Its first season was broadcast from New York City on NBC with such actors as Ed Begley, Shirley Booth, Gary Merrill, Everett Sloane and Vicki Vola.

The program began as a monthly series, switching to biweekly a year later, in alternation on Friday nights at 9:00 pm Eastern time with the 54th Street Revue.

During this period, programming included adaptations of Little Women, with June Lockhart and Kim Hunter, and One Sunday Afternoon, with Burgess Meredith and Hume Cronyn.

Performers appearing during this era included Frank Bank, Scott Brady, Claudette Colbert, Charles Coburn, Ed Hinton, Vivi Janiss, Peter Lawford, Sam Levene, Ida Lupino, Thomas Mitchell, Dennis Morgan, Karen Sharpe, Ann Sheridan, Barry Sullivan, and Beverly Washburn.

From 9:00 to 9:30 p.m. on Saturdays during the summer of 1958, NBC broadcast the anthology series Opening Night, which consisted entirely of reruns of episodes of Ford Theatre from the 1956–1957 season.

[7] First aired on June 14, 1958, Opening Night was broadcast every other week, alternating in its time slot with Club Oasis with Spike Jones.