Who: Jason Tam, Arnie Burton, Morgan Siobhan Green, Khiry Walker, Dan Domingues, Courtney Thomas, Jonathan Silverstein
What: Livestreamed version of classic Orson Welles radio broadcast and talkback
Where: Keen Company Hear/Now
When: Friday, October 30, $25, 8:00
Why: On October 30, 1938, Raymond Rocello and His Orchestra were performing over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network from the Meridian Room at the Park Plaza Hotel in downtown Manhattan when a news bulletin broke in, announcing that there had been explosions on Mars, with objects now heading toward Earth. Believing that a Martian invasion was under way, Americans were in a panic and took to the streets and highways. They would eventually find out that it was merely an audio adaptation of H. G. Wells’s 1898 novel The War of the Worlds, with a script written by Howard Koch and directed by Orson Welles for his Mercury Theatre company. Eighty-two years later, with a pandemic and presidential election threatening the safety of the United States, New York’s Keen Company is presenting an all-star benefit livestream reading of the radio drama, featuring Jason Tam, Arnie Burton, Morgan Siobhan Green, Khiry Walker, Dan Domingues, and Courtney Thomas, with original music by Paul Brill. “Since the early days of the pandemic, I became increasingly obsessed with old time radio and the ways these early pioneers provoked their audience to use their imagination in new ways,” Keen artistic director Jonathan Silverstein said in a statement. “One of the greatest of these programs is Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds, which skillfully used ‘fake news’ to create real-life panic on October 30, 1938. I look forward to sharing this one-of-a-kind revival, which will not only entertain but also bring to light some eerily similar themes between its original broadcast and today.” Tickets for the one-night-only show, which will be followed by an interactive talkback, are $25, supporting such Keen initiatives as its Hear/Now audio programming, which will continue in February with Lucille Fletcher’s Sorry, Wrong Number, starring Marsha Mason, in addition to works by Pearl Cleage, Kate Cortesi, finkle, James Anthony Tyler, and Melissa Li and Kit Yan. What better way to prepare for a virtual Halloween?