>> We are ending our "Audio Maverick" series with a bonus episode. When Himan Brown died in 2010, his granddaughter Melina Brown and his professional family, some of the actors from "CBS Radio Mystery Theater," decided to create a video tribute, which was directed by Robert Isaacson. The result was a collective retelling of Brown's life, with Broadway legend Tony Roberts voicing Brown.
What emerged is affectionate, funny, irreverent and imbued with the spirit of a man who lived for and through his work and his actors. This program was produced in loving memory of Robert Isaacson. ♪♪ ♪♪ >> [ Speaking Yiddish ] One language is never enough. >> The man who became a giant in American communications began his life with Yiddish. It was the only language spoken at home when he was a child. >> One language is never enough.
>> When we planned this tribute, we wondered what Hi would want us to say. We think if we asked him for his advice, he would say... >> Can't you speed things up a little? It's okay to get a laugh once in a while. >> We'll try our best, Hi. I know it won't be easy without hearing the telephone ring and that bellowing voice saying... >> I hope you're free December 10th. There are people coming over and I want you to tell them about my life and my work.
>> He would need our help for that. He was so modest, so withdrawn, so retiring. >> That's the man we're going to honor next month. Tonight it's Hi Brown. Possibly the least shy person who ever lived. >> His family was poor. They lived in Brownsville, Brooklyn. His father was a Schneider, a tailor. His mother made skirts and blouses. They were both from Odessa, Russia. They met and got married here in the U.S. and Hi was born in 1910.
>> We'll ask you to imagine that you are with Hi at various stages in his life. He'd want you to imagine that. Imagination was his stock in trade. >> The stock in trade of radio, the best visual medium we have. >> Why visual, Hi? >> Because radio has the best pictures. >> His career didn't start in radio. >> There was no radio when I was young. >> He wanted to be an actor more than anything else in the world.
He went to a man he thought could help make it happen. >> Anyone left who hasn't auditioned? >> That voice belonged to the person in charge of the drama club at the Brooklyn Jewish Center, a man named Moss Hart. Hi heard they were holding auditions for revues they performed. >> I was 12. >> He also heard that they didn't want kids in the company. >> I haven't auditioned yet. >> How old are you, kid? >> 16. >> Hey, you don't look it.
>> Well, my whole family is short. >> So, uh, what do you do? >> Imitations. Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor. >> Mm-hmm. Let's -- Let's see Fanny. >> Oh ha ha, look at me. I'm an Indian. Oh ho ho! Look on me. >> Ahh. [ Clears throat ] That's not bad. Can you come to rehearsals every day? >> Twice a day, if you want me. >> Okay, kid. You're in.
>> That's how it all began, with Moss Hart at the Jewish Center in Brooklyn, Hi Brown in drag, doing Fanny Brice. Later they played the Catskill Mountains doing revues for Borscht Circuit hotels. >> Yeah, I got about $10 a show when I got paid. >> Around this time, an invention called radio began to appear. Some people made their own by wrapping copper wire around a milk can and adding a set of earphones. >> It was amazing. Sometimes you could actually hear something.
Entertainment coming through the air. It seemed to say, "This is where I belong." >> His mother supported his yearning for showbiz by giving him an appropriate gift. >> A violin? What am I supposed to do with this? >> You'll play Mendelssohn concertos. That's what you'll do. >> I don't know any Mendelssohn concertos. >> You'll study, you'll learn, you'll know. >> He studied, he learned. But what he played was not what Mama had in mind.
[ Lively jazz music playing ]
>> The first thing he did when he got to Brooklyn College was organize a jazz band, which played for graduation parties. >> It helped me make a few bucks. >> But playing jazz was not his final goal. Here was this magic contraption called radio, and he wanted more than anything else to be an actor on it. He scouted the existing radio stations in New York. Most of them were housed in hotels with control rooms rigged up in the bathrooms.
There was no money being made, but it was considered good business for the hotel. >> Uh, excuse me, is this WRNY? >> Yeah. You bring the sandwiches? >> Sandwiches? >> We order two roast beef, one bagel with a schmear. >> I'm not from the restaurant. >> So, uh, what do you want? >> I'm an actor. I want to act. >> You want to act? Like we hire kids who come in off the street? Get lost. >> I have experience in radio. >> Experience?
