Colby-Sawyer College Hosts 1940s Radio Drama 'Sorry, Wrong Number' with Sunapee-Kearsarge InterCommunity Theater and Student Director
NEW LONDON, N.H. — Colby-Sawyer College will host a live production of an old-fashioned radio drama, “Sorry, Wrong Number,” a suspenseful story about an invalid woman who is terrorized when she overhears a murder plot on the telephone. The drama, written in 1943 by Lucille Fletcher, will be performed by the Sunapee-Kearsarge InterCommunity Theater (SKIT) and a student actor, and directed by Jillian Whitney, a senior Communication Studies student at Colby-Sawyer.
The live production will take place on Tuesday, March 31, at 7 p.m. in Wheeler Hall at the Ware Campus Center. The production will be recorded for broadcast on WSCS-FM 90.9, the college's community radio station, and for distribution over the web. The event is free and open to the public.
The cast includes Colby-Sawyer student Colby Picanso '11 of Raymond, N.H., and SKIT performers Adele Warner, Wally Borgen, Alice Field, Alice Perry, Kris Galluzzo, Jay Lambert, Bob Bussey, Bud Dick, Brenda Balenger and Nancy Tripp. SKIT members Linda Lambert and Bonnie Lewis will produce the show's special sound effects.
The original production of “Sorry, Wrong Number” was recorded and broadcast in 1943, with Agnes Morehead in the lead role of Mrs. Leona Stevenson. In 1948, a film of the same name was directed by Anatole Litvak and starred Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster. Stanwyck was nominated for an Oscar for her lead role.
Whitney, a resident of Rindge, N.H., will direct the production as her senior Capstone project, a culmination of her academic experiences in her Communication Studies major and Theatre minor. She has appeared in three theatre productions and co-directed one play, as well as taken several courses in radio production. She had thought about leading a theatre production for her Capstone, but when SKIT members approached her about a radio production, she embraced the idea.
“I'm very into the audio aspects of communication and thought that producing a play for radio would be a great challenge for me as well as a nice opportunity for the community to participate in a behind-the-scenes live radio drama,” Whitney says. “I was given quite a few scripts but this one jumped out at me; it's a suspense thriller about an isolated woman who overhears a murder plot on a telephone line and eventually realizes it's her own murder they're planning.”
Whitney and the actors and crew will have just four weeks to rehearse and pull the production together. She will try to re-create a 1940s era for the production, and will work with the actors on proper accents and annunciation. No costumes are required for radio productions, and the actors can easily read from the script, but Whitney and the crew are scrambling to find an old-fashioned dial telephone from the 1940s and props to makes train whistles and other sound effects.
“It will be a lot of fun for people who grew up listening to old radio dramas,” says Whitney, “and interesting for others to get a backstage look at how they were produced.”
-Kimberly Swick Slover
Colby-Sawyer, founded in 1837, is a comprehensive liberal arts college located in the scenic Lake Sunapee Region of central New Hampshire. Students learn in small classes through a select array of programs that integrate the liberal arts and sciences with pre-professional experience. Visit us on the World Wide Web at www.colby-sawyer.edu.
Colby-Sawyer College, 541 Main Street, New London, N.H. 03257 (603) 526-3000
