Let’s Pretend

Imagination through listening, making the invisible images come to life. That is what Let's Pretend Radio performance did for those without television. Listening made the mind of the listener fill in the pictures of the people and the events that were described.

New Artists Productions offers kids an opportunity to play roles that require their imagination to make the characters real to the audience and to each other.

Back in the 1940s and early 1950s, the 'Let's Pretend' radio show was designed especially for children, but their families enjoyed listening just as well.

'It was a happy and wholesome radio show involving youth actors playing the parts in dramatized fairy tales and stories such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Arabian Nights, Beauty and the Beast, Rumpelstiltskin, and many others.' (The Jon Hehn Memorial Collection statement)

The shows allow the listener to be somebody different in the confines of their own living room. (Link to Let's Pretend Archive - https://archive.org/details/Lets_Pretend)

Portrayal of characters described for the imagination took place without costumes, makeup, or props; the transformation into character took place because the listener was encouraged to create all of those ideas and images within their imagination.

Through the New Artists Productions program, we try to do the same thing - we offer the vehicle for kids to 'pretend' they are somebody else or someplace else.

Imagination spurs creativity; creativity spurs opportunity for personal development. We hear from kids and adults alike, ‘I have always wanted to try theater but never had the chance or the time.’

We address this comment head-on; New Artists Productions opens the doors – ‘Try it! You just might like it!’