Where? What? >> Uh, I, uh, I worked in Chicago. I did a radio show called, uh, "Hi Brow's Readings." >> That name he gave wasn't far from the truth. Hi Brow was just a small change from Hi Brown. >> Uh, what kind of readings? >> Poems. Uh, stories. Good ones. >> Let me hear one. >> [ Clears throat ] I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed against the earth's sweet flowing breast.
>> Ehh, ehh, can you keep it clean? >> Sure. >> Now, we don't pay anything. >> That's okay. I'm just doing it for the publicity. >> [ Laughs ] Sure. Millions of people are going to hear you with our transmitter in the toilet. Okay, okay. You go to work next week and, uh, change that breast line, will ya? >> What did the manager have to lose? It wouldn't cost him anything. And there were doubts that anyone was listening.
>> Hi did his readings and soon found out that there was something being organized called a network, a collection of radio stations. And if you pass their auditions, they might actually put you on the air. And pay you. >> He auditioned for the woman in charge of NBC, a woman named Margaret Cuthbert. She was a dignified lady who was a stickler for the quality of voices. >> What did you bring to read, young man?
>> Uh, some scenes by Elmer Rice and Sherwood Anderson, the famous playwright. >> Yes. So I've heard. >> And I do dialects. English, German, Italian, whatever you want. >> Go ahead. >> My first scene will be -- >> We'll start with the dialect. >> Top of the day, old chap. Would you prefer fish and chips or shepherd's pie? Hey, here's another one. Listen how I eat a spaghetti. Well, am I singing a Caruso song? >> [ Clears throat ] Thank you.
Next, please. >> Uh, Miss Cuthbert? >> Yes. >> One more please. >> Just one more. Then you'll have to leave. We're very busy. >> It was a dialect story called "Nize Baby" by Milt Gross, a cartoonist for the "New York World." It was about a Jewish mother feeding her baby while speaking with a Yiddish accent, which Hi could do to perfection. He had been reluctant to try it in the high-class surroundings of NBC.
>> As he read, Miss Cuthbert's face started beaming, and then she began to laugh. She loved it and Hi had a network job, a regular program on Saturday morning, reading fairy tales to children with a Yiddish accent. >> One day, the studio telephone rang. It was a call for Hi from a woman bubbling with praise. >> Mr. Brown. I'm Gertrude Berg. I just heard your program, the one with the Jewish dialect. It was wonderful. Warm, believable. Not at all...offensive.
I've written a script about a Jewish family. I think you'll be perfect as my husband, Jake. I also think we could sell it with the one you're doing now as a showcase. We'd be partners. >> They had a meeting, and Gertrude Berg was surprised by Hi's youthfulness. >> Ah. Have you been bar mitzvahed yet? >> Oh, several years ago. I go to Brooklyn College, Miss Berg. >> Well, it's radio, so it doesn't matter how old you look. Here, read my script.
>> The script wasn't bad, and Hi could see himself playing the husband. So he drew up a letter of agreement setting out the terms of partnership between them. >> He was a law school student, a good one when he wasn't playing jazz. He knew how to write an agreement or thought he did. "The Rise of The Goldbergs" went on the air. >> We present the most lovable, genuine family on the air, the Goldbergs, brought to you daily except Saturdays and Sundays. This time, this station.
>> Unfortunately, Hi's agreement did not protect his job. When eventually he was fired from "The Goldbergs," he found it was because he was a minor and his contract was worthless. It was a bitter lesson, but there was a positive side. >> If I could sell one thing, I could sell another. That was the beginning of my career as a packager. Good word. I invented it, and I would keep it for the rest of my life. >> Another series came along.
A series called the "Bronx Marriage Bureau," created by a woman named Julie Burns. Hi sold it directly to a sponsor, the Goodman Noodle and Spaghetti Company. They also made matzo, and they needed advertising for the Passover season. >> Goodman knew how to make noodles and spaghetti and matzo, but not radio shows. I found myself in charge of everything -- directing, casting, script supervision, and sometimes a little acting.
>> With the name of the sponsor attached, the Goodman Noodle and Spaghetti Theater was a trailblazer for shows like Philco Playhouse and Lux Radio Theater. >> But when Passover was over, it was canceled. >> By now, Hi had impressive radio credits, which enabled him to produce and sell other series. For example, there was one called "Little Italy," a kind of "Goldbergs" with Italian accents.
