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KGSM Productions - The War of the Worlds

Mon, 02/04/2008 - 12:29pm — Greg Boone

In 1938, CBS Radio's Mercury Theater for the Air broadcast an adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel, The War of the Worlds during what would have been the prime time of the later 30s.  The original program was structured like an ordinary evening of radio with random breaking news bulletins informing the public of an invading martian army.  Details of the calamity are slowly revealed and eventually the story breaks into chaos and the news anchors turn the broadcast over to government authorities.  People listening to this broadcast were deeply disturbed by this broadcast, especially by the end when the theater's director Orson Welles reveals this whole thing is a joke.  Wells was called a radio terrorist by the FCC and thousands of letters were sent to the FCC and CBS condemning the broadcast.

In October, 2007, KGSM's Greg Boone attended a special episode of WNYC's Radio Lab and after learning a bit more about the mechanics of the episode, was inspired to recreate the broadcast as a modern radio theater might do it.  Eventually he recruited fellow KGSM personalities Spencer Broughten and Luke Garrison to make up the first (that we know of) KGSM Radio Theater Production team.  By the end of J-term 2008, the hour long production became the first real demonstration of KGSM's recent upgrade to a fully digital audio workstation.
While this is certainly not the first time since 1938 that the piece has been reproduced, it was a fun adventure of rewriting bits of the script by relocating events, modernizing language and newsroom style. We hope you enjoy our special production of The War of the Worlds.
Radio Lab's analysis of The War of the Worlds can be found on their website at www.radiolab.org

Creative Commons License
The War of the Worlds by KGSM Production is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://blackbird.kgsm.gac.edu/beta/node/360.

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