the city interrupts them. The General calls for resistance but the people have already given up hope and renounced their freedom echoing the prophecy "Masterless men must take a master!" as the armour-clad Conqueror enters the city. As the people cower and cover their faces, the Conqueror ascends the podium and opens his visor, with only the Radio Announcer seeing that the visor and armour are empty, observes "People invent their oppressors." But by then. the people are now acclaiming their new master. The Announcer concludes: "The city has fallen..." First broadcast Cast of characters The cast of the Columbia Workshop broadcast premiere is listed as it appears in The Fall of the City, the text of the play published April 26, 1937, by Farrar & Rinehart. House Jameson as Studio Director Orson Welles as Announcer Adelaide Klein as Dead Woman Carleton Young as 1st Messenger Burgess Meredith as Orator Dwight Weist as 2nd Messenger Edgar Stehli as Priest William Pringle as General Guy Repp, Brandon Peters, Karl Swenson, Dan Davies, and Kenneth Delmar as Antiphonal Chorus Citizens, dancers, priests, soldiers, etc. Production The play was broadcast live from the drill hall of the Seventh Regiment Armory in Manhattan, New York. The site was chosen for the acoustic properties needed for the production. The principal director was Irving Reis who was also the producer. Music was composed and directed by Bernard Herrmann, music director of the Columbia Workshop. William N. Robson was responsible for crowd supervision; Brewster Morgan was editorial supervisor; and the stage manager was Earle McGill. The production involved the construction of a soundproof isolation booth for Welles. Two hundred extras were used for the crowds, drawn from New York University students, New Jersey high school students and boys clubs. To simulate a crowd of 10,000, Reis recorded the sounds of the extras during rehearsals, including their shouts. During the actual performance, these recordings were played at four different locations in the Armory; the recordings were played at slightly different speeds to give the effect of a larger crowd. The photograph shown here was apparently taken during a dress rehearsal in the Seventh Regiment Armory, and reveals much about the original broadcast and reveals something about radio techniques in 1937. Though it may look under-illuminated, the dark hue is caused by lighting insufficient for taking a photograph in the Armory's vast drill hall. It must be a dress