WORTHINGTON -- Minnesota West Community and Technical College invites area residents to "Turn Your Radio On!" for an evening of comedy, music, drama and old-fashioned radio performance starting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the commons area at Minnesota West's Worthington campus.
Special guest Jim Wychor, longtime Worthington radio personality, will announce the songs and radio skits throughout the evening. He will also participate in a Gracie Allen-George Burns skit with Linda Lang, the show's director.
"I think it's going to be a lot of fun -- a lot of nostalgia," Lang said.
The show will include many segments of historical radio skits, including the famous 1938 "Who's On First?" sketch from Abbot and Costello and the infamous 1938 "War of the Worlds" broadcast that fooled many Americans into believing a real alien invasion had occurred. Roy Rogers, Little Orphan Annie and the Lone Ranger will make appearances during the show, too.
"Turn Your Radio On!" starts with dessert at 6:30 p.m., with the show set to begin at 7 p.m.
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The Collegiate Concert Choir and the Blue Jay Swing Choir will sing hits from before the dawn of radio as well as songs from the modern age, from "Anything Goes" to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and "Music of the Night."
Galen Benton will perform on the bass as well as the accordion, with Daniel Bartosh on drums and Lang playing the piano. Minnesota West music instructor and baritone Eric Parrish will perform "This Nearly Was Mine."
Lang worked as a radio announcer in California, first for a classical music show and then for a musical theater show. She was also a voice actor for radio dramas at that time. Her former employer helped her get radio scripts for the Minnesota West show.
"My students knew some of those old radio shows," Lang said, marveling that decades after the heyday of radio drama, college-age students still know about the major players of the time.
