Will Orson Welles War of the Worlds radio play will be webcast tonight?”
Orson Welles’ hysteria-inducing radio play of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds will be rebroadcast tonight in its entirety via the web — 71 years (to the minute, no less!) after it originally aired. It’s a publicity tie-in connected to the forthcoming release of Richard Linklater’s new movie, Me and Orson Welles. Me and Orson Welles opens November 25; it stars newcomer Christian McKay as Orson Welles, with Claire Danes and Zac Efron in feature roles. To tune in to tonight’s rebroadcast of the original War of the Worlds program (from Columbia Broadcasting System’s The Mercury Theater on the Air), direct your browser here at 7 p.m. Central Time.
The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938 and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds. The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to many listeners that an actual Martian invasion was in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a ‘sustaining show’ (it ran without commercial breaks), thus adding to the dramatic effect. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast, the precise extent of listener response has been debated. In the days following the adaptation, however, there was widespread outrage. The program’s news-bulletin format was de
