Camel’s Back

Listen to the entire radio drama:
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3

Samples from the Soundtrack:
Camel’s Back Theme
Waltz for BM

J Roth adapted F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “The Camel’s Back” into a radio drama and presented it with The Erstwhilists at the James J. Hill House in 2010 and the Sibley House in 2007.

J also created a piano soundtrack to accompany the play.

The Musicker’s Gazette No. 17 tells more of the show held at the Hill House.
The Musicker’s Gazette No.14 tells more of the show held at the Sibley House.

Original Cast (featured in the recording)
Jesse Griffith as Perry
Elizabeth Karre as Betty, Emily Tate
Christine Nordin as Aunt, Mrs. Nolak, Mrs. Tate
Jeffry Nordin as Macy, Mr. Tate, Ringmaster, O’Sullivan
J Roth as Narrator, Bailly, Cab Driver

Background
Written in 1920, The Camel’s Back was published in the Saturday Evening Post‘s April 24th, 1920 edition.


Saturday Evening Post in which The Camel’s Back appeared in.


Fitzgerald had returned to his native St. Paul for Christmas in 1919 and heard about a wild night at the annual Christmas costume party of the Hill’s (family of railroad tycoon James J. Hill.)
Those events inspired the tale.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of this story: “I suppose that of all the stories I have ever written this one cost me the least travail and perhaps gave me the most amusement. As to the labor involved, it was written during one day in the city of New Orleans, with the express purpose of buying a platinum and diamond wrist watch which cost six hundred dollars. I began it at seven in the morning and finished it at two o’clock the same night. My amusement was derived from the fact that the camel part of the story is literally true; in fact, I have a standing engagement with the gentleman involved to attend the next fancy-dress party to which we are mutually invited, attired as the latter part of the camel — this as a sort of atonement for being his historian.”