Celanese Theatre
Anthology series adapting stage plays for television on ABC.
Celanese Theatre was an anthology television series that aired on ABC from October 3, 1951, to June 25, 1952. It adapted stage plays for television, produced by the Celanese Corporation and the William Morris Agency. The series won a Peabody Award in 1951 and received Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Drama Series in 1952 and 1953. The program aired as a 60-minute show on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET, then switched to a 30-minute version starting January 9, 1952, running from 10 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. ET. It alternated with Pulitzer Prize Playhouse and, for two months beginning in October, with King's Crossroads, a movie series.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Anthology
- Director
- Alex Segal
- Composer
- Bernard Green
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Episodes
- 20
- Executive producers
- Alex Segal; A. Burke Crotty
- Runtime
- 60 minutes (Oct-Dec 1951)/30 minutes (Jan-Jun 1952)
Facts from the source article.
Background
The series arose from the Playwrights' Repertory Theater of Television, focusing on adapting stage plays to television. Produced by the Celanese Corporation and the William Morris Agency, it featured plays by Maxwell Anderson, Philip Barry, Rachel Crothers, Eugene O'Neill, S. N. Behrman, Elmer Rice, John Van Druten, Sidney Howard, Paul Osborn, and Robert E. Sherwood. The program's first production was O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness!. On February 6, 1952, the episode "Brief Moment" starred Robert Sterling, Veronica Lake, and Burgess Meredith.
The Peabody Award in 1951 praised the series: "For the first time, Celanese Theatre fused the realism and vitality of the theatre at its best with inventive camera and production techniques, revealing the limitless potentialities of television to project great drama into the American home." The program ended when Celanese company officials concluded it cost too much, despite positive recognition. On August 12, 1952, Milton R. Bass wrote in The Berkshire Eagle: "It has been impossible for the network to sell the program because no other sponsor wants to pay for a program called Celanese Theatre. Any other name would mean nothing to the public and all those awards and huzzahs are absolutely down the drain."
More in American Broadcasting Company Television Dramas
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