>> There was "Captain Tom's Log," a seaman's adventures, with flounders playing supporting roles. Now, flounders may live a long time, but Captain Tom did not. >> And there was "Peggy's Doctor," the adventures of a doctor's wife. Sounds risqué, but it wasn't. And then there was "John's Other Wife," who was a businessman's secretary and might have been Peggy for all we know. >> Hi produced a series called "David Harum," based on a turn-of-the-century novel.
David was a country horse trader and cracker-barrel philosopher, played by Will Rogers in the movies. >> And let's not forget "Marie The Little French Princess" on at 2:15 in the afternoon 5 times a week. As far as we know, it was the first daytime serial ever. They weren't called soap operas yet. >> It was not until Colgate and Procter and Gamble came into the picture. They realized that housewives were the audience they needed. >> Women loved "Marie."
It was the story of a princess who ran away to America, but found that the only way she could get in was to marry an American. >> So that's what she did, keeping her identity secret. He cast the show with wonderful actors -- Porter Hall, Agnes Moorehead, Allyn Joslyn. >> Sooner or later, everybody in town caught on that Marie was a princess. Everybody except her husband. >> That idiot never found out.
>> Hi's dealing with cartoonist Milt Gross put another idea in his head. Why not a radio series based on a cartoon strip? He studied the popular cartoons of the day, including "Flash Gordon" and "Dick Tracy." >> I wondered whether those stories created for children would work for a general audience. I would soon find out. >> And now Dick Tracy. Dick Tracy on the case of the empty safe.
>> Hi succeeded in getting the rights to "Dick Tracy" from the "Chicago Tribune Daily News" syndicate in Chicago. He got them with one condition. He could use the characters in the "Dick Tracy" strip but not the stories. Those he would have to come up with himself. >> I had to look for a writer. I remembered a fellow student at Brooklyn College who dreamed of becoming a playwright. But could he write a radio version of a cartoon strip?
>> I made him an offer, and the fellow accepted. It was Irwin Shaw, the prize-winning playwright-to-be, who wrote "Dick Tracy" for the next two years. >> Another action series developed by Hi for radio was "Terry and the Pirates," an adventure created by Milton Caniff that unfolded in the Far East. >> I had to make sure that the audience felt the excitement and peril of every moment of their listening time, as well as the delicious flavor of the sponsor's product.
They were listening, too. >> Quaker Puffed Wheat is shot from guns. Now Quaker Puffed Wheat and Quaker Puffed Rice bring you... "Terry and the Pirates." The new and exciting adventure of Terry Lee. "The Dragon Lady Strikes Back. >> Unlike Orphan Annie, Terry, a child when the adventures began, was allowed to grow up and trade life-threatening moves with the heavily mascaraed Dragon Lady, a gorgeous pirate queen. >> A less violent cartoon series developed by Hi was "The Gumps."
That popular strip became a program of vignettes of an average American family, and once again, Irwin Shaw was recruited to write the scripts. >> And once again, Hi had a role for the brilliant young actress he admired so much, the one he cast as, uh, Marie the princess. Agnes Moorehead became the perfect Minnie Gump. >> There was one series I will never forget. "Flash Gordon," the hero of God knows what century. [ Gunfire ]
♪♪ >> Presenting for the first time in radio, the amazing interplanetary adventures of Flash Gordon and Dale Arden. ♪♪ These thrilling adventures come to you as they are pictured each Sunday in the "Comic Weekly," the world's greatest pictorial supplement of humor and adventure. >> I will never forget "Flash Gordon" because it was one of my biggest flops. We blew up the Earth twice a week and nobody cared.
>> Yet, strangely, when Orson Welles had the Martians invade, there was an outpouring of people with shotguns and pitchforks, their fears no doubt inflamed by the fact that the world was actually on the brink of war. >> I learned that timing is sometimes the key to success. >> Hi learned many other things as he pioneered radio drama -- the value of sound effects in creating a mood or location. Take Bulldog Drummond, the hard-boiled enemy of crime in Britain.
How do you re-create London in a New York studio next door to a kosher deli? >> You ask yourself, "What is London?" Big Ben chiming, footsteps echoing in the dark, a round of shots from a Webley pistol number III, and, of course, the accent of Ronald Colman. Presto, London. [ Foghorn blows ] [ Gunshots ] [ Whistle blowing ] ♪♪ >> Out of the fog, out of the night and into his American adventures comes Bulldog Drummond.
