War of the Worlds
September 28, 2009
New Theatre Company Brings Performing Arts Back to Life in Blowing Rock
On Friday, October 30th at 8:00pm in the Blowing Rock School Auditorium, the newly formed Ensemble Stage Company will present the H.G. Welles radio play, War of the Worlds. The play will be a re-creation of the Mercury Theatre’s production, starring Orson Welles, that sent much of the country into panic when it originally aired on October 30th, 1938. However, the script has been adapted for the High-Country so the epicenter of the alien invasion takes place in Blowing Rock and includes Banner Elk, Lenoir, Asheville, Charlotte and numerous other locations throughout North Carolina. Since the play is a re-creation of the 1938 broadcast, most of the sound effects performed during the show will be done live on stage by the cast using vintage-style foley (sound effects) props.
For their first theatrical adventure, Ensemble Stage Co-Founder and ‘War of the Worlds’ Director, Gary Lee Smith has assembled a few local celebrities as part of the cast including, Blowing Rock Mayor J.B. Lawrence and MTN-TV host Bill Fisher. Professional Actor and ASU Professor, Derek Gagnier will star as Orson Welles. Smith says there are two goals with this production. “First, this community deserves to have live theatre available to them and since the recent closing and uncertain, as well as unclear future of the Blowing Rock Stage Company, that niche needed to be filled. Second, is to provide the audience with something most of them have probably never experienced, ‘full immersion’ theatre. In other words, from the ushers and ticket-takers to the cast and crew, anyone associated with this production will be dressed in 30’s style attire. The concessions will be refreshments that were available in the 30’s and the theatre will be decorated with posters and signage from that time period. The pre-show will be an on-stage projection of newsreel clips, movie trailers and commercials from 1938 and even the tickets and programs will be printed in a vintage 30’s style.”
For those unfamiliar with the radio play, it happened the day before Halloween, on Oct. 30, 1938, when millions of Americans tuned in to a popular radio program that featured plays directed by, and often starring, Orson Welles. The performance that evening was an adaptation of the science fiction novel The War of the Worlds, about a Martian invasion of the earth. But in adapting the book for a radio play, Welles made an important change: under his direction the play was written and performed so it would sound like a news broadcast, complete with on-scene coverage, about an invasion from Mars.
The broadcast begins with an introductory statement, clearly presenting it as a piece of theatre. It then moves into a simulation of conventional radio programming featuring dance music which begins to be interrupted by news that strange gas clouds have been seen on the surface of Mars. Something is then reported to have landed in New Jersey (or in this case, Blowing Rock) and the reporter on the scene, aided by a noted ASU astronomer, describes events in terror and amazement as something emerges from a strange, metallic cylinder before… his voice is abruptly cut off. Martial law is soon declared and control of the broadcasting system is handed over to the military. Various members of the American armed forces are then heard offering commentary as they pit themselves in a futile struggle against the Martian enemy.
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