Theater of the Mind: Imagination, Aesthetics, and American Radio Drama
Neil Verma
Abstract
For generations, fans and critics have characterized classic American radio drama as a “theater of the mind,” a characterization which this book unpacks by recasting the radio play as an aesthetic object within its unique historical context. The book applies an array of critical methods to more than 6,000 recordings to produce an account of radio drama from the Depression to the Cold War. In this exploration of dramatic conventions, it investigates dramas by the likes of Norman Corwin, Lucille Fletcher, and Wyllis Cooper on key programs ranging from The Columbia Workshop, The Mercury Theater o ... More
For generations, fans and critics have characterized classic American radio drama as a “theater of the mind,” a characterization which this book unpacks by recasting the radio play as an aesthetic object within its unique historical context. The book applies an array of critical methods to more than 6,000 recordings to produce an account of radio drama from the Depression to the Cold War. In this exploration of dramatic conventions, it investigates dramas by the likes of Norman Corwin, Lucille Fletcher, and Wyllis Cooper on key programs ranging from The Columbia Workshop, The Mercury Theater on the Air, and Cavalcade of America to Lights Out!, Suspense, and Dragnet to show how these programs promoted and evolved a series of models of the imagination. With close readings of individual sound effects and charts of broad trends among formats, the book gives an account of the most flourishing form of genre fiction in the mid-twentieth century and also presents a case for the central place of the aesthetics of sound in the history of modern experience.
Keywords:
radio drama,
Norman Corwin,
Lucille Fletcher,
Wyllis Cooper,
sound effects,
aesthetics,
Columbia Workshop,
Mercury Theater,
Cavalcade of America
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2012 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780226853505 |
| Published to Chicago Scholarship Online: March 2013 |
DOI:10.7208/chicago/9780226853529.001.0001 |
