This story was published in Radio Recall, the journal of the Metropolitan Washington Old-Time Radio Club, published six times per year.

Click here to return to the index of selected articles.

The first NYOTR convention, held October 13-14, 2012 at the Ramada Plaza at the Newark Airport, was a success according to several attendees, including actor Michael Gwynne who appeared in some of the re-creations.

This event was organized by Jill Schissel, Marc Kess and Gary Yoggy and featured several guest stars, including Arthur Anderson, Dan Bianchi, founder of Radiotheatre and Sheila York, author of the Lauren Atwill Screenwriter Mystery Series. Film , theater, television and radio star Tony Roberts discussed his work on CBS Radio Mystery Theater to an admiring audience.

There were several fine re-creations. The Cranston & Spade Theatre Company pertormed Richard Diamond, Private Detective and an episode of The Lone Ranger. Also The Old Time Radio Players presented a re-creation of Quiet, Please.

MWOTRC long·time member. Edgar Farr Russell III directed a well-received comedic recreation of Raising Junior and Marc Kess next oversaw a production of The Couple Next Door, the famous series by Peg Lynch.

As she often did in real lite, Marilyn Monroe stole the evening's entertainment. Erika Smith, an MM impersonator, was greeted by cheers and whistles when she took the stage to be in a recreation of the classic Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy program where Charlie is to many Marilyn Monroe.

Erika not only triumphed in the radio role, she nearly brought down the house when she sang to honored guest, Arthur Anderson, "Happy Birthday" (the same way MM did to JFK) and then she followed it with "I Wanna Make Love to You". Arthur handled the attention with aplomb.

Other attractions during this event were Usa DeMarco Brandi discussing "The DeMarco Sisters~ and Dr. Cynthia Meyers, whose topic was "Dramatizing a Bar of Soap: Admen as the Showmen of Radio".

Bart Curtis ran the mikes and all the sound effects single-handedly. Supporting cast in the re-creations included: Simon Jones, Larry Conroy and Craig Wichman.

There were about twelve vendors in the dealers' rooms and they seemed to be doing good business. The banquet room was limited to 100 diners, which did not accommodate all the folks who wanted to participate. Michael Gwynne concluded that NYOTA "was a resounding success and it most definitely will return next year." (We shall see .... )