Department of English

• Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm

Fisher-Bennett Hall room 401

Fake news?
Fears of authoritarian control?
Politics in an era of new media?
And a Martian invasion of Philadelphia?
All in one performance?
History 247 /  Theatre Arts 275 present a Penn “Year of Media” project,
an adaptation – and interpretation – of the play that shocked America.

WAR OF THE WORLDS

Orson Welles’ masterpiece of radio theatre remains relevant today – even as it spoke directly to the world of 1938. In this presentation, Penn students revive and retell the classic radio tale, best remembered for the panic it supposedly spawned. The performers will also pause to set the play in its context – explaining how what might have been silly story of space invaders instead became a commentary on fake news and fascism, on a moment of domestic and international unrest, on the place of media and its potential for manipulating the public, and a foray into new forms of storytelling and the power of theatre. This is a recreation of one of the powerful pieces of theater from America in the Great Depression and on the eve of World War II. The story of that performance may be as captivating as the play itself.

This event is free and open to the entire Penn community.