Mike Russell writes and draws one of the best columns in the Oregonian newspaper, Culture Pulp. It is a comic and man on the street style column that chronicles the arts and events in Portland that make us one of the most livable cities. Well Mike ran into us at McMenamins Kennedy School doing our [...]
Ear Pieces
Audio dramas are gaining popularity as producers find people of a mind to listen.
by Kim Cooper Findling
The costumes are wonderful: a radiant pink is outfit, complete with a silver-tipped magic wand; a black robe and face paint for a ghoul; a dazzling green, child-size frog tunic. But only members of the audience are wearing them.
The actors are dressed in T-shirts and jeans. Clutching scripts, they stand at the end of the gymnasium that’s been designated “the stage.” A small pile of objects—including a bell, a balloon and a large sheet of metal—lies to the side.
The people around me chat excitedly as they [...]
Radio free frights
Willamette Radio Workshop gets ready for some Halloween broadcasts of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’
BY PAUL DUCHENE Issue date: 10/25/2002
The Tribune
Orson Welles’ radio career is inextricably linked with “The War of the Worlds.” This 1938 production of the H.G. Wells sci-fi story caused widespread panic when its broadcast was thought to be actual news bulletins of an alien invasion.
But “Worlds” was actually Welles’ 29th show with the Mercury Theatre of the Air. He’d been doing radio dramas since 1936, and for a year he was the main character voice in “The Shadow” radio serial.
He would go on to produce and act in more than 100 additional dramas before Hollywood beckoned in 1940.
Sam Mowry’s Willamette Radio Workshop group successfully revived[...]
Martians ready to invade
Willamette Radio Workshop brings back ‘War of the Worlds’
BY PAUL DUCHENE Issue date: 10/26/2001
You might find it hard to believe as an adult that you were ever scared of things that go bump in the night.
But if there’s a little flicker in the back of your mind, you might enjoy Willamette Radio Workshop’s live re-creation of Orson Welles’ radio broadcast from Oct. 30, 1938, of “The War of the Worlds,” which takes over CoHo Theater on Saturday.
Welles’ Mercury Theatre managed to overamplify the story of Martians invading Earth by presenting it as a series of live news broadcasts. The resulting panic among listeners led to a front-page story in The New York Times and subsequent federal restrictions on radio[...]
OPB Radio’s news magazine airs Tuesday-Friday afternoons at 4:30
New “War of the Worlds” - Colin Fogarty
October 26, 2001
This weekend, a radio theater troupe in Portland will recreate a Halloween production from 1939. The “War of the Worlds” was Orson Welles’ early claim to fame. At a time, when the nation was preparing for world war, the “War of the Worlds” sounded real to many listeners. The modern production wouldn’t confuse anyone. But as Colin Fogarty reports, [...]