Theatre Works, America's premier radio theater company, is back on the road, bringing two masterpieces of science fiction and adventure to the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, April 1 at 7:30 p.m. War of the Worlds and The Lost World, which played last fall to great audience and critical acclaim, heads out for the spring leg of a seven-month national tour through May 2. John de Lancie ("Q" on Star Trek: The Next Generation) directs the double bill.
War of the Worlds and The Lost World stars veteran stage, film and television actors Diane Adair (a recurring alien on Babylon 5, the feature film UFOria with Harry Dean Stanton, Fred Ward and Cindy Williams); Josh Clark (Star Trek Voyager, Heroes, ER, L.A. Law); Kyle Colerider-Krugh (Primal Fear, Secretary, Numb3rs, Without A Trace, Third Rock From the Sun, Seinfeld); Peter McDonald (Becker, Wings, ER); Kate Steele (Matchstick Men, Frasier); Tom Virtue (Star Trek Voyager, Seventh Heaven); and Kenneth Alan Williams ("Dr. Gabriel" on ER, Will & Grace, Dharma & Greg, Caroline In The City, Chicago Hope, Jamie Foxx Show).
War of the Worlds recreates the breathless pace and convincing details of Orson Welles' infamous 1938 radio broadcast by his Mercury Theatre of the Air. The live 60-minute broadcast of an "eyewitness report" of an invasion from Mars caused a nationwide panic as listeners, who thought they were listening to a real newscast, attempted to flee. The Mercury Theatre used an updated adaptation of H.G. Wells' 1898 novel by Howard Koch, who changed the time and location from Victorian England to a small town on the East Coast of the United States in 1938, making the story more personal for listeners. "Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact. Many Flee Homes to Escape 'Gas Raid From Mars'," read the front page headline of the New York Times the morning after the Halloween-eve broadcast.
Launched in 2005, L.A. Theatre Works' National Touring Program has expanded the company's mission to provide access to significant works of theater by audiences nationwide. From originally commissioned topical docudramas such as The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial and Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers to classic comedies such as Private Lives, L.A. Theatre Works employs a slightly expanded version (which includes costumes and minimal sets) of the same unique live radio theater style performance presented in its regular ten-play The Play's the Thing live in-performance series at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Featuring first-rate casts and live sound effects, LATW's touring productions have delighted and challenged audiences at performing arts centers and theatres in over 125 small towns and major cities across the nation, providing audiences with an intimate, spontaneous experience rarely felt in traditional theatrical settings. In addition, L.A. Theatre Works collaborates with presenting venues and local public radio stations to provide additional community outreach and special programming including one-time broadcasts of the performance, panel discussions with the actors, directors, writers and leading subject experts, and performances for local area high school students.
For more information about the national tour of War of the Worlds and The Lost World, visit www.latw.org.
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