By Shane Anthony and Ensemble

National Institute of Dramatic Art, NIDA Open Production

Pullman Civic Theatre will stage a production of War of the Worlds, set in a mockup of the 1938 CBS' studios, directed by Mike Long in Pullman WA. This production will be performed live for three days, starting on Wednesday, October 29, 2008, at 7pm PST. In addition, a local radio station will broadcast the production on October 30, 2008 to honour the 70th anniversary.

Across America on the 30^th October, 1938 a wave of mass panic seized thousands of radio listeners when a broadcast of H. G. Wells's fantasy, "The War of the Worlds," led thousands to believe that an interplanetary conflict had started with invading Martians spreading wide death and destruction in New Jersey and New York. The broadcast, which disrupted households, interrupted religious services, created traffic jams and clogged communications systems, was made by Orson Welles, who as the radio character, "The Shadow," used to give "the creeps" to countless child listeners. This time at least a score of adults required medical treatment for shock and mania.

Days after the 70^th anniversary of this historical production NIDA will stage War of the Worlds based on both the original novel by H.G. Wells and the adapted radio play by Orson Welles. Set in the 1938 CBS’s studios and re-enacting Welles’ terrifying broadcast the narrators of the radio play will become lost in the fantasy and begin enacting the Martian invasion themselves. War of the Worlds promises to be a rich visual and physical feast of horror, sci-fi and hysteria.