Fall Play Audition Info

Auditions: Monday, October 5th from 6-8ish

(or until we’re done, depending on turnout) in a location TBA. Students should read through and prepare the attached reading to audition.

 

Please fill out the audition sign-up via the drama club sign-up form - tinyurl.com/aahsdramaform2020

 

War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast is a “radio play;” that means it was originally meant to be just audio played over a radio (like a podcast). This script has plans for how to produce the show onstage as if it all takes place in a radio station. We will be doing something in-between. Our plan is to produce this show on ZOOM! There is software that will let us add backgrounds and effects and move your video “boxes” around so we will be able to control who is visible for a “scene.” It will also let us make it look like you’re in a radio station (rather than on Zoom). Zoom will allow us to stream to an audience and have you perform LIVE (as opposed to recording it all beforehand and playing it like a movie). Radio plays also typically use “Foley artists” to create sound effects; tech crew is going to have a lot of fun experimenting with different items to create the many weird sound effects needed for an alien invasion!

 

Unless district policy changes, rehearsals for this show will be in person. The first rehearsal (Read-through) will begin Monday, October 12, from 6-8 with rehearsals usually taking place M-Th 6-8 until tech/dress rehearsals. The show will be streamed on Friday, Nov. 13, 2020. All cast and crew will receive a calendar schedule for the entire length of the rehearsal process at the first rehearsal. While in rehearsal, we will rehearse in small groups, practice social distancing and wear masks (excepting those with a medical excuse) when not onstage. 

 

Synopsis
Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin…’.

 

80 years ago the world’s greatest broadcast hoax began, sparking mass hysteria across America. The date was October 30 1938 and the event was Orson Welles’ radio adaptation of HG Wells’ War of the Worlds. A young actor, Wells presented the story graphically as an uninterrupted series of news bulletins, and dance music beginning with reports of explosions on Mars and something ‘moving towards the Earth with enormous velocity…’.

 

Newspapers the following day were full of tales of panic, people fleeing and even attempting suicide, or arming to face the alien foe. Written to mark the 75th anniversary of the original broadcast War of the Worlds this radio script picks fact from fiction and examines the legend of the broadcast by the Mercury Theater Company that starred Welles. It is set ten years later as the WBFR radio ensemble recreates the colorful events surrounding the infamous evening, including the full original broadcast. Complete with vintage commercials and live sound effects, this radio-play-within-a-radio-play is a thrilling homage to the form's golden age and timely reminder of what fear can do to a society.

 

Character Descriptions

This play is listed to have 1 woman and 3 men doubling MANY parts, but it is expandable up to 40 actors! Also, many of the “male” parts are flexible and can be played by a woman instead, so we will try to include anyone that wants to audition and equalize the female to male lead ratio. 

 

WBFR Playhouse of the Air Actors:

FREDDIE FILMORE, 40s–50s

JAKE LAURENTS, 20s

HARRY HAYWOOD, 30s

LANA SHERWOOD, 30s

 

The play is performed by an ensemble of as few as four WBFR Playhouse of the Air actors who can create all of the characters and create the live sound effects. Below is a list of all the characters who appear in the play in order of speaking. The breakdown of these roles is occasionally suggested, but should be tailored to suit the ensemble of actors in each production.

* indicates characters within WBFR’s recreation of the 1938 Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast and surrounding events.

** indicates characters within the Mercury Theatre on the Air adaptation of The War of the Worlds.

 

Additional Characters (in order of appearance):

WBFR STAGE MANAGER (voiceover)

*HOWARD KOCH, Mercury Theatre on the Air writer

ALL-AMERICAN BRANDS JINGLE SINGERS

*MERCURY STAGE MANAGER, Mercury Theatre on the Air stage manager

*JOHN HOUSEMAN, Mercury Theatre on the Air co-producer

*ORA NICHOLS, Mercury Theatre on the Air head sound engineer

*ORSON WELLES, Mercury Theatre on the Air director, co-producer, actor

*DAN SEYMOUR, Mercury Theatre on the Air announcer and actor

**NARRATOR (played by Orson Welles)

**STUDIO ANNOUNCER

**MERIDIAN ROOM ANNOUNCER

**CARL PHILLIPS, commentator/reporter

**PROFESSOR RICHARD PIERSON, famous astronomer

**POLICEMAN AT WILMUTH FARM

**MR. WILMUTH, farmer

**VOICES AT WILMUTH FARM, a crowd of people

**BRIGADIER GENERAL MONTGOMERY SMITH, commander of the state militia

**HARRY MCDONALD, vice president in charge of radio operations

**CAPTAIN LANSING, of the signal corps

**SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, sounding not unlike President Franklin D. Roosevelt

**22nd FIELD ARTILLERY OFFICER

**GUNNER, 22nd Field Artillery

**OBSERVER, 22nd Field Artillery

**LIEUTENANT VOGHT, bomber commander

**BAYONNE RADIO OPERATOR

**LANGHAM FIELD RADIO OPERATOR

**NEWARK RADIO OPERATOR

**2X2L RADIO OPERATOR

**8X3R RADIO OPERATOR

HUSBAND, in All-American Brands Commercial #2

WIFE, in All-American Brands Commercial #2

**STRANGER

FATHER, in All-American Brands Commercial #3

DAUGHTER, in All-American Brands Commercial #3

SON, in All-American Brands Commercial #3

MOTHER, in All-American Brands Commercial #3

*CBS EMPLOYEE

*POLICE AND REPORTERS AT CBS

*POLICE OFFICER AT CBS

*REPORTERS 1–3 AT CBS

*WALTER WINCHELL, newspaper columnist and broadcaster

*CBS ANNOUNCER

*THE DAILY NEWS NEWSBOY

*THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWSBOY

*THE BOSTON GLOBE NEWSBOY

*WOMAN IN CHURCH

*WOMAN WITH POISON

*COLUMNISTS 1–2

*LISTENERS 1–3

*DOROTHY THOMPSON, journalist

*CAMPBELL PLAYHOUSE ANNOUNCER

*SYLVIA HOLMES, a listener

HERBERT MORRISON, WLS radio reporter (archival audio)

1940s REPORTER/ANNOUNCER (pre-recorded)

1950s REPORTER/ANNOUNCER (pre-recorded)

1960s REPORTER/ANNOUNCER (pre-recorded)

1970s REPORTER/ANNOUNCER (pre-recorded)

1980s REPORTER/ANNOUNCER (pre-recorded)

1990s REPORTER/ANNOUNCER (pre-recorded)

2000s REPORTER/ANNOUNCER (pre-recorded)

2010s REPORTER/ANNOUNCER (pre-recorded)

PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT (archival audio)

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