The Gulf Playhouse (1952)

Original title

Gulf Playhouse

Genre

drama

Country

United States

Length

2 seasons, 16 episodes

Rating

8.0 of 10 from 1 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This is an American anthology series from the early 1950s. Each episode told a complete story through a live performance, where actors spoke directly to the camera as if it were a character.

theatricalintimateexperimentalgroundeddirectvariedlive-performance

What happens

Gulf Playhouse, also known as Gulf Playhouse: 1st Person and First Person Playhouse is an American anthology series that aired on Friday nights from 1952 to 1953 on NBC. Originally a standard live dramatic anthology series, it was later redeveloped as a summer replacement series whose anthology stories were now told as seen through the "eye" of the camera. The actors in each episode would talk to the camera as if it were a person, animal or object. Gulf Playhouse debuted on October 3, 1952, replacing We the People. It initially ran on NBC opposite My Friend Irma. When it was canceled, Gulf replaced it with The Life of Riley. The revised version, Gulf Playhouse: 1st Person, was the summer replacement for Riley in 1953. The series ran for twenty-four episodes with stars that included Rod Steiger, Tony Randall, Kim Stanley, Eddie Bracken, Ward Bond, Wendell Corey, Felicia Montealegre Bernstein, and Kim Hunter. The show's sponsor was Gulf Oil, and it was produced and directed by Frank Telford. Among its other directors was Arthur Penn. and Wes McKee. Bill Hoffman edited the scripts. Many of the writers were relatively unknown at the time. They included Carey Wilber, Frank D. Gilroy, Abby Mann, and Norman Lessing. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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