The Damon Runyon Theatre

For a Pal

English · Dramatic Readings, Short Stories, Humor

The Damon Runyon Theatre brings the colorful world of New York’s Broadway underworld to radio, drawing on the stories of Damon Runyon. Its characters are gamblers, hustlers, show people, and other vivid city dwellers, rendered in Runyon’s distinctive slang and affectionate, knowing style.

The program adapts Runyon’s short fiction as dramatic radio stories, using dialogue, narration, and sound to bring its streetwise characters and their schemes to life. The stories often turn on loyalty, romance, chance, and the unexpected turns of life among people living by their wits.

Runyon’s blend of comic observation and sentiment gives the series its particular charm: its characters may be rogues, but they are treated with warmth and humanity. The result is lively, theatrical storytelling with a strong sense of place and a fondness for the colorful language of Broadway.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.