{"id":2063119,"date":"2025-10-01T22:47:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T22:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2063119"},"modified":"2025-10-01T22:47:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T22:47:03","slug":"a-blast-from-entertainment-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/a-blast-from-entertainment-past\/","title":{"rendered":"A Blast from Entertainment Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

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From playwright Joe Landry, author of the popular It\u2019s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play<\/em>, comes a new blast from the entertainment past: War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast<\/em>. This radio play within a play, which opens Ensemble Theatre Company\u2019s 2025-26 season, reenacts Orson Welles\u2019s 1938 radio-drama adaptation of HG Wells\u2019s novel about Martians landing on Earth. As performed by Welles\u2019s theater company, War of the Worlds<\/em> imitated actual news coverage \u2014 leading many 1930s citizens (who couldn\u2019t cross-check information on Google) to mistake fiction for fact. \u201cThe ensemble is strong, and the pace is quick,\u201d says director Jamie Torcellini. \u201cIt\u2019s a nice piece of art.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the show, with its vintage costumes and live foley art, is fun and compelling, Torcellini reminds us that the story is an example of the potential for hype and panic caused by the perpetuation of misinformation. These characters are not just performing a radio drama \u2014 they are also managing the outside drama caused by the unintentional hoax. \u201cUnfortunately, fear is blinding,\u201d Torcellini says, pointing out that when this broadcast originally aired, a fearful, angry social climate was driving the world toward a major war. \u201cWe have to be careful and take responsibility for finding out what the real truth is, and not just listening to a mouthpiece,\u201d he says. \u201cDo your research. Dig down into the people that you put your trust into.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response to the current, toxic media frenzy, War of the Worlds<\/em> features a reconstructed, abstract ending that Torcellini describes as \u201ca cacophony of historic radio addresses that become a big noise.\u201d Whether you\u2019re looking for social commentary to make you feel seen or spooky Halloween-season theatrics, War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast<\/em> is a classic American story within a classic American story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast<\/em> runs at the New Vic (33 W. Victoria St.) October 8-26. See etcsb.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.independent.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From playwright Joe Landry, author of the popular It\u2019s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, comes a new blast from the entertainment past: War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast. This radio play within a play, which opens Ensemble Theatre Company\u2019s 2025-26 season, reenacts Orson Welles\u2019s 1938 radio-drama adaptation of HG Wells\u2019s novel about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2063120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2063119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/A-Blast-from-Entertainment-Past.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2063119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2063121,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063119\/revisions\/2063121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2063120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2063119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2063119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2063119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}