The (CBS Radio) Columbia Workshop, formed in 1936, encouraged the writing and production of creative, non-traditional radio drama such as Archibald MacLeish's verse play "The Fall of the City," which aired on April 11, 1937. MacLeish considered radio the ideal medium for poetry because it offers only aural stimuli without competition from visual stimuli. In "The Fall of the City" a conqueror arrives and the people of the city fall at his feet, but when he lifts the visor on his helmet, there is no one inside the armor. The radio announcer, acting in the tradition of the Greek chorus, states the theme of the drama: people invent their oppressors. The part of the announcer was played by Orson Welles. Crowd noises were created by recording the sounds of students and extras earlier and playing it back during the live performance while the extras repeated their noise. "The Fall of the City" was a significant event because it was prophetic of events to come, such as the fall of Vienna to Hitler, and also because it represented the first attempt by an American poet to create a verse play expressly for radio. In general, "The Fall of the City" met with public acceptance and critical acclaim. (SRT)