NBC Presents: Short Story is a half-hour American radio program offering dramatizations of contemporary American short stories that began on NBC on February 21, 1951, and ended on May 30, 1952.
The primary goal of the series, as stated by script editor Hugh Kemp, was to combat what appeared to be a widespread lack of respect for the short story as a form. As Kemp explained, “America’s serious writers have, by and large, put into their short stories the same kind of penetrating insight that has gone into their widely read novels. But most of these wonderful values have been overlooked as a result of some kind of psychological block against short story collections and anthologies. In this series we hope to get some of the material off the dusty shelves and out into the homes of the vast audience of radio.”
The Stars
Throughout the program’s run, episodes were directed by Andrew C. Love.
Overall supervision of production was by Margaret Cuthbert and Wade Arnold
The announcers were Lamont Johnson, Don Stanley, and John Wald.
The cast members included Fritz Feld, Lucien Prival, John Dodsworth, Robert Boon, Ramsay Hill, as well as Hy Averback, Parley Baer, Jeff Corey, Howard Culver, John Dehner, Georgia Ellis, Paul Frees, Virginia Gregg, Isabel Jewell, Jack Kruschen, Alma Lawton, Felix Nelson, Dan O’Herlihy, and Barney Phillips.
Key Dates
- The series premiered on February 21, 1951, on NBC with an adaptation of “Fifty Grand” by Ernest Hemingway.
- The first series was heard on Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m. EST and then moved in May to Fridays at 8 p.m.
- The first series continued until July 13, 1951.
- The second series ran from November 23, 1951, to March 14, 1952, with William Welch as script editor and Wade Arnold as executive producer. The College by Radio plan was discontinued during this second series.
- The third series ran from April 11 to May 30, 1952.
Other Information
There were several related shows that also offered literary adaptations, including Best Plays (1952–53), Short Short Story, and The World’s Great Novels (1944–48). Short Short Story was a 15-minute daytime drama series that aired three days a week and featured “the best published short shorts… originals by famous authors”.
Brooklyn College cooperated with NBC by scheduling a literary appreciation course with a Short Story tie-in as part of NBC’s College by Radio plan.
-1.webp)
