Home page Inside SCN Bio Menu Fast Bio Menu Slow In Memory Galleries

The Studio

A CFN Production

1957

 

by Channing Grigsby
The program was called "The Studio." CFN tried to do a full series, thirteen shows, but it is uncertain if they completed the full series. Everyone involved had full-time jobs and The Studio was being done in addition to the full-time jobs. It required the cast and crew to do a full setup for each show. They did everything -- scripting, lighting, rehearsal, direction, sound, costumes, sets, etc. Thirty minutes doesn't sound like much time, until you have to do as much for thirty minutes as for sixty. Channing clearly remembers four shows -- The Bible reading, the Saroyan play, the Red Badge, and another sci-fi -- He remembers that they had a hard time trying to get an image of stars and the universe to show up in black and white TV. The Studio was intense and exhausting and a wonderful experience, but hard to do on a weekly basis, especially without the benefit of tape. In that sense, it was like a rep theater company putting on a new play every week.

 

Photos & story courtesy Channing Grigsby. Click on photos to enlarge.

EM 00 1CFN2.jpg (58932 bytes)

  • Tom Sherman left podium 

  • Gerry Sturges Cameraman on left 

  • Bruce Glenn cameraman - raised arm  

  • unidentified Crouching lighting person 

  • A. J. Carrothers  right podium 

  • Channing Grigsby on ladder 
EM 00 1CFN3.jpg (65174 bytes)

  • A. J. Carrothers behind podium 

  • Gerry Sturges left cameraman 

  • Channing Grigsby on ladder 

  • Bruce Glenn (?) cameraman (crouching) 
EM 00 CFN1.jpg (39168 bytes)

Channing Grigsby behind podium

     Tom Sherman cameraman

 

  

  

carbon copy

1st page of shooting script for

The Red Badge of Courage

Text reads:

Good evening. Welcome once again to the Studio. Tonight we open one of the greatest books of the Civil War, "The Red Badge of Courage", by Stephen Crane. The amazing thing about this book is that Stephen Cranbe never saw a battle until some years after he wrote it. It was immediately hailed as a masterpiece and has remained so to this day.

Henry Fleming was a farm boy in New York who burned to enlist in the Union Army. Finally, he did enlist, against his mother's wishes, and after their training, his regiment went to the field and seemed to sit, and sit, and sit, waiting and waiting...

 

HENRY (voice over -- on tape):

What happens if we go into battle? The way the veterans talk, there's no stoppin' those Johnnies. But they always talk like that. What would I do in a battle?... (looks up as two men enter).

 

JIM (to Wilson)

That's all right. You can believe me or not, jes as you like. All you got to do is sit and wait as quietly as you

 

Copyright © All Rights Reserved