We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
52
Turn About's Fair Play! Radio Listeners Become Playwrights and Fashion Thrilling Dramas for Detroit Broadcasts,
"By B. G. CLARE
HAVE you a little drama stored in your brain cells? Out in Detroit there are two important public servitors who believe everyone has a story to tell. They are making it possible for readers and listeners to turn about and become writers and playwrights.
The two agents who are gratifying the literary ambitions of a good slice of Michigan's populace are Broadcasting Station
CJft Q^/Ictuaily
Happened
WXYZ and The Free Press. The newspaper started the ball rolling by running a contest which they have christened, It Actually Happened. It invites housewives, business men, "doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs, rich men, poor men" — even ice men — to participate by submitting a true incident which they have experienced or witnessed. A $5.00 prize is given daily for each story accepted and printed.
Then Fred Roche, Publicity Director of WXYZ, stepped in. He offers an additional prize of $25 for the best story published each week. This thriller, or sad or comic incident, as the case may be, is adapted for Radio production by James Jewell, dramatic director of the Radio station; and under his supervision it is presented over the air by members of the Civic Theatre Stock Company. How did Fred Roche's fertile brain conceive the idea of this novel contest? When interviewed, he re
fused to commit himself, but we strongly suspect that he had a real idea in the back of his head. Perhaps he was annoyed by the wiseacres who write to station managers and say that they "could do better themselves with only half an effort". Maybe he said to himself, "I don't believe this particular kicker could. But let's give them all a chance."
a
NE of the most successful of the It Actually Happened Radio dramas was written by Robert Donaldson of Detroit. This amateur made good not only in the columns of a daily newspaper and over the air, but he also had the thrill of seeing his play accepted for a two week run as a "curtain-raiser" before the major offering of the Civic Theatre Stock Company.
Mr. Donaldson placed his true incident in France, in the days when war was rampant and every mother knew the tragedy of seeing her son wrenched from her side. It is called Vive La France!
The Radio audience, snugly ensconced in arm chairs, sees in its mind's eye the
"Forgive me, God — It was for France — Vive La France." Jessie Bonstelle as Madame Bertrand and John Griggs as the dying Henri Bertrand.