Radio dramas, comedies, and soaps were the standards of home entertainment long before TV or the internet was invented. In the 1930s and 40s the writers, actors, and producers relied on the imagination of the listeners to "see and feel" the story that was taking place in their kitchens or living rooms every day and night. Radio was an important member of every family. It provided news, entertainment, and necessary information - like the next day's weather report or which cereal or laundry soap to purchase on the way home from work that night.
Walker's story is set in 1959 and revolves around the people and characters of radio station KRUM, Portland, Oregon, as they go through their last day on the air. The station which refused to change its format, is closing due to a changing listenership, low ratings, and the vagaries that plague any small market owner-operated radio station or business. As the audience, we see the actors at their mikes reading their character dialogue in the radio show within the play. We also get to know the station personnel and how each reacts to KRUM radio's final show. Walker is no stranger to the genre of old time radio. His Saturday Radio Matinee productions begins its fourth season in the Coachella Valley in October of this year.
Comparisons are odious at best, but one can't help being reminded of Garrison Keillor's homage to rural midwest life in Lake Wobegone, Minnesota, via his long time radio show "Prairie Home Companion". It was a staple on Public radio stations across America for over 25 years. However, in Walker's Oregon, the characters are just as irrascible, just as rural, just as whimsical, and just as interesting as any characters Keillor dreamed up. Walker, who also directs the production, has created a true ensemble of talented actors. One of the unique aspects of "Thanks For The Memories" is that every performer is, or was, a member of one or more of the country's professional unions, including two performers who actually performed on various radio shows of that era.
The cast features local piano and jazz-singing legend Yve Evans as Millie Farmer, the music director of the station. Former movie and TV actress Patsy Garrett plays Mavis Krum, the owner-operator who must close down her radio station and pink slip her friends and employees of many years. Real life announcer Don Martin plays Wendell Chiles, the local boy who got his announcing start at KRUM and then moved on to the big time. John Rayner, a retired New York actor, and now a playwright in his own right, portrays the cumudgeonly Claiborne Calhoun, while Shep Sanders, a Chicago native, who performed in radio serials and also in movies and TV with Steve McQueen and John Wayne, plays Chick Little the station engineer. Broadway star, actor/singer Donna Theodore, who still can be heard and seen performing concerts and one-woman shows in the desert and Los Angeles, plays Georgia May the former wife of Wendell Chiles who still has feelings for him but won't admit it, and Wayne Tibbetts, an actor/director/dancer who plays Milo Manning, "the man of a hundred voices" - which kinda says it all about his character and role in the show. Every small radio station in America in those days had a "Milo Manning" stashed somehere in a back room who was on call 24/7.
It was a sweet slice of nostalgia that was lovingly performed and produced by a professional cast and looked it. No matter the actors were mostly retired. If you closed your eyes from time to time, they sounded pretty young, or at whatever age your imagination wanted them to be. That was the beauty of radio. It was the ultimate anonymity trip - and if you were an older actor it got even better - you didn't have to memorize your lines anymore. Ahh, the good old days of radio.
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