A Night with Orson Welles and Mercury Theatre on the Air

Evergreen Theater is inviting audiences to travel back in time to 1938 in the CBS Radio studios to hear some of the first radio plays from the series created and hosted by Orson Welles, originally performed by Welles’ Mercury Theatre with its upcoming Radio Plays production.

“It’s going to be Dracula and then we’re going to be doing War of the Worlds,” said Sara Yach, the show’s director. “The tagline is ‘A Night with Orson Welles and Mercury Theatre on the Air’ because both the Dracula script and the War of the World Script are the actual Orson Welles/Mercury Theater on the Air original scripts from the 1938 productions when he did his shows with CBS Radio.”

It’s not just the scripts that will transport audiences to the 1930s, though.
“Even though it’s a staged reading… We’re doing a full set,” Yach said. “The actors are in full costumes and we’re taking the audience back to CBS Radio’s studio in July and then October of 1938. It’s like they’re actually walking into the studio. Everybody’s going to be in period clothing. It’s really kind of like you’re a fly on the wall watching these productions as they happened. We’ve cast a gentleman to play the young Orson Welles. Even the sound and light crews are all on stage so that you really kind of feel like you are back in time. That’s my goal — that you would walk in and watch the show and feel like you were watching it as it happened 90 years ago.”

Yach said there are a few key differences between the upcoming Radio Plays production and some of Evergreen’s more traditionally staged shows, but those differences don’t detract from the show’s production value at all.

“As the director, I approached it just as I would have any other show,” Yach said. “Really, the only difference I feel between this show and another Evergreen mainstage traditional play is that the actors don’t have to memorize their lines because they’re holding their scripts and talking into microphones.

The other difference is that there isn’t any blocking — on this line, you go stand here and on this line, you cross here. There’s really not as much of that, but as far as the production value, I feel it’s the same.”

A few other key differences audiences may notice when attending the Radio Plays is that elements that generally happen off stage, like sound effects and music, will be taking place live on stage for the audience to see.

“We’re going to be doing all of the sound effects live on stage,” Yach said. “If you have a sound effect for a ‘regular production,’ you would just type that into the sound book. But here, we’re doing all of that live, which is really something cool and it’s really fun to watch… We’ve got three people who are on sound effects. That’s their only job, and it’s a big job to be able to do the sound effects. There are moments in Dracula where we’ve got carriages going and horses running and a storm going and they have to be responsible for all of those things. I really think that’s interesting to watch and I think that people are really going to enjoy that.”

For those planning on attending a showing of the Radio Plays, Yach said she hopes they can appreciate that although it may look different than some of Evergreen’s other productions, this show still has so much to offer.

“Art and plays can be something a little bit nontraditional like this, but it can be just as fun and entertaining to watch,” Yach said. “There’s so much action that’s happening on stage with the music and the sound effects and the actors getting up and doing their parts. It looks a little different than a main stage show, but it’s still so much fun and so engaging to watch.”

Showings of the Radio Plays will take place at 7 p.m. on Sept. 24, 25, 26 and 27 with additional showing at 2 p.m. on Sept. 27 and 28.

More details can be found at evergreentheater.org.