The People with Light Coming Out of Them (1941

Original Production - February 10, 1941, broadcast on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) 

Producer - Charles Vanda

Director - Irving Reis

Composer - Leith Stevens

Original Cast - 

William Saroyan 
Burgess Meredith
Eduardo Cianelli
John Garfield
Edmund Gwenn
Tim Holt
Nancy Kelly
Clinton Rosamon
William Tracy

Originally written and performed as a radio play as a part of The Free Company, a series of radio plays written with the ideea that ,“there might be a chance for the writers of America to perform a function. Not to exhort, still less to prescribe, but by the power of the word to remind, no more than that, our people of their possessions.”

Other authors who were involved with the project included Maxell Anderson, Stephen Vincent Benet, Marc Connelley, Paul Green, William Saroyan, Robert Sherwood, Elmer Rice, and Archibald MacLeish. 

The People With the Light Coming Out of Them was eventually adapted for the stage by Will O. Whyte. The American National Theater & Academy toured the play to various schools in the 1950s and 60s. 

 

Additional Materials: 

In the Forever Saroyan collection: 

The Free Company Presents: The People with the Light Coming Out of Them, 1941, The Free Company, Signed by Saroyan, B159

The Free Company Presents: The People with the Light Coming Out of Them, 1941, The Free Company, B160

The Free Company Presents, 1941, The Free Company, compilation of all The Free Company Presents episode pamphlets, B158

The Free Company Presents, 1941, Dodd, Mead, & Company, B675

The Free Company Presents, 1941, Dodd, Mead, & Company, B676

The Free Company collection of documents/photos: D001