Tag Archives: war of the worlds

War of the Worlds — WRW Style!

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War of the Worlds, re-imagined by the Willamette Radio WorkshopThe 2009 McMenamins UFO Festival will feature a live radio presentation by the Award winning Willamette Radio Workshop of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. One performance only will be in Mattie’s Room at the Hotel Oregon, 2 p.m. Saturday May 16th, 2009.

The War of the Worlds is regarded as the classic radio drama. The Willamette Radio Workshop has performed this timeless tale on numerous occasions. We have always presented it in the classic Old Time Radio style (OTR), with live sound effects and music. This year we give it the WRW treatment. Creating a blend of the best of the old and new. Our matchless Foley team of David Ian and Martin John Gallagher joins forces with Marc Rose of Dry Smoke and Whispers fame, to create a unique production, true to the original, but original in its own right.

Following in the path of our award winning adaptation of Archibald Macleish’s Fall of the City, join us for a glimpse into radio’s past and future. See what panicked America, launched the career of Orson Welles and proved the devastating power of mass media to an unsuspecting world.

The cast includes Chris Porter, Bryan Mackey, James Lawrence, Todd Tolces and Matthew Richards. Our stage manager is Autumn Lawrence and live sound is by Lori Day-Reynolds.

Original music and sound design by Marc Rose.

Live Foley by David Ian and Martin John Gallagher.

Crowd direction by Martin John Gallagher.

Special thanks to Pat Janowski.

The production is produced, directed and features Sam A. Mowry.

War of the Worlds, 2003

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WRW joins the 4th annual UFO Festival to produce a live re-creation of radio’s most famous broadcast.

Sponsored by McMenamins Theatres and Pubs

When & Where:
Saturday, May 10th – 1:00pm
Mack Theater in McMinnville, OR

Friday, May 9th – 7:00pm
The historic White Eagle Saloon in Portland, OR.

All performances are free and open to the public.

WRW presents Orson Welles� production of H. G. Wells� War of the Worlds. This is a live recreation of the original 1938 �Panic Broadcast� that shook a nation on the brink of war. The script, a loose adaptation of H.G. Wells’ Sci-Fi classic by Howard Koch (who went on to write Casablanca) tells the story of Martians invading the Earth.

The program was presented as a series of live news feeds that created a touch of realism by breaking into a placid evening of dance music. Although the program clearly stated at the beginning and at the half way point that it was a radio drama, most of the country was tuned into the Chase and Sandborn Hour with Edgar Bergen and Charley Macarthy, the most popular radio tandem in the country. However, Nelson Eddy was the musical guest that night and when he began to sing a couple of not-too-popular songs, the radio audience began to spin those dials, coming into the War of the Worldsbroadcast after the disclaimer. The subsequent panic, from listeners who took the radio play for real, traumatized several cities across the eastern seaboard. It is important to note that no one was killed or killed themselves, but rumors of such activity spread as fast as the rumors of Martian invasion. The ensuing notoriety made Orson Welles a star and showed the devastating power of radio in the new age of mass communication.

WRW�s 12 actors, using live foley sound effects, live music and a plethora of old school analog audio magic reproduce the excitement and drama with a production faithful to the spirit of “live Radio.” Enjoy a look at a vibrant entertainment medium and this opportunity to look back at the best Halloween prank ever pulled on the American Public.

If you haven�t seen live radio, you ain�t heard nothing yet.

The Aliens are Coming!
4th Annual UFO Fest
at McMenamins Hotel Oregon � McMinnville, Oregon
Thursday, May 8, Friday, May 9 and Saturday, May 10

It just may be the most fun-and eye-opening-event you�ll encounter all year! For three days, Thursday, May 8th through Saturday, May 10, hear experts� compelling reports of unexplained, extraterrestrial visitations from the skies, and join the dancing humans dressed head-to-toe in tin foil�

With both a serious eye and a light heart, the UFO Fest explores and celebrates the realities and possibilities of life emanating from beyond Planet Earth. It�s Oregon�s largest annual UFO event and this year�s expanded program promises to be galaxies beyond the last.

