{"id":16155,"date":"2015-04-29T23:53:37","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T22:53:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=16155"},"modified":"2015-05-05T17:28:44","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T16:28:44","slug":"the-orson-welles-radio-tapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2015\/04\/29\/the-orson-welles-radio-tapes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Orson Welles Radio Tapes"},"content":{"rendered":"
Orson Welles<\/a> was the multi-talented polymath who was a pioneering figure in twentieth century theatre and film.<\/p>\n 2015 marks the centenary of his birth in Kenosha, Wisconsin<\/a> and\u00a0various celebrations have been taking place across the world at festivals and cinema societies.<\/p>\n He is still best known for co-writing and directing Citizen Kane (1941), a landmark in film history, but also\u00a0made astonishingly audacious stage productions, such as a production of Macbeth in Harlem<\/a> with an all black cast.<\/p>\n However, it was on radio where he reached national attention in 1938 with his infamous adaptation of H.G. Wells’s novel ‘The War of the Worlds’<\/a>, which was so convincing it caused widespread panic.<\/p>\n His Mercury Theatre<\/a> group not only produced acclaimed work on stage but also on the airwaves from 1938-40 and again in 1946, with a stock company of actors including Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotten, Ray Collins and Helen Hayes.<\/p>\n Courtesy of the Internet Archive<\/a> site, here is a selection of his work, which includes literary classics, especially Shakespeare<\/a>, but also dramas by Thornton Wilder<\/a> and Noel Coward<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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