Lucille Fletcher Tribute 2022
Season 10, Episode 03
March 18, 2022
Celebrating women and radio storytelling
Re-Imagined Radio presents a tribute to Women's History Month, women in radio, and specifically Lucille Fletcher, a superb female radio storyteller, writer of "The Hitch-Hiker" and "Sorry, Wrong Number."
Re-Imagined Radio offered an earlier Lucille Fletcher Tribute, in 2016. Learn more and Listen here
Lucille Fletcher is also featured in our "Women and Radio" episode. Learn more and listening here
Access the episode script
Background
Violet Lucille Fletcher (1912–2000) wrote novels, plays, librettos, and radio dramas. She is considered
the greatest of all women radio storytellers. Examples of her other radio dramas include . . .
"The Man with the One Track Mind"
The Columbia Workshop, June 30, 1940
"Carmilla"
The Columbia Workshop, July 28, 1940
"Alf, The All-American Fly"
The Columbia Workshop, September 1, 1940
"The Hitch-Hiker"
The Orson Welles Show, November 17, 1941
"Someone Else"
The Columbia Workshop, July 20, 1942
"Remodeled Brownstone"
The Columbia Workshop, October 19, 1942
"Gremlins"
Ceiling Unlimited, December 21, 1942
"The Diary of Safronia
Winters"
Suspense, April 27, 1943, Episode 039
August 17, 1944, Episode 105
August 10, 1958, Episode 763
Starring Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins
"Sorry, Wrong Number"
Suspense, May 25, 1943, Episode 043
Starring Agnes Moorhead
This broadcast was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of
Congress and selected for inclusion in the National Recording Registry in 2015.
"Fugue in C Minor"
Suspense, June 1, 1944, Episode 094
Starring Vincent Price, Ida Lupino, and Bea Benaderet
"The Search
for Henri Lefevre"
Suspense, July 6, 1944, Episode 099
Starring Paul Muni, Hans Conried, and Lurene Tuttle
"The Night Man"
Suspense, October 26, 1944, Episode 812
October 23, 1960, Episode 876
Starring Virginia Bruce, Marsha Hunt, Ginger Jones
"The Furnished Floor"
Suspense, September 13, 1945, Episode 158
Starring Mildred Natwick and Don Defore
"Dark Journey"
Suspense, April 25, 1946, Episode 190
Starring Nancy Kelly and Cathy Lewis
"The Thing in the Window"
Suspense, December 19, 1946, Episode 325
Starring Cathy Lewis, Jeanette Nolan, Jerry Hausner, Joseph Cotten, Robert Montgomery, and Elizabeth
Montgomery
"Bela Boczniak's Bad Dreams"
The Clock, April 25, 1948
Lucille Fletcher is best know for her radio dramas "Sorry, Wrong Number" and "The Hitch-Hiker."
"The Hitch-Hiker"
Fletcher wrote "The Hitch-Hiker" for Orson Welles "in the days when he was one of the master producers and actors in radio." Fletcher said "The Hitch-Hiker" was designed not only for Welles' famous voice but "for the original techniques of sound which became associated with his radio presentations. Orson Welles and his group of Mercury Players made of this script a haunting study of the supernatural, which can still raise hackles along my own spine" (Smith 72). The story follows Ronald Adams, voiced by Welles, as he drives from New York to California. Along the way he repeatedly sees a strange man, hitch-hiking along the side of road. Adams becomes obsessed with the hitch-hiker and learning his identity.
Learn more about Orson Welles
Fletcher says inspiration for "The Hitch-Hiker" came during a 1940 automobile trip with her husband Bernard Herrmann, music composer for Welles. "We saw an odd-looking man, first on the Brooklyn Bridge and then on the Pulaski Skyway. We never saw him again. I kept the idea in my mind for a year and then wrote it as a ghost story" (Smith 72).
Welles performed "The Hitch-Hiker" several times on different radio programs.
The Orson Welles Show
November 17, 1941
A live CBS Radio series produced, directed, and hosted by Orson Welles. Featured dramatic adaptations,
poetry, history, music, comedy, and a
commentary segment by Welles titled "Almanac." Nineteen episodes were produced, 1941-1942. This
performance featured a musical score composed and conducted by Bernard Herrmann.
Suspense
September 2, 1942
One of radio's best-known series for mystery and suspense. Broadcast on CBS from 1942 to 1962.
The Philip Morris Playhouse
October 16, 1942
A radio dramatic anthology series in several incarnations: 1939-1944, 1948-1949, and 1951-1953.
The Orson Welles Almanac
March 16, 1944
A CBS Radio Network series produced and hosted by Welles. Included his commentary on topics of the day,
original stories, and conversations
with Hollywood celebrities.
The Mercury Summer Theatre on the Air
June 21, 1946.
In his introduction, Orson Welles called "The Hitch-Hiker" a classic among radio thrillers and went on
to say, "It's author is one of the most gifted of all the writers who ever worked for this medium,
Lucille Fletcher who wrote 'Sorry, Wrong Number,' the greatest single radio script ever written"
(Welles).
A notable adaptation was produced by Rod Sterling for his television anthology series The Twilight Zone, January 22, 1960.
Resources
Smith, Steven C., A Heart at Fire's Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann.
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1991, hardcover; 2002, paperback
ISBN 978-0-520-22939-6 p. 72.
Welles, Orson. "The Hitch-Hiker." The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air, Internet Archive,
June 21, 1946.
Production
Contents
This episode of Re-Imagined Radio includes samples from the 2016 live performance of "The Hitch-Hiker" by Willamette Radio Workshop and a new iteration of "Sorry, Wrong Number" by Lucille Fletcher.
Cast for "Sorry, Wrong Number"
Patricia Blem as Mrs. Stevenson
Jodi Lorimer as the Operator
Marc Rose as the Man on the Telephone
Sam A. Mowry as George
Jeff Pollard as Sgt. Martin
Myranda Markey as the Nurse
and Susan Chapman as Lucille Fletcher
Credits
Produced, and Hosted by John F. Barber
Sound Design and Music Composition by Marc Rose
Social Media by Regina Carol Social Media Management
Promotional Graphics by Holly Slocum Design
Excerpts, Exhibitions
"Lucille Fletcher Tribute Excerpts." Lights Out Listening Group, The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow, Scotland,
27 April, 2022.
Event Program/Archive and group's MixCloud website
A 9:57 excerpt from "Lucille Fletcher Tribute" was selected from an open international call for inclusion in this episode of Lights Out Listening, a bimonthly live listening event in The Old Hairdressers Shop, Glasgow, Scotland. This excerpt showcases the growing paranoia of the lead characters in Fletcher's two best known radio dramas, "Sorry, Wrong Number" and "The Hitch-Hiker."
Significance
Our re-imagined adaptation of both dramas, performed by The Voices, proves the appeal and power of radio storytelling to engage listeners' imaginations.
Producer's Notes
Re-Imagined Radio first featured these two outstanding dramas by Lucille Fletcher in 2016. Willamette
Radio Workshop, directed by Sam A. Mowry, performed both. Now, in 2022, with COVID restrictions
preventing public gatherings we're producing "Sorry, Wrong Number" from remote recordings and "The
Hitch-Hiker" using samples from the 2016 live performance.
— John F. Barber
Promotion
Press
Graphics