The lineup for the 2003 event features a UFO costume parade, keynote presentation by internationally UFO authority Stanton Friedman, theUFOstore.com Video Film Festival at McMinnville�s historic Mack Theater, an Alien Costume Ball, a special reception with the keynote speaker and other presenters, exhibitor booths of UFO literature, art and merchandise, and much more�

All UFO Fest events are free and open to all ages, unless otherwise noted. Details about specific events can be found at their website:
http://www.ufofest.com/McHO/ufo/

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
THURSDAY, MAY 8
Dinner with Stanton Friedman at Hotel Oregon, 7pm
FRIDAY, MAY 9
UFO Exhibits at Hotel Oregon, 4pm to 9pm
Speaker Forum at the Mack Theater, 8pm
Speaker Reception & Book Signing at Hotel Oregon, 9:30pm

SATURDAY, MAY 10
UFO Exhibits at Hotel Oregon, 9am to 5pm
�Orson Welles� War of the Worlds� a live radio theater performance at the Mack Theater, 1pm
2nd Annual UFO Parade, 3pm
theUFOstore.com UFO Film Festival at the Mack Theater, 4pm
Alien Ball at Hotel Oregon, 8pm

War of the Worlds

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The Willamette Radio Workshop in conjunction with CoHo Theatre presented Orson Welles’ production of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds The 1938 “Panic Broadcast” This was a live recreation of the original broadcast that shook a nation on the brink of war. The script, a loose adaptation of H. G. Welles SCI-FI classic by Howard Koch (who went on to write Casablanca) tells the story of Martians invading the Earth.

The program was presented as a series of live news feeds that created a touch of realism by breaking into a placid evening of dance music. Although the program clearly stated at the beginning and at the half way point that it was a radio drama, most of the country was tuned into the Chase and Sandborn Hour with Edgar Bergen and Charley Macarthy, the most popular radio tandem in the country. However, Nelson Eddy was the musical guest that night and when he began to sing a couple of not-too-popular songs, the radio audience began to spin those dials, coming into the War of the Worlds broadcast after the disclaimer. The subsequent panic, from listeners who took the radio play for real, traumatized several cities across the eastern seaboard. It is important to note that no one was killed or killed themselves, but rumors of such activity spread as fast as the rumors of Martian invasion. The ensuing notoriety made Orson Welles a star and showed the devastating power of radio in the new age of mass communication.

WRW’s 12 actors, using live foley sound effects, live music and a plethora of old school analog audio magic sought to reproduce the excitement and drama with a production faithful to the spirit of ” live Radio.” The sell-out crowds to WRW’s production of War of the Worlds enjoyed take a look at a vibrant entertainment medium and this opportunity to look back at the best Halloween prank ever pulled on the American Public.

If you haven’t seen live radio, you ain’t heard nothing yet.

Willamette Radio Cast and Credits

Cast:

Sam A. Mowry – Orson Welles / Professor Person
Chris Porter – Carl Phillips
Mary Robinette Harrison – New York Announcer
Solomon Grundy – Announcer #2
Amy Gray – Wilmuth
Margie Boule – Announcer #3
Mark Twohy – Operator # 5
Mark Homayoun – Stranger
Tim McKennie – Announcer #4
Jodi Eichelberger – Mercury Announcer/Captain Lansing

Sound Design – Marty Gallagher, Amy Gray
Lights – Sally Lawson
Box Office – Alyson Ayn Osborn

Producer – Robert Kowal
Director – Sam A. Mowry

Special Thanks: CoHo Theatre, Gary Cole, Liane, The Cast and Crew of Spinning into Butter, Amy Gray, Marty Gallagher, Cindy McGean, Atticus Mowry, Michael Gandsey & T2 Audio and all our family and friends that make our work possible.