And now to tell us of his latest adventure, here is Bulldog Drummond. >> Ah, but the best example of sound-effects magic continues to be the opening Hi created for another crime show, one steeped in mystery and horror. [ Door creaking ] [ Metal squeaking ] >> Good evening, friends of "The Creaking Door." This is your host to welcome you again into the inner sanctum. Come in, come on in. No, no, please don't stand on ceremony. We're all informal here. No ties, no collars.
In some cases, no heads. [ Laughing ] >> Did you like the way I did that, Mr. Brown? >> It was perfect. Gave me goose pimples. That's how we'll open and close the show. 10 minutes' break for everyone. >> Uh, Mr. Brown? >> Yes? >> Where does my credit go? The beginning or the end of the show? >> Oh, I meant to talk to you about that. I can't give you credit. >> No credit? >> Afraid not. >> I'm an actor, Mr. Brown. I need the credit.
>> I understand that, but let me explain. Your voice is magic, a feeling of mystery, a spirit without a body. If I give it a name, the magic is gone. >> There was a dispute. Johnson wanted the job. Hi Brown wanted Johnson. A compromise was reached. The actor would get a credit, but not his entire name. Only his first name -- Raymond. >> To this day, the voice of Raymond, just Raymond, conjures up a spirit that we believe might exist in a cave or in the inner sanctum.
>> Three years later, Raymond Johnson went into the Army. He was replaced by the actor Paul McGrath, but the character's name remained Raymond, just Raymond. The effect was never lost. >> There was one piece of information Hi loved to bring up when discussing the history of radio. >> The Copyright Office in Washington has only two sound effects in its files, both protected by copyright law. The NBC chimes and the creaking door of the inner sanctum. [ Door creaking ]
[ Metal squeaking ]
>> Another trademark created by Hi was the sound of Grand Central Station. >> I called it the "Crossroads of a Million Private Lives." >> The show was an enormous hit. But when he checked out the actual sound of the station, it was a bore. Just a lot of people milling around. No trains coming in with a roar, no whistles, no steam, no grinding and squealing of brakes. >> Hmm. I'll put those sounds in anyway. Who cares if people complain about inaccuracy?
I'm giving them the Grand Central Station of their imaginations and of my own. >> Grand Central Station. [ Train whistle blowing ] >> All aboard for better baking. You're on the right track with Pillsbury. Greatest name in flour. [ Train whistle blowing ] >> Radio grew and Hi grew with it. >> At one point, I was directing four or five shows a day -- "Marie the Princess," "John's Other Wife," "David Harum," "Dick Tracy," "Terry and the Pirates."
And sometimes others. All of it live. >> When asked how he could handle all that... >> Well, you can't believe how busy I was. I was juggling balls and standing on my head. >> In 1933, the country was standing on its head in the midst of a great depression. But it was a happy year in the life of Hi Brown. >> I married this beautiful, wonderful girl from the Bronx, whom I fell in love with at one of my summer outings where I was doing my Borscht Circuit stint.
>> Her name was Mildred. On the day of their marriage, President Roosevelt made a generous gesture. >> He closed all the banks in America. >> Nonetheless, Hi and Mildred had a long and successful marriage -- 34 years. They had two children, a boy named Barry and a girl named Hilda. Hi loved his children and later his grandchildren and great grandchildren. He was deeply involved in all their lives.
>> Those children were blessed with artistic talent and still are -- writing, movie making, painting, music. Hi would show their artwork to friends alongside his collection of Picasso and Modigliani. Mildred, the mother and grandmother of that talented brood, could not go on enjoying their talent and charm. She died too young. >> In time, Hi married again to a woman named Shirley Goodman, who was the executive vice president of the Fashion Institute of Technology. A remarkable woman.
The college today has a building named after her, just a few blocks from the place where Hi had his office. >> In 1938, Hi needed an actor for a series called "Way Down East." It was a love story, like the others he'd done, but this one had a different twist. It was set on a farm, and the important thing was getting the country accents right. After many auditions, Hi came up with nothing, and the season's opening date was breathing down his neck. >> Any more actors out there?
>> Bottom of the barrel, Mr. Brown. There's one left. He came in late and lost his script. >> Sounds like a winner. Send him in and get me an aspirin. Make it a bottle. >> You can go in now. >> Mr. Brown, I'm sorry, I just... >> Yeah, yeah, I know. You lost your script. Not a wise thing to do. Here. Read this. >> Well, how would you like to have me read it? >> Oh, never mind how. Just read it. >> I better mend that fence, Rebecca.
