Editing Star Wars (radio series) (section)

==History==
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 | image5 = Billy Dee Williams by Gage Skidmore.jpg
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In the 1980s, [[radio drama]] was in decline in the United States. An associate dean of the [[USC School of Dramatic Arts|University of California School of the Performing Arts]], Richard Toscan, was keen to champion this art form. Toscan was supported by [[John Houseman]], the producer responsible for [[Orson Welles]]'s 1938 radio production of ''[[The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)|The War of the Worlds]]''. He began with the dramatisation of short stories by [[Raymond Carver]] on [[KUSC-FM]], a [[campus radio]] station affiliated to NPR. Following this production, Toscan collaborated with Houseman and NPR producer [[Frank Mankiewicz]] on a project to revive the fortunes of ''NPR Playhouse'', the umbrella title for drama productions on NPR. At the suggestion of one of Toscan's students, Joel Rosenzweig, they developed an idea for adapting the 1977 epic [[space opera]] film ''Star Wars'' for radio. The popularity of ''Star Wars'' would certainly attract new, younger listeners, but they feared that the production costs would be prohibitively high. However, the production team's academic connections proved to be advantageous: USC is the alma mater of the writer and director of ''Star Wars'', George Lucas, and [[Lucasfilm]] quickly granted the rights to KUSC, including the rights to the use of original ''Star Wars'' music and sound effects, for a [[Peppercorn (legal)|token fee]] of one dollar.{{sfn|Robb|2012}}<ref name="allthings">{{cite news|last1=John|first1=Derek|title=That Time NPR Turned 'Star Wars' Into A Radio Drama — And It Actually Worked|url=https://www.npr.org/2015/12/18/460269884/that-time-npr-turned-star-wars-into-a-radio-drama-and-it-actually-worked|website=[[All Things Considered]]|publisher=NPR|access-date=22 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160620103128/http://www.npr.org/2015/12/18/460269884/that-time-npr-turned-star-wars-into-a-radio-drama-and-it-actually-worked|archive-date=June 20, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Despite Lucasfilm's generous offer, NPR was still faced with the costs of writing scripts, hiring actors and renting studio space. With no funding available to cover the $200,000 budget, NPR entered into a [[International co-production|co-production]] deal with the British broadcaster, the [[BBC]], which had a long tradition of radio drama production. The BBC provided a production team, including director [[John Madden (director)|John Madden]], and in exchange received broadcasting rights in the United Kingdom. From the outset, the NPR producers felt that the script would lend itself well to an episodic treatment, drawing on the format of the 1930s movie serials such as ''[[Flash Gordon (serial)|Flash Gordon]]'' and ''[[Buck Rogers (serial)|Buck Rogers]]'' that had originally inspired Lucas when he wrote ''Star Wars''.{{sfn|Robb|2012}}

The American science fiction novelist [[Brian Daley]] was brought in to write the script. Daley had access to Lucas's early drafts of the ''Star Wars'' scripts, and expanded the narrative to include material which had been cut from the final edit of the film so that the 13-episode radio adaptation ran approximately four hours longer than the film version. Casting the audio serial was not as easy as had been hoped; while the producers were able to secure the actors [[Mark Hamill]] and [[Anthony Daniels]] from the original film, [[Harrison Ford]] was unavailable as he was filming ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'' at the time, and his place was taken by [[Perry King]], an actor who once auditioned for the part of Han Solo in the 1977 film.{{sfn|Robb|2012}}

Led by Mankiewicz, NPR promoted the ''Star Wars'' serial with a successful publicity campaign, attracting coverage in ''[[Playboy]]'', ''[[The New York Times]]'' and ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', who hailed the production with the headline, "Radio drama is making a resounding comeback".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Mitchell|first1=Jack W.|title=Listener supported : the culture and history of public radio|date=2005|publisher=Praeger|location=Westport, Conn. [u.a.]|isbn=9780275983529|page=[https://archive.org/details/listenersupporte00mitc/page/89 89]|edition=1. publ.|url=https://archive.org/details/listenersupporte00mitc|url-access=registration|quote=Star Wars radio dramas.|access-date=24 July 2016}}</ref> ''Star Wars'' was launched at a special NPR event at the [[Griffith Observatory]] in [[Los Angeles]], in which the drama was played under a starry light show. Broadcasts began in March 1981 to critical acclaim, and the drama instantly attracted 750,000 new listeners, representing a 40 percent increase in NPR audiences and a quadrupling of the network's youth audience. On the basis of this success, KUSC went on to produce popular adaptations of the sequel, ''The Empire Strikes Back''.{{sfn|Robb|2012}}{{sfn|Sterling|2004|page=2206}} An adaptation of ''Return of the Jedi'' followed over a decade later, and it was produced by many of the same people who produced the KUSC/NPR productions.