Sponsor (Jan-June 1951)

bodv connected with the Workshop goes around in thai peculiarly thrilling frame of mind that artists and scientists feel when they lliink themselves constantly on the border ol a new diseoven ." Reis had declared that hard1\ one good radio script a year came in hut now one came in the mail from Milton Geiger, a Cleveland apothecary. Case History it was called and it was "the biggest sensation yet heard on the Workshop. There were "demonstrations" as well as entertainments. Reis introduced electrical fever machines, fog eye, X-rays and so on. Terribly impressed. CBS proclaimed proudly. '"Ideas tumble out of this amazing young fellow. Originality simply sizzles from him."' He was pictured at his desk where the plays of Moliere and Chekhov elbowed a bright new volume on "How To Write Radio Sketches.'" Reis made good his promise to take listeners behind scenes in radio itself. He had demonstrations of sound effects, control engineering, orchestral instruments, how to get the most out of your radio set. Brad Barker's art <SK? t&&Mi] &miMm WSJS 't) A 15-COUNTY MARKET With Over ^ $31,193,000* Home Furnishings Sales Sales Management 1950 Survey of Buying Pow er M°RE VALUE DV£«TISING OOLLAR AM-FM NBC Affiliate WINSTON-SALEM Represented by : HEADLEY-REED CO. of animal mimickry was the subject matter one night. Very definitely the Workshop in 1936 and 1937 was the bright young radio man's kind of show. Network officials awakened to aspects of their medium the\ had not suspected. Advertisers had their eyes opened. English professors were suddenly qui vive to radio as a new "art." Writers competed for the honor of selling the Workshop a script at a maximum price of $75. Above all the Workshop was a publicity man's dream, capable of repeated milkings for newspaper and magazine copy. Skeptics decried Reis in vain. Their sarcasm was wasted when the) inquired when CBS had patented the board fade or the echo chamber. Nor did it register that Reis and his pals were accused of yanking radio's old background noises into the foreground and calling it new technique. Orson \\ clles. a \\ orkshop spirit, was to go on doing just this for years in the movies. Moot are the estimates as to the worth of some of the Workshop shows. Where inspired nonsense becomes merely silly is a matter of dispute. Not a few of the Workshops were Mad Hatter stuff, but without the genius of Lewis Carroll. Many were strained and self-conscious, a number of dubious taste. More than a few were out and out clambakes. There was a broadcast on which a man boxed with a kangaroo. There was the night the British radio director, Val Geilgud. brother of the famous actor, was to be honored and Reis' alter ego. William N. Robson. flashed through the CBS halls in top hat. tails, and opera cloak, an awesome figure to the freshman Norman Corwin and perhaps impressive even to a radio director from London. There were hoaxes, too. on the Workshop like the demonstration of nine kinds of silence, all identical, of course. Animals that talked were well represented first and last on the Workshop. A beloved trained halibut in the famil) bathtub was one. From whimsy to flimsy to T. S. Eliot's Murder in the (.dihedral the \\ orkshop knew no prohibitions because of subject-matter or violent change of pace. Tranga Man. Fine Gali was the baflling — or was it? — title of a John Carlile item which CBS quickly translated as Strong Man. Fine Girl. The broadcast transported listeners in fancy to deepest Africa although there were 64 SPONSOR