Treasure Island - Mercury Theatre on the Air

The second production of the Mercury Theatre on the Air was Treasure Island. Orson Welles, John Houseman and the Mercury troupe prepared their version of the classic tale, by Robert Louis Stevenson, for broadcast on July 18, 1938.

Mercury Theatre on the Air was a one-hour radio program which began in July of 1938. It aired on the CBS radio network.

In this production, Orson Welles plays the role of Long John Silver and the elder Jim Hawkins (who is telling a story which took place in his youth). This method tracks the way Robert Louis Stevenson originally wrote the story: Hawkins, the narrator, takes readers on a back-in-time adventure.