Best Plays was a prestigious radio anthology series that aired on NBC Radio from June 9, 1952, to August 30, 1953, showcasing adaptations of some of the most celebrated theatrical works of the 20th century. Hosted and directed by John Chapman, the drama critic for the New York Daily News, the program aimed to bring the finest Broadway and off-Broadway plays to a national radio audience during a time when radio drama was beginning to wane in the face of television’s rise. The series ran for 52 episodes, each an hour long, and was broadcast on Monday nights at 9:00 PM Eastern Time.
The show’s mission was to present “the best plays of the modern American theater,” and it delivered by adapting works from renowned playwrights like Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill, and Lillian Hellman. Episodes included classics such as Williams’ The Glass Menagerie (starring Helen Hayes), Miller’s Death of a Salesman (with Thomas Mitchell as Willy Loman), O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, and Hellman’s The Little Foxes. The series also featured Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, Maxwell Anderson’s Winterset, and Sidney Kingsley’s Detective Story, among others.
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