War of the Worlds — Portland Tribune

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Martians ready to invade

Willamette Radio Workshop brings back “War of the Worlds”

BY PAUL DUCHENE Issue date: 10/26/2001

The Tribune

You might find it hard to believe as an adult that you were ever scared of things that go bump in the night.

But if there’s a little flicker in the back of your mind, you might enjoy Willamette Radio Workshop’s live re-creation of Orson Welles’ radio broadcast from Oct. 30, 1938, of “The War of the Worlds,” which takes over CoHo Theater on Saturday.

Welles’ Mercury Theatre managed to overamplify the story of Martians invading Earth by presenting it as a series of live news broadcasts. The resulting panic among listeners led to a front-page story in The New York Times and subsequent federal restrictions on radio broadcasts.

The very idea of radio terror seems far distant from the present, only a month after millions of viewers watched close to 5,000 people die on morning television when the towers of New York’s World Trade Center were destroyed.

But radio is theater of the mind, and the hobgoblins we create can be scarier than reality, however awful it is.

Portland actor Sam Mowry staged a reading of “The War of the Worlds” last Halloween with such success that he resolved to re-create Welles’ production.

“I did it last year with radio and TV people, and we were going to repeat it but it fell through because of conflicting schedules,” Mowry said. “Meanwhile I’d started Willamette Radio Workshop and everybody said: “Why don’t we do it?”

Twelve actors sound off Mowry aims to duplicate Welles’ hourlong CBS production with 12 actors and live Foley sound effects (named for Jack Foley, the technician who developed them).

Welles’ production, based on H.G. Wells’ 1898 book, was announced as a drama before it started, but the problems began when people switched to the 8 p.m. show in progress.

Starting with a news flash about explosions on the planet Mars, bulletins and scene broadcasts followed, describing a meteor hitting a farm at Grovers Mill, N.J. The meteor was then revealed as a metal cylinder from which strange creatures emerged firing death rays.

Meanwhile, large numbers of listeners had been listening to “The Chase and Sanborn Hour” with Edgar Bergen and dummy Charlie McCarthy on NBC, and many changed stations at the first musical break, rather than listen to Dorothy Lamour sing “Two Sleepy People.”

What they dialed into was Frank Readick as newscaster Carl Phillips describing the scene at the meteor as the Martians emerge. Police can be heard shouting in the background as Readick gradually loses his cool. Readick said later he based his delivery on the reporter who had witnessed the destruction of the Hindenburg only 18 months earlier.

Terrified voices can be heard as the din increases and the death ray guns are firing. Then abruptly, there’s dead silence. After Readick’s “death,” bulletins and news reports describe the Martian advance across New Jersey and nerve gas attacks on New York City.

(Those who listened to more of the show might have wondered exactly how the Martians managed to wipe out the 7,000-member-strong New Jersey National Guard and march clear across the East Coast in 15 minutes.)

Panic reigns At the break, the station announced that the show was a drama   but the damage had been done. Even though The Associated Press and New York and New Jersey police announced there was nothing to worry about, police stations and newspapers were swamped with calls, and panicked listeners rushed into the street. The New York Times alone received 875 calls.

Analyst Hadley Cantril estimated in a 1966 study that 20 percent of the audience exhibited signs of mass hysteria. Phone calls to friends and relatives spread the terror across the country, leading to scenes like the man in Pittsburgh who returned home to find his wife in the bathroom holding a bottle of poison and screaming, “I’d rather die this way.”

“The War of the Worlds” is seldom aired, though there is an original tape. Station WKBW in Buffalo, N.Y., successfully updated the play using its news staff and DJs and local settings in 1968.

“We won’t be broadcasting this one either,” Mowry said, recalling a 1950 broadcast in Caracas, Venezuela, that was so successful an angry mob stormed the station and burned it down.

Contact Paul Duchene at pduchene@portlandtribune.com.

