The Nativity was a 58-minute television drama with music about the birth of Christ, presented on the television anthology Westinghouse Studio One. It was originally telecast on the evening of December 22, 1952. It was directed by Franklin Schaffner

Franklin Schaffner

Franklin James Schaffner was an American film director best known for such films as Planet of the Apes , Patton , Papillon , and The Boys from Brazil .-Early life:...

, and is a rare modern network television production of an authentic mystery play, mostly culled from the York and Chester Mystery Plays of the 14th and 15th centuries. The adaptation was by Andrew Allan

Andrew Allan

Andrew Allan , born in Scotland, was the national head of CBC Radio Drama from 1943 to 1955. He oversaw the work of some of the finest talents of the day – writers and actors such as Lister Sinclair, Mavor Moore, W.O...

. The presentation, originally telecast live, has been preserved on kinescope and has been issued in several DVD public domain versions.http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000IN68IW It can also be seen complete online on Internet Archive

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...

.

The play was performed in what is now known as Elizabethan English. Although it takes its text straight from fifteenth-century English, the words were not pronounced as Middle English

Middle English

Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....

 would be, but in a more modern manner. Musical selections were selected from Christmas carols and sung by the Robert Shaw Chorale

Robert Shaw Chorale

The Robert Shaw Chorale was a professional chorus founded in New York City in 1948 by Robert Shaw, a Californian who had been drafted out of college a decade earlier by Fred Waring to conduct his Glee Club in radio broadcasts...

. The cast included Thomas Chalmers

Thomas Hardie Chalmers

Thomas Hardie Chalmers was an American opera singer, actor, and filmmaker.-Biography:Thomas Chalmers was born on October 20, 1884 in New York City, the son of Thomas Hardie and Sophia Amanda Chalmers...

, Paul Tripp

Paul Tripp

Paul Tripp was a musician, author and television and film actor born in New York City. He was a partner of fellow composer George Kleinsinger. Tripp was the creator of 1945's "Tubby the Tuba", a children's song that has become his best-known work. Early in his career, he was the host of CBS' Mr....

, and Miriam Wolfe

Miriam Wolfe

Miriam Wolfe was an American actor, director, producer and writer, who worked in theatre, television and radio from the 1920s to the 1950s. She is mainly remembered for her character roles on radio's weekly Let's Pretend.She was born Miriam Wolff in Brooklyn, New York on 2 January 1922 to...

. Hurd Hatfield

Hurd Hatfield

William Rukard Hurd Hatfield was an American actor.-Biography:The son of William Henry Hatfield , an attorney who served as deputy attorney general for New York, and his wife, the former Adele Steele, Hatfield was born in New York City, and was educated at Columbia University before travelling to...

serves as narrator.http://www.archive.org/details/Nativity

Links

IMDB page for "The Nativity" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0712522/
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