:28pm

Jordan, I used to have that Streetcar episode on an LP (remember them?). It was pretty much a pirated affair and had some other things in it, including the Lunts doing a scene from There Shall Be No Night. I had the honor of speaking to Mr. Lunt once during the 70's and referenced the recording. He said he wasn't aware that it existed, so I'm assuming that all the material was pirated off radio tapes. It might be of interest to you to know that around 1950, the ANTA group released (legitimately) two LPs with some very interesing things from bygone years: Helen Hayes in two scenes from Victoria Regina; Frederick March and Florence Eldridge in a scene from Years Ago and a scene from The Skin of Our Teeth; Eva Le Galliene in a scene from Hedda Gabler; John Gielgud in Richarc II; Katharine Cornell and Brian Aherne in a scene from The Barretts of Wimpole Street; Henry Fonda, Julie Harris and Marc Connelly in The Farmer Takes a Wife; Edith Evans, Torin Thatcher and Ivan Simpson in two scenes from The Seagull; and, best of all, Tallulah Bankhead in two scenes from The Little Foxes (with Kent Smith, Eugenia Rawls, Howard Smith and Paul Byron). Both disks were released commercially by Decca, have never been transferred to CD (as far as I know) and were studio recordings made at the time of some fundraiser for ANTA. You might have some luck pawing around some used record stores (there's still one of them in Princeton, NJ called the Princeton Record Exchange -- don't know if they'd have this, though).