The cows seem mighty restless in the pasture. First thing you know, they'll be hoofing away. Of course, if you got something else in mind... >> Stop! Stop! >> What? >> Where'd you get that accent? >> It comes natural to me, sir. That's how folks in Walters, Oklahoma, talk. >> What's your name? >> Van Heflin. >> The series "Way Down East," starring Van Heflin and Agnes Moorehead, was successful. >> I didn't need the aspirin.
>> Another series he produced and directed was "Joyce Jordan, Girl Intern." The show was considered revolutionary because it featured a female doctor. That was all to the good for Hi, but the program needed another boost. A refreshing list of diseases. >> In those days, psychiatry was becoming important. Hi welcomed Freud's writings as a treasure chest of story material going back to the ancient Greeks. >> Sibling rivalries, conflicts of parents and children, Oedipal complexes.
>> He created a doctor with a foreign accent, a stand-in for Freud, who would be the head of the hospital and whose cases would revolve around Joyce Jordan. ♪♪ >> Now Dreft presents "Joyce Jordan, M.D." >> But, Jordan, there's nothing I can do. If Iris Blakely wants to take Dawson home, there's not one single thing I can do. >> You can put your foot down and refuse permission.
>> Now, don't be childish. You know perfectly well that I could get myself and the hospital in a peck of trouble if I did that. >> This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company. [ NBC chimes ] >> The audience loved "Joyce Jordan" for 18 years. >> Besides delving into Freud, Hi was an avid reader of classic literature such as Shakespeare, de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde, Henry James.
In the 1930s, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Eugene O'Neill were rising literary stars, and he read them, too. >> Mr. Brown, have any of your programs been inspired by the authors you've read? >> No question about it. Hundreds of my shows are based on classics of all time. The stories of Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Hawthorne, Joseph Conrad, Jack London, all their ideas get into your brain and into your bloodstream. You use them.
♪♪ >> Into the bloodstream of America came the fire and grotesque, twisted steel of a U.S. city named Pearl Harbor. That date is forever preserved, in the words of President Franklin Roosevelt. >> Yesterday, December 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
>> Hi was too old for the draft, but he served the country in other ways, producing shows for the sale of war bonds, giving listeners valuable information on the wartime measures they should follow, conserving fuel, planting victory gardens, contributing scrap rubber and metal to the war effort. >> He served on the Writers War Board in Washington, an agency designed to promote public attitudes about the war. You might call it our own propaganda machine.
Others on the board included Rex Stout, the author of the Nero Wolfe novels, which eventually Hi turned into a radio series. He received awards for his wartime work, and all his life he treasured them. He loved America. >> He treasured his friendship with actors, too. Many stars had their beginnings in radio drama, working with Hi -- such stars as Richard Widmark, Mercedes McCambridge, Dorothy McGuire, Paul Stewart, Martin Gabel, Arlene Francis, Phyllis Newman and others.
They were at his microphones, as we were and are now. And he could call on them in later years, when they were already at the top of their craft. >> In the 1950s, TV, what we call television, raised its flickering head. It was a blow for radio, not at first because few people had TV. They said it would only be for the rich. >> We all know what happened to that theory.
>> [ Laughs sarcastically ] When Hi was told that millions would soon want to see as well as hear, he countered with the show "Don Juan in Hell" by George Bernard Shaw. >> It was a hit on Broadway starring great actors -- Charles Boyer, Charles Laughton, Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Hi's old friend Agnes Moorehead. >> They acted their lines while sitting on stools. No elaborate sets, no costumes, just formal clothes.
>> Hi told the advertising moguls that he could do shows the same way, shows that people could watch or listen to without missing a beat. >> I knew from experience that people loved to watch radio shows, and those shows were cheaper to produce than trying to re-create ancient Rome or the Battle of the Bulge. >> The advertisers weren't impressed. "TV," they said, "was tomorrow and radio would soon be yesterday." They urged Hi to try his hand at making films.
He did, but his heart was still in radio drama, as was evident to Sam Diggs, the president of CBS. >> I'm sure of it, Sam. It could be a major hit. >> But is it in color? I can't get approval for black and white these days. >> It has color that doesn't quit. Brilliant color in the listener's mind. >> A radio series? Oh, Hi. Come on. >> Called the "CBS Radio Mystery Theater." Great mysteries, great detectives, great drama.
