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| director = | producer = | executive_producer = Davidson Taylor (for CBS) | narrated = Orson Welles | record_location = | first_aired = | last_aired = | num_series = 1 | num_episodes = 22 | audio_format = | opentheme = ''Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor'' by Tchaikovsky | endtheme = | website = | podcast = }} ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' (first known as ''First Person Singular'') is a radio series of live radio dramas created by Orson Welles. The weekly hour-long show presented classic literary works performed by Welles's celebrated Mercury Theatre repertory company, with music composed or arranged by Bernard Herrmann.〔According to the document created by Herrmann (and now in the Bernard Herrmann Papers at the University of California-Santa Barbra) listing all his compositions, the only Mercury show for which he composed new music was Dracula.〕 The series began July 11, 1938, as a sustaining program on the CBS Radio network, airing Mondays at 9 p.m. ET. On September 11, 1938, the show moved to Sundays at 8 p.m. After the front-page headlines generated by the "The War of the Worlds" (October 30, 1938) — one of the most famous broadcasts in the history of radio due to the mass panic it accidentally caused — Campbell's Soup signed on as sponsor. ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' made its last broadcast December 4, 1938, and ''The Campbell Playhouse'' began December 9, 1938.〔Dunning, John, ''On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio''. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1998 ISBN 978-0-19-507678-3 hardcover; revised edition of ''Tune In Yesterday'' (1976)〕 ==Production== After the theatrical successes of the Mercury Theatre, CBS Radio invited Orson Welles to create a summer show for 13 weeks. The series began July 11, 1938, initially titled ''First Person Singular'', with the formula that Welles would play the lead in each show. Some months later the show was called ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air''.〔"An Interview with John Houseman," ''Orson Welles on the Air: The Radio Years.'' New York: The Museum of Broadcasting, catalogue for exhibition October 28–December 3, 1988, page 12〕 Paul Holler, writing in ''Critique'', described the program's origin: "Radio, with its power to excite the imagination and actually involve the audience in the creative process, had huge potential as a medium for serious drama. It seemed inevitable that the day would come when this medium, which had made Orson Welles a household name across the country, would become a part of his serious theater ambitions. That day came in 1938. "It was in that year that CBS, remembering Welles' work on ''Les Misérables'' the year before, approached him and Houseman about a series of radio dramas for its summer schedule. The idea was conceived as a series of narratives under the title ''First Person Singular''. But the series would be best remembered by the name it assumed with its second production, ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air''. "As with ''Les Misérables'' the previous year, Welles was given complete creative control by CBS over the new series. The choices he made in developing the series were informed by what he had learned in previous years in other radio dramas. Chief among those choices was to create dramas specifically for the radio and not to simply adapt dramas in production at the Mercury Theatre for broadcast. In close collaboration with John Houseman and other writers, Welles wrote, directed and performed in the productions. The end result was a series of dramas based on literary, rather than dramatic, works. There were exceptions, most notably ''Our Town'' by Welles's early mentor Thornton Wilder. But it was clear to Welles and Houseman that the medium of radio suited the telling of a story far better than the dramatization of it. As a result, some of the most memorable ''Mercury Theatre on the Air'' productions were adaptations of great novels. ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', ''A Tale of Two Cities'', ''The Magnificent Ambersons'', ''Heart of Darkness'' and other major literary works were offered to radio audiences during the ''Mercury Theatre on the Airs run."〔Holler, Paul, ("Orson Welles, The New Deal, and the Mercury Theatre on the Air" ).''Critique'', retrieved June 20, 2012〕 Orson Welles presented a special challenge to the CBS sound effects team, ''The New Yorker'' reported. "His programs called for all sorts of unheard-of effects, and he could be satisfied with nothing short of perfection." For the first episode, "Dracula", the sound team searched for the perfect sound of a stake being driven through the heart of the vampire. They first presented a savoy cabbage and a sharpened broomstick for Welles's approval. "Much too leafy," Welles concluded. "Drill a hole in the cabbage and fill it with water. We need blood." When that sound experiment also failed to satisfy Welles, he considered awhile — and asked for a watermelon. ''The New Yorker'' recalled the effect: Welles stepped from the control booth, seized a hammer, and took a crack at the melon. Even the studio audience shuddered at the sound. That night, on a coast-to-coast network, he gave millions of listeners nightmares with what, even though it be produced with a melon and hammer, is indubitably the sound a stake would make piercing the heart of an undead body.〔Fletcher, Lucille, "Squeaks, Slams, Echoes, and Shots". ''The New Yorker'', April 13, 1940, pp. 85–86.〕 As the Mercury's second theatre season began in 1938, Welles and Houseman were unable to write the ''Mercury Theatre on the Air'' broadcasts on their own. For "Hell on Ice" (October 8, 1938), the 14th episode of the series, they hired Howard E. Koch, whose experience in having a play performed by the Federal Theatre Project in Chicago led him to leave his law practice and move to New York to become a writer.〔Houseman, John, ''Run Through: A Memoir''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972, ISBN 0-671-21034-3〕 ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' was a sustaining show underwritten by CBS, so in lieu of a more substantial salary Houseman gave Koch the rights to any script he worked on — including, to his literal good fortune, "The War of the Worlds". After five months Koch left the show for Hollywood; his last script was "The Glass Key" (March 10, 1939),〔France, Richard, ''The Theatre of Orson Welles''. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press, 1977. ISBN 0-8387-1972-4〕 by which time ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' was called ''The Campbell Playhouse''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Mercury Theatre on the Air」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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