Theater department to livestream War of the Worlds

Posted January 2021

By Isabelle Donahue and Ione Walton

Staff Editor and Staff Reporter

The reimagined original 1938 radio script of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds will be livestreamed by the theater department on Jan. 30 and Feb. 6 via Broadway on Demand.

The production will be livestreamed because of COVID restrictions, so anyone with a digital device with a web browser can watch the show. The trailer for the play was posted on YouTube, and the whole production will be streamed on Jan. 30 and Feb. 6 on Broadway on Demand. Tickets are priced based on the number of viewers watching one screen. One screen is $12, the price for two screens is $16, and any more than two screens is $24.

Theater department head and director Michael Givler will be editing the play with the help of Stagecraft technical students, after having sent home a “green screen kit” to the cast so they could film their lines. Givler decided on War of the Worlds because he had seen a lot of Zoom and Google Meets boxes and wanted to do something different and more engaging for all the students.

"I wanted to bring this year’s play to an interesting and exciting place," he said.

War of the Worlds casts 11 actors with 11 technical students helping out, most having participated in theatre before, with some who are new. The auditions and rehearsals for the play were held over Zoom. Rehearsals were held for about three weeks in October and November. The final recording was completed in four weeks. Givler dropped off the “green screen kits” that had everything necessary for students to film their lines at home.

Givler taught workshops for this production before, and decided this was fitting right now during the quarantine. The audience might be able to relate to it by relating the virus to the alien invasion, something unknown and scary, while also giving students as much escapist fantasy as possible, to get them away from being in their rooms all the time.

“On the first day of my directing class, I read a poem about being determined and we talked about our own personal determinations,” said Givler. “In the face of everything falling apart and the district cutting some contracts, I decided that I was determined to produce a play. I was determined to bring this certainty when so many things were uncertain.”

The original novel was written by H.G. Wells, who was born on Sept. 21, 1866. Wells wrote dozens of novels and short stories. One of his most noteworthy novels was War of the Worlds, which was a big part of his four nominations for a Nobel Peace Prize in Literature. Wells primarily wrote science fiction, including topics like invisibility, alien invasions, time travel, and biological engineering.

When Hollywood actor and director Orson Welles produced his version of War of the Worlds on his radio program, it caused mass panic from his listeners who didn’t realize that the show was a fictional retelling. Welles was considered one of the greatest filmmakers of his time, having written and directed Citizen Kane, still considered by some to be the greatest film ever made. His War of the Worlds incident gained him more infamy and popularity. Most of the reports of panic were exaggerated or false, but it still attracted attention and garnered Welles notoriety.

War of the Worlds is about Ray Ferrier, a man struggling to build a relationship with his children. His ex-wife, Mary Ann, drops his children off at his house. At first, the weekend is just normal although tense, but turns into more when electromagnetic pulses of lightning strike the area. Strange events then start happening, turning into the beginning of an alien invasion that they have to survive and seek refuge from.