Celebrate your Halloween October with a classic, science fiction drama, at the Black Box Theatre’s production of “War of the Worlds.” The play will run through Sunday, October 21, 2018. Tickets are $16 and can be reserved at www.theblackboxtheatre.com. The location is1623 5th Avenue, Moline, IL.
The Black Box Theatre will present the hysteria-inducing, original, script of Orson Welles’ infamous “War of the Worlds: The 1938 Radio Script,” by Howard E. Koch and based on the novel by H.G. Wells.
“The War of the Worlds” was first performed and broadcast by The Mercury Theatre on the Air, on Sunday, October 30, 1938. It was distributed by CBS and produced by John Houseman and Orson Welles.
The History Channel tells of the historic night this way. “Orson Welles was only 23 years old when his Mercury Theater company decided to update H. G. Wells’ 19th-century, science fiction novel War of the Worlds for National radio. [Simply] a realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth, “War of the Worlds” was not planned as a radio hoax. Welles had little idea of the havoc it would cause!”
“Sunday evening in 1938 was prime-time in the golden age of radio, and millions of Americans had their radios turned on. But most of these Americans were listening to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy on NBC. They only turned to CBS at 8:12 p.m., after the comedy sketch ended and a little-known singer went on. By then, the story of the Martian invasion was well underway.”
Featured are James Driscoll, Mark Ruebling, Scott Tunnicliff, Matt Walsh, and Michael Alexander, below. The production will be directed by Lora Adams with Assistant Director Sara J. Armstrong Kutzli and Stage Manager Meredith Biechele.
