Marywood to Present War of the Worlds-The Panic Broadcast from October 22-25

Nearly 88 years after it was first broadcast in late October 1938, Marywood University’s theatre program presents War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast, a theatrical reimagining of one of the most infamous moments in American broadcasting history.

Inspired by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre's 1938 radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, the play takes audiences inside a live radio studio as actors, announcers, shadow theatre artists, and Foley artists create the terrifying story of a Martian invasion before our eyes.

What begins as an evening of radio drama quickly blurs the boundary between performance and reality. As fictional news bulletins interrupt the broadcast and reports of destruction spread across the airwaves, audiences witness both the making of a radio play and the cultural panic that became inseparable from its history.

Performed as a live stage-and-radio experience, Marywood’s production celebrates the artistry of old-time radio while exploring questions that remain strikingly contemporary: How do we decide what information to trust? What happens when entertainment and news become difficult to distinguish? How quickly can fear spread through a community?

The production brings together vintage microphones, live sound effects, Foley work, ensemble storytelling and the visual language of a 1930s/1940s broadcast studio to recreate the excitement and immediacy of radio’s golden age.

At once suspenseful, theatrical, and darkly playful, War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast invites audiences to watch a story being constructed in real time - and to consider why, nearly ninety years later, the story of the broadcast itself continues to fascinate us.

Performances, which will be held at the Munley Theater in the Sette LaVerghetta Center for Performing Arts, have showtimes from October 22-24 at 7:30 p.m. each evening and a matinee-only performance on October 25 at 2 p.m. 

Tickets are $15 for the general public. Marywood students, faculty, staff, and IHM sisters are free. Tickets can be purchased in advance by credit card online at https://marywood.universitytickets.com or with cash at the door.