And the audience's eyes don't have to be glued to a screen. They can get their thrills while cooking dinner, fixing a car, doing their homework. >> But when they look up from the pot roast, what do they see? >> I'm giving them something else, Sam. Something just as important. Maybe more. I'm giving them the joy of listening. >> Huh. You know, you've just rung a bell with me. [ Chuckles ] I remember how I became invisible with "The Shadow" while I was building a model plane.
>> So? >> I can't say go to you, Hi. I have to talk to some people who maybe never built a model plane. I'll be in touch. >> While waiting, Hi did make films. 39 of them, long and short. Everything from a Gene Lockhart sitcom to a TV version of the inner sanctum. >> To do all that, Hi needed a studio. There weren't many good ones in New York, and those that existed were very expensive and usually totally booked.
>> So I created my own in a building on West 26th Street, a building that used to be a cavalry stable. >> Aside from films, he was asked to produce other kinds of shows. A live spectacle in Madison Square Garden to celebrate the survival of Israel when she was attacked by her neighbors. >> He produced a slide show in Atlantic City on the history of American social work. The readers -- Burt Lancaster, Celeste Holm, and Ruby Dee.
>> And let's not forget "The Price of Silence," the film he produced condemning the anti-Semitism of the Soviet Union. It was dramatized in a courtroom setting with Edward G. Robinson as the prosecuting attorney. It had a profound effect on those who saw it, including the rulers of the Soviet Union, who placed Hi on a persona non grata list. >> Something I was quite proud of. > In 1974, the good news came. CBS gave Hi the go-ahead for the radio mystery series.
It had been voted on by station execs in more than 200 cities, and the results were overwhelming. >> The opening sound of the series was reminiscent of one from the past. >> The "CBS Radio Mystery Theater" presents... [ Door opens, creaking ] [ Metal squeaking ] ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Come in. Welcome. You're just in time to join me on another journey through that uncharted, limitless, mysterious world of your own imagination. >> The host was E.G. Marshall.
The "CBS Mystery Theater" broadcast 1,399 episodes over a span of eight years. It was a rebirth of American radio drama. After eight years on the air, the "CBS Mystery Theater" became silent and so did radio drama in America. >> But Hi's heart always remained in radio.
He gave large donations to his alma mater, Brooklyn College, to build studios where students could learn the techniques of broadcasting, and he was often invited to colleges to tell students and faculty how he turned the contraptions of Nikola Tesla and Edwin Armstrong into an art form. >> Hi Brown continued to produce, develop, and direct until the waning years of his life. His more recent shows, produced on recordings, have so far never been broadcast.
Among Hi's possessions there is a collection of such recordings. They are about the lives of great people and how they accomplished what they did. >> People like Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine. >> Lillian Wald, who founded the Henry Street Settlement for those in need. >> The fitting title -- "They Were Giants" -- a series of radio plays authored by some of Hi's favorite writers. >> Allan Sloan. >> Murray Burnett. >> Mary Jane Higby.
>> Sam Dann. >> Elspeth Eric. >> Gerald Kean. >> Ian Martin. >> Paul Inger. >> Arnold Moss. >> Henry Slesser. >> And Jerome Coopersmith, who wrote this tribute at the request of Hi's granddaughter Melina Brown. Himan's Radio Drama Network Foundation, working with CUNY TV, has created the Himan Brown TV and Radio Studios to ensure the continuation of his work in audio drama.
>> It would be a fulfillment of Hi Brown's dream if someday all of his work would be available worldwide. >> We would like nothing better than to turn our radios on once again and hear... ♪♪ ♪♪ >> The entire production was conceived, produced and directed by Himan Brown. We hope you have discovered the joy of listening. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> "Audio Maverick" is produced and directed by Sarah Montague, who also writes the scripts.
Our executive producers are Melina Brown and Sarah Montague. CUNY TV's executive director is Chiqui Cartagena. The director of production is Susan Iger and Deborah Labadie is CUNY TV's chief operating officer. The associate producer for "Audio Maverick" is Corinne Wallace and our audio production intern is Lucia Funaro. "Audio Maverick" is narrated by Margot Avery. Our technical team at CUNY includes senior audio engineer Richard Kim and audio engineer and program mix engineer Lisa Gosselin.
Our staff photographer is Laura Fuchs. Our archivists are David Rice and Catriona Schlosser. Our closed caption coordinator is Amy Monte, and the script editor is Allison Behringer. Our theme was composed by Allison Leyton-Brown. Sound design and final mixing are by John DeLore and Bart Warshaw. Multitude Productions handles our publicity and marketing. "Audio Maverick" is a production of CUNY TV.