From the desk of
Lawrence A. Herman
Embedded Files
Why Are We Thanking
Why Are We Thanking
Don Ameche?
Don Ameche?
Don Ameche was an American actor whose career extended from the late 1920s to the early 1990s. He was a star of stage, screen, and radio, appearing in dozens of movies and hundreds of episodes of radio and television shows, winning an Oscar along the way for Best Supporting Actor in Cocoon in 1985.
This play is not about him.
In fact, he’s not even
a character in the play.
Instead, we have a roomful of writers for a hit national network radio comedy/variety show in 1938, dealing with both the pressures of churning out an hour-long live radio show every week, and each other.
(Here's the cast of the Jack Benny Program. The play isn't about them either, but it's not far off.)
Show biz, of course, was show biz even back then. Writers wrote whatever they were told to, and sometimes they even got paid for it.
One of the writers in this writers' room tried to break into show biz by writing a sketch for Don Ameche, and found out that network suits have something of a different point of view than his.
Not that it stopped him, which is part of how he wound up in this room, helping America forget its troubles for an hour a week.
This play is about how this group of writers tried to forget their own troubles and keep themselves and America laughing.
Now it’s your turn to laugh. Enjoy the play.
Yours very sincerely,
Lawrence A. Herman
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