3:00 pm | FREE ADMISSION | live radio play
We Hold These Truths was first heard on the radio, December 15, 1941 and was written, produced and directed by Norman Corwin. The radio play was followed by an address to the nation by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was commissioned to commemorate the 150th anniversary of our Bill of Rights. The Rosendale Theatre cast includes Sophia Skiles, Molly Parker Myers, Claudia Brown, Carol Fox Prescott and Joanna Rotte. Sound and Music by Fre Atlast with vocals by Machan Taylor. The play is directed by Ann Citron.
Norman Corwin won a Peabody Award for the show. The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 — a week before the scheduled broadcast — may have contributed to what the Crossley Rating Service estimated to be 63 million listeners (almost half of the U.S. population), the largest audience in history for a dramatic performance.
The radio program had been commissioned by the United States government under the auspices of the Office of Education, and was scheduled for live broadcast on that date well before the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. When producer Corwin asked on December 7 whether the show was still on, the response wired to him the next day was, “The President thinks it’s more important now than ever to proceed with the program.”