Performance Hoaxes - The War of the Worlds, Seance, Space Cadets, Indian Rope Trick, de Grote Donorshow, Spaghetti Tree Hoax, Czech Dream (Paperback)

Chapters: The War of the Worlds, Seance, Space Cadets, Indian Rope Trick, de Grote Donorshow, Spaghetti Tree Hoax, Czech Dream, Imp Kerr. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 75. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938 and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds. The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to many listeners that an actual Martian invasion was in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a 'sustaining show' (it ran without commercial breaks), thus adding to the dramatic effect. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast, the precise extent of listener response has been debated. In the days following the adaptation, however, there was widespread outrage. The program's news-bulletin format was decried as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast, but the episode launched Orson Welles to fame. Welles' adaptation was one of the Radio Project's first studies. Monument erected October 1998 commemorating where the Martians in the story landed in Van Nest Park, Grover's Mill, NJ.H. G. Wells' novel is about an alien invasion of Earth, set in Woking, England at the end of the 19th century. The radio play's story was adapted by and written primarily by Howard Koch, with input from Orson Welles and the staff of CBS's Merc...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=14324