The Giant’s Stair, Wilbur Daniel Steele’s celebrated one-act play, adapted for radio by Charles R. Jackson, and broadcast on Thursday, December 1, 1938, 10:00–10:30 P.M. For fans of classic radio drama and of the Workshop’s adventurous spirit, this is a gem worth savoring.
A quick bit of context. Columbia Workshop was CBS’s laboratory for innovative radio from 1936–43 and 1946–47, later echoed by the CBS Radio Workshop in 1956–57. In late 1938, the Workshop presented a trio of Steele’s short works: A Drink of Water, Luck, and this finale, The Giant’s Stair. We featured the first two on RUSC and wrote about them in November 2025; having the third now completes the set for listeners.
Why this recording matters
The Giant’s Stair was presumed lost for years. What you’ll hear comes from a fellow old-time radio enthusiast who, as a kid in North Dade, Miami, captured a syndicated rebroadcast on a cassette machine sometime between 1968 and 1972. By then, shows like Columbia Workshop were being heard in “classic radio” segments or reissue packages rather than as new network programs. That off-air capture preserved a performance that otherwise might have slipped away for good.
Steele’s story unfolds at a solitary farmhouse at the top of a stepped mountain valley. In late autumn, the winds come up the “giant’s stair,” their eerie moaning taken by the locals as the tread of giants ascending. Inside, the widowed Mrs. Weatherburn tends the stove while her mystical, fragile sister Til listens fearfully to the wind and to the clatter of the party-line telephone—those distinctive rings announcing “Smiths … Harrises … Wilsons … Whites … Us.”
That party line becomes a chorus for the valley, spreading weather news, gossip, and mounting dread. Sheriff Ed Bane arrives, ostensibly searching for lost heifers, but really at the behest of Prosecutor Cantpole to “have a look around” after the unexplained disappearance of Mrs. Weatherburn’s husband, John. Suspicion flits toward Til, whose childlike talk of giants and ghosts makes her an easy target. The loaded shotgun over the mantel, the memory of a quarrel about the newly installed telephone, and the storm itself all tighten the net.
What follows is a masterclass in sound-driven storytelling. Herrmann’s storm music and the constant, insistent wind give the impression of a world closing in. The telephone rings punctuate the action, each call bringing a new fragment: someone has sighted John on the road; someone else found a body by a gate; the body is gone. Is John alive? Is he a ghost? Is someone manipulating the line? The truth, when it breaks, is pure radio.
The Giant’s Stair blends Steele’s New England gothic with radio’s most evocative tools: wind, darkness, and the disembodied voices of a community stitched together by a wire. Superstition and rumor feed fear; law and authority prove fallible; and a simple farmhouse becomes a courtroom, a confessional, and a haunted house all at once. It’s easy to hear why Columbia Workshop embraced it.
Preservation thanks
Our thanks to the generous OTR friend Kevin Lozaw, who made and kept this cassette aircheck in North Dade more than fifty years ago, and to all the collectors who continue to share and safeguard radio history. Finds like this are reminders that “lost” isn’t always forever—it’s often waiting on a shelf, in a shoebox, or on a humble tape marked only with a date and a memory.
We’re delighted to bring The Giant’s Stair to you at last. Settle in, let the wind climb the stair, and enjoy one of the Workshop’s most atmospheric half-hours.