“The War of the Worlds”

What: Live re-creation of Orson Welles’ broadcast

Where: CoHo Theater, 2257 N.W. Raleigh St.; 503-295-3565

When: 11 p.m. Saturday

Admission: $5

“War of the Worlds” on OPB — Transcript

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OPB Radio’s news magazine airs Tuesday-Friday afternoons at 4:30
New “War of the Worlds” – Colin Fogarty
October 26, 2001

This weekend, a radio theater troupe in Portland will recreate a Halloween production from 1939. The “War of the Worlds” was Orson Welles’ early claim to fame. At a time, when the nation was preparing for world war, the “War of the Worlds” sounded real to many listeners. The modern production wouldn’t confuse anyone. But as Colin Fogarty reports, it could have some relevance for today’s audience.

You’ve heard Sam Mowry. But you likely didn’t notice him.

Commercial: The aggressive aerodynamic style of the Mitzubishi Eclipse will get you as much attention as you want. At a 16-valve engine and rack and pinion steering. And you my friend will be the total package. The GI Joe’s take it to the extreme 14-hour sale this Friday. We still have the sales. Grab the gear and seize the season.

Mowry’s got what in the business they call “great pipes.” But commercial voiceovers are his day job. He’s really a stage actor, playing every part from Henry the 8th to Henry Higgins. But Mowry’s latest project takes place in the theater of the mind. He plays Orson Welles in a radio theater production of the “War of the Worlds.”

Mowry voice: We know now that in the early years of the 20th century this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man’s, and yet as mortal as his own”.

Welles voice: We know that as human beings busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

Saturday night, Mowry?s Willamette Radio Workshop is staging a live performance of “War of the Worlds” in the worlds at the New Coho Theater in Northwest Portland. He hopes, in part, the revival will change people’s perception of Orson Welles.

Mowry: What they’re used to hearing from Orson Wells is the “Yes, we will sell no wine before it’s time.” And that’s what most people go, “Oh yeah, Orson Wells, the wine guy.” But when he was doing this, he was 21, 22, he’s actually much higher.

Mowry listened to old-time radio as a child, back when stations ran reruns of programs like “The Shadow.” As an actor in Portland, he found that there was a great deal of interest among fellow actors.

Mowry: What I love about it as an actor is that you can be anything you want to be. And my Dad, and I think everybody has this story, when my parents asked him whether he liked radio or TV better, he said, “Oh, I like radio, the pictures are much better.”

By re-producing the “War of the Worlds,” the Willamette Radio Workshop hopes to raise money for a series of original radio theater productions. At a time when foreign correspondents report by videophone and the Internet is more common than the newspaper, radio theater seems antiquated. But Mowry believes radio can forge a closer tie with the listener.

Mowry: And it is that intimate connection between a person and a microphone and that microphone and somebody’s ear, and you’re talking to them and you’re sharing an idea or love or hate or envy or any kind of human emotion that you’re sharing with them in a very intimate, very personal way makes for a tremendous connection.

Mowry says the production of “War of the Worlds” has special significance for our time. Just as in the radio play, the nation has been under attack’by hijackers using airplanes as weapons and by bioterrorists, sending anthrax spores through the mail. Some listeners of the original “War of the Worlds” panicked thinking Martians were really invading.

Mowry: And one of the things that we learned is that we do need to think before we act. And I think that’s as much of a good lesson today as it was back then. And even more so now because I think we’re a little more on par with the Martians ourselves in terms of having weapons of mass destruction that maybe we can and cannot use wisely.

Mowry hopes the re-production of the “War of the Worlds” doesn’t scare its audience during a delicate time. Rather the play is meant to comfort.

Mowry: It all comes out in the end. Humanity does survive and humanity does survive because there’s an innate plan for us to survive.

Welles voice: This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, to assure you that the “War of the Worlds” has no further significance than the holiday offering it was intended to be.

Mowry: So, good-bye everybody and remember the terrible lesson you learned tonight: that grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an invader of the pumpkin patch. And if your doorbell rings and there’s nobody there, that was no Martian, it’s Halloween.

Copyright 2001  Oregon Public Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.