Cameo Theatre was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 anthology series that aired on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 during the Golden Age of Television

Golden Age of Television

The Golden Age of Television in the United States began sometime in the late 1940s and extended to the late 1950s or early 1960s.-Evolutions of drama on television:...

, from 1950 to 1955.

Television in the round

The live series, produced by Albert McCleery

Albert McCleery

Albert McCleery was a pioneering television producer during the 1950s.He created his innovative Cameo Theatre for television in 1950. A weekly live production, it continued until 1955. On this half-hour series, McCleery offered dramas seen against pure black backgrounds instead of walls of a set...

, introduced to television the concept of theater-in-the-round, which had been well established and popularized since 1947 by Margo Jones

Margo Jones

Margo Jones was an influential American stage director and producer best known for launching the American regional theater movement and for introducing the theater-in-the-round concept in Dallas, Texas. In 1947, she established the first regional professional company when she opened Theatre ’47 in...

 with her Theatre '47 in Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

. McCleery's method of staging employed minimal sets and props well lit within a black background, enabling cameras to move about with much freedom in the darkness, picking up shots from any angle. McCleery's skill with this type of staging led directly to his producer role with NBC's Matinee Theatre

Matinee Theatre

Matinee Theatre is an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1955 to 1958. The series, which ran daily in the afternoon, was frequently live. It was produced by Albert McCleery, Darrell Ross, George Cahan and Frank Price with executive producer George...

. The technique put the focus directly on the characters and dialogue rather than scenery.

Jim Buckley of the Pewter Plough Playhouse (Cambria, California) recalled:

When Al McCleery got back to the States, he originated a most ambitious theatrical TV series for NBC called Matinee Theatre: to televise five different stage plays per week live, airing around noon in order to promote color TV (which had just been developed) to the American housewife as she labored over her ironing. Al was the producer. He hired five directors and five art directors. Richard Bennett, one of our first early presidents of the Pewter Plough Corporation, was one of the directors and I was one of the art directors and, as soon as we were through televising one play, we had lunch and then met to plan next week’s show. That was over 50 years ago, and I’m trying to think; I believe the TV art director is (or was) his own set decorator (selecting furnishings and hand props)—yes, of course! It had to be, since one of McCleery’s chief claims to favor with the producers was his elimination of the setting per se and simply decorating the scene with a minimum of props. It took a bit of ingenuity.

Story sources

Cameo Theatre featured adaptations from the short stories of Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, fighter pilot and screenwriter.Born in Wales to Norwegian parents, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence agent, rising to the rank of Wing Commander...

, Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson was an American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years...

, Irwin Shaw

Irwin Shaw

Irwin Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best-known for his novel, The Young Lions about the fate of three soldiers during World War II that was made into a film starring Marlon...

, and others. The Paley Center for Media detailed the scripting contribution of Ellen M. Violett:

Her first teleplay to be produced was an adaptation of Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson was an American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years...

’s "short shocker", "The Lottery

The Lottery

"The Lottery" is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published in the June 26, 1948, issue of The New Yorker. Written the same month it was published, it is ranked today as "one of the most famous short stories in the history of American literature"....

" for NBC’s sustaining Cameo Theatre in 1950. Created and produced by Albert McCleery, Cameo Theatre was, as described by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh in The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946 to Present, “An interesting early experiment in the unique dramatic possibilities of television… produced in the round, using a minimum of props. It made considerable use of closeups and other camera techniques to focus attention on the characterizations of individual actors. High quality scripts were used, both originals and adaptations for television.” Broadcast on June 14, 1950, Violett’s adaptation of “The Lottery” was the fifth episode of Cameo Theatre, and helped McCleery establish his reputation as a television innovator with his Cameo “technique” of no scenery. “The Lottery” episode was awarded the Single Program Award by the National Conference for Community and Justice, for “promotion of mutual tolerance between people of different races and religions,” and thereby caused quite a stir in the middle of the era of blacklisting, especially as it was the subject of articles in both Time and Life magazines. “Without scenery, well-known actors or advance fanfare,” wrote Time in its issue dated June 26, 1950, “Cameo Theater… last week presented one of the most exciting plays ever shown on U.S. television.” Violett’s teleplay was produced again on August 31, 1951, as an episode of Fireside Theatre, starring Margaret Hayes.

Cameo Theatre was notable for developing young writers. Scripter Raphael Hayes recalled entering broadcasting after he left the Army:

I came out and got a job in the WNEW

WBBR

WBBR is a radio station broadcasting at 1130 AM in New York City. It airs Bloomberg Radio, a service of Bloomberg L.P. WBBR's format is general and financial news, offering local, national and international news reports along with financial market updates and interviews with corporate executives,...

 radio station in New York, as what we called a continuity writer, which paid enough, I suppose, to eat. And at that time television was beginning, and I figured why not try it and see what I could do. I had a little story in my head and I wrote it. You know the phrase “throw it over the transom?” That’s what I did–to the slush pile over at NBC. “A Little Night Music,” it was called, and I think it was a Cameo Theatre. And, my God, the telephone rang one day when I was working at WNEW, and I picked up the phone and listened very carefully, and she said, “We want to do your script.” I was stunned. I hung up, and everybody else in the office looked at me with vengeance. That’s where it began, professionally, where I was able to make some money out of the craft. After that happened, I began to figure out that if I did one television script a month, and they paid me at least $500 for that month, I could quit this job and live that way, doing one script a month for things like Cameo Theatre and other things that were around.

Summer replacements

NBC carried the series as a replacement show four times: It was telecast from June to August 1950 as a summer replacement for the second half hour of Four Star Revue. In 1951, it was broadcast as a June to August replacement for The Voice of Firestone

The Voice of Firestone

The Voice of Firestone, is a long-running radio and television program of classical music. The show featured leading singers in selections from opera and operetta. Originally titled The Firestone Hour, it was first broadcast on the NBC Radio network December 3, 1928 and was later also shown on...

. It replaced Leave It to the Girls

Leave It to the Girls

Leave It to the Girls is an American radio and television talk show, created by Martha Rountree, and broadcast, in various forms, from the 1940s through the 1980s.- Radio version :...

from January to April 1952. The series concluded in 1955 as a summer replacement (July to August) for Letter to Loretta.

Each episode ended with McCleery's trademark closing tag, a hand holding chalk and writing "Albert McCleery" on a blackboard. The hand, however, was not McCleery's; although realistic in appearance, it was actually a mannequin hand holding the chalk.