This was done as a radio play?!?
It would be hard to picture Selby as Mitch otherwise ...
How interesting -- I thought that was only done in the U.K.
Radio plays? They're most definitely alive and well in America. The group that Selby works with is
LA Theatre Works, and their stuff winds up on both NPR and the BBC.
LATW has been around since 1974, but they didn't get involved in radio drama until the mid-1980s. Their first radio production,
Once in a Lifetime got some national media attention from sources like
CBS This Morning, and, at that time, their members included folks like Selby, Robert Foxworth, Ed Asner, John Lithgow, Amy Irving, Ted Danson, Richard Dreyfuss, and on and on.
One of the more interesting things they've done lately is to take actors who normally work together on a specific tv show and put them together in a production. Kelsey Grammer and John Mahoney from
Frasier did
The Third Man, and actors from the various incarnations of
Star Trek, including Leonard Nimoy and Gates McFadden, did
War of the Worlds.
I guess since
Return to Collinwood is now coming to fruition that it's ok to mention that David Selby has wanted to do a similar type of project with the
Dark Shadows actors.
I also need to mention here that LATW is not the only group producing radio drama. There are several others with equally recognizable actors, though LATW offers most of their stuff on cd and audio tape, so it's easy to get your hands on in libraries or via mail order if your local NPR station doesn't carry radio drama. Not all of them do. LATW sells titles directly, and Amazon also offers most LATW titles.