About
The Villages Old-Time Radio Drama Club
The Villages Old-Time Radio Drama Club is one of many specialty
clubs in The Villages, Florida (a large active retirement community
in central Florida). Its objective is to bring back old time
radio shows on recordings, and to provide actors a venue to
re-create old time radio (OTR) shows for the club, and as
entertainment for other social clubs in The Villages.
The
Villages Old-Time Radio Drama Club began as an idea of Jim Rentz in
2005. He had been given
hundreds of reel-to-reel audio tapes of old radio shows recorded by
a recently deceased Villager.
Not knowing exactly what to do with the tapes that now
occupied a storage facility, he decided to start a club and play
them back on a tape machine he also had in storage.
Over the next two years Jim hosted a small group in the
Bacall Recreation Center to listen to those wonderful programs from
the Golden Age of Radio.
When Jim’s health deteriorated he decided to give up the club.
However, one of his regular members (Ed Williams), who had
past experience in both old time radio and broadcast engineering in
radio and TV, believed the club should keep going and stepped up in
early 2008 and continued the club.
He enlisted the help of a neighbor (Fred Helle), who was a
fan of Hopalong Cassidy and old radio mystery shows, to help develop
a regular program series for the club meetings.
One objective Jim had of the club was to put emphasis on the word
“drama” in the club name and encourage members to participate in
re-creating those old radio comedies, mysteries, and adventure
programs.
So, while Ed Williams continued the tradition of the Old Time Radio Club, the drama aspect remained out of reach – for a while. Then one day, at a regular club meeting in the fall of 2008, Ed was again asking members to participate in acting out old radio shows. A new member (Sandra Lee Clarke) from New York stepped up and volunteered to head up the group and “The Villages Old Time Radio Players” were born. Sandra Lee had substantial acting experience and thought it would be fun to set up an acting group to re-enact old radio shows.
One
show in particular – “Sorry Wrong Number” from the Suspense Mystery
Series - caught her attention because of the intense drama and it
was one of the first full-length programs to be performed by the OTR
Players.
Actors from other theater groups in The Villages were asked to
participate and, over a period of time, there evolved the Old Time
Radio Players with up to 15 regular actors re-creating old programs
such as Our Miss Brooks, My Friend Irma, Mr. First Nighter, Sam
Spade Private Detective, The Life of Riley, Boston Blackie, and many
more.
It is now routine for the OTR Players to perform for the monthly
club meetings in addition to providing entertainment for other
social clubs in The Villages several times a year.
Our Mission
Photo of typical NBC radio studio in New York City in the
mid 1930's during a broadcast of One Man’s Family.
-
Through the Old Time Radio Players group, perform
re-creations of old time radio programs complete with
vintage commercials from the 30's, 40's, and 50's.
- Play recordings from the Golden Age of Radio - programs
including Detective and Police Crime, Comedy, Mystery,
Music, Children's, Westerns, Drama, News, and Documentaries.
- Play games of Broadcast Trivia conducted each meeting by
Trivia Master Jerry Meyer.
- Provide an extensive Lending Library of programs and
books, compiled by OTR Librarian Wayne Gorlick, from the
Golden Age of Radio to loan to members for their enjoyment
at home or on the road.
