In promoting the Seminole Theater (http://seminoletheatre.org), we have mostly attended concerts, although I would have liked to have been in town when the What If Works one-act plays were performed. (Check out WIW as an affiliate member of http://homesteadcenterforthearts.com)
Anyway, the terrific Seminole Director was contacted by a member of the WLRN Radio Theater organization a few months ago about having a SciFi Summer after the regular season ended. Like many people, I wasn’t aware the Public Broadcasting WLRN had a Radio Theater component and I’ll get to that part later in the post. Although I never heard the radio drama, War of the Worlds, I had heard my grandparents and parents talk about it. The way the presentation at the Seminole was described was intriguing in that the “broadcast booth” would be on-stage and as the audience, we would be seeing inside as the historic broadcast took place. In reality, it was a bit different, and indeed even more fun than I expected.
The director came on stage to explain the concept and urged everyone to stay for a bit after the performance when they would elaborate about the production and take questions. The script they were using was the original with the customization of changing the location to Florida instead of NJ as written by Orson Wells. The marvelous sounds effects expert, absolutely vital to radio theater, not only had his array of equipment, he had cue cards for the audience. We were to be prompted with “Applause, Crowd Noise, and Scream.” The lights dimmed and we were all set for a thoroughly entertaining evening. Another slight variation was the actors did have some movements and costume additions to allow for visuals for the audience which of course wasn’t necessary back in the day of radio theater when no audience was present.
During the post-performance session, we learned the company has revived many radio dramas and adapted numerous movie/play scripts to the format. I knew the second part of SciFi Summer was to be Plan Nine From Outer Space (called the worst movie ever made). I had told Hubby I wasn’t going even though he said he wanted to. I will now be buying tickets for us both because I am a total convert and look forward to any future events with WLRN Radio Theater at the Seminole.
