In the spirit of the Halloween season, Eastmark High School Drama will perform “War of the Worlds” on Saturday, Oct. 30.
“War of the Worlds” was originally a radio show that was broadcast in 1938. The production infamously caused panic when some listeners believed that its message of an alien invasion was real.
“We researched a little bit of the history of that before we started and we’re trying to make it as realistic as possible so that someone could understand how they would feel if they were listening to that radio show and thinking it was really happening,” said Eastmark High School Choral and Drama Director Cynthia Catchpole.
Eastmark High School Drama is using the same script as the original radio show. Catchpole said they imagined what “War of the Worlds” would have looked like as a TV show and they are doing their best to make their production look like that.
Catchpole and Eastmark High School drama students did research to make sure the items on the producer desk, accents, costumes and even the CBS logo painted on the desk are historically accurate.
In addition, the performance is at 8 p.m. on Oct. 30, the exact date and time as the original radio production.
“We’re trying to keep it as authentic as we can, especially with the equipment we have,” said senior Alex Sneed. She plays one of the two announcers who are keeping people informed about the alien attack.
“You wouldn’t think someone could stay fully calm during an alien attack, so I take that upon my character and think ‘this is happening, but people need to know, I have to help them. I will stick this out to the end,’” Sneed said about her character.
Senior Rylee Hatch has been with the theater program since Eastmark High School opened in 2019. She plays Professor Pierson, an astronomer who is one of the first characters to realize something is wrong.
“It’s been interesting to do this show because the one we did the year prior was more comedic, so it’s been fun to watch everyone tap into the seriousness of it to try to incorporate real-time emotions into their acting,” said Hatch. “It’s not always easy.”
Last year’s play was “Alice in Wonderland.”
Sophomore Josey Norgren plays the Secretary of the Interior, who informs people that the threat is real. “It’s especially hard because we are all women in the show when back then there weren’t a lot of women in leadership roles,” she said.
Professor Pierson, the announcers and the Secretary of the Interior were all played by men in the original broadcast. In their research, Catchpole and her students discovered it was possible for women to be in these positions, in the 1930s though it would have been rare.
Some of the students saw a parallel between the alien invasion of the play and the coronavirus lockdown.
"COVID was a very mentally taxing time because you felt disconnected from the world, so when we were able to come back and start acting it was hard, but I was able to lose myself in the story,” said Sneed. “Things won’t go back to the way they were, but that gives us another reason to keep pushing forward.”
Tickets will be available at the door before the performance. The performance will be at Eastmark High School, 9560 E. Ray Road in Mesa at 8 p.m. this Saturday, Oct. 30.
