RADIO ACTION THEATER
Radio Action Theater, based in New York City and produced by Alabama writer and director Robert Clem, was broadcast on public radio in the U.S. and abroad from 1993 to 1998. The episodes feature performances by Eli Wallach, Ossie Davis, Betty Buckley, Stacy Keach, Jeffery Wright, David Strathairn, Hope Davis, John Glover, Lois Smith, Campbell Scott, Will Patton and Michael O'Keefe, and are based on Southern literature and Southern and U.S. history, with adapted stories by William Faulkner, Charles Chesnutt and William Gilmore Simms; and history plays based on the Hamilton-Burr duel, Woodrow Wilson's curious rise to power and the deadly expedition of Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto through what is now the American South. Each episode was directed by Robert Clem with original music composed and performed by Donald Stark.
RADIO ACTION THEATER
CHILD OF THE SUN The Expedition of Hernando de Soto
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Episode 1: The Richest Land Yet to be Discovered
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Season 1
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Episode 1
Hernando de Soto had helped conquer the Incas of Peru and in 1539 was sent by the Spanish crown to subjugate the native tribes of what is now the American Southeast, where he would look for treasures like those found in Central and South America. Eli Wallach is host and a cast of Hispanic and Native American actors play the roles of the Spaniards and the Cherokees, Choctaws and other American tribes who at first welcomed de Soto, then resisted fiercely. With an original music score by Donald Stark, the series was adapted by Robert Clem from the eyewitness account of the Portuguese "Gentleman of Elvas," published in 1557. Broadcast by NPR in 1994 and 1996 and produced and directed by Robert Clem.