Editing Golden Age of Radio (section)

=== Radio plays ===
Radio plays were presented on such programs as ''[[Norman Corwin|26 by Corwin]]'', ''NBC Short Story'', ''[[Arch Oboler's Plays]]'', ''[[Quiet, Please]]'', and ''[[CBS Radio Workshop]]''. [[Orson Welles]]'s ''[[The Mercury Theatre on the Air]]'' and ''[[The Campbell Playhouse (radio series)|The Campbell Playhouse]]'' were considered by many critics to be the finest radio drama anthologies ever presented. They usually starred Welles in the leading role, along with celebrity guest stars such as [[Margaret Sullavan]] or [[Helen Hayes]], in adaptations from literature, Broadway, and/or films. They included such titles as ''[[Liliom]]'', ''[[Oliver Twist]]'' (a title now feared lost), ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]'', ''[[Lost Horizon]]'', and ''[[The Murder of Roger Ackroyd]]''. It was on ''Mercury Theatre'' that Welles presented his celebrated-but-infamous [[The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)|1938 adaptation]] of [[H. G. Wells]]'s ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'', formatted to sound like a [[breaking news]] program. ''[[Theatre Guild on the Air]]'' presented adaptations of classical and Broadway plays. Their Shakespeare adaptations included a one-hour ''[[Macbeth]]'' starring [[Maurice Evans (actor)|Maurice Evans]] and [[Judith Anderson]], and a 90-minute ''[[Hamlet]]'', starring [[John Gielgud]].<ref>{{Cite AV media |title=Hamlet (Episode 065) |format=MP3 |work=Theater Guild on the Air |publisher=[[Internet Archive]] |url= https://archive.org/download/TheaterGuildontheAir/Tgoa_51-03-04_ep065-Hamlet.mp3 |date=1951-03-04}}</ref> Recordings of many of these programs survive.

During the 1940s, [[Basil Rathbone]] and [[Nigel Bruce]], famous for playing [[Sherlock Holmes]] and [[Dr. Watson]] in films, repeated their characterizations on radio on ''[[The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes]]'', which featured both original stories and episodes directly adapted from [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s stories. None of the episodes in which Rathbone and Bruce starred on the radio program were filmed with the two actors as Holmes and Watson, so radio became the only medium in which audiences were able to experience Rathbone and Bruce appearing in some of the more famous Holmes stories, such as "[[The Adventure of the Speckled Band|The Speckled Band]]". There were also many dramatizations of Sherlock Holmes stories on radio without Rathbone and Bruce.

During the latter part of his career, celebrated actor [[John Barrymore]] starred in a radio program, ''Streamlined Shakespeare'', which featured him in a series of one-hour adaptations of [[Shakespeare]] plays, many of which Barrymore never appeared in either on stage or in films, such as ''[[Twelfth Night]]'' (in which he played both [[Malvolio]] and [[Sir Toby Belch]]), and ''[[Macbeth]]''.

''[[Lux Radio Theatre]]'' and ''[[The Screen Guild Theater]]'' presented adaptations of Hollywood movies, performed before a live audience, usually with cast members from the original films. ''[[Suspense (radio drama)|Suspense]]'', ''[[Escape (radio program)|Escape]]'', ''[[The Mysterious Traveler]]'' and ''[[Inner Sanctum Mystery]]'' were popular thriller anthology series. Leading writers who created original material for radio included [[Norman Corwin]], [[Carlton E. Morse]], [[David Goodis]], [[Archibald MacLeish]], [[Arthur Miller]], [[Arch Oboler]], [[Wyllis Cooper]], [[Rod Serling]], [[Jay Bennett (author)|Jay Bennett]], and [[Irwin Shaw]].