May 6, 2021

Orson Welles & his productions

 ~     
film still
photo: Cohen Media Group


Today, May 6, is the birthday of Orson Welles who was born in 1918. He was an American actor, director, screenwriter and producer who is remembered for his innovative work in radio, theatre and film. He is considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.        
 
Orson Welles is primary remembered for his infamous radio broadcast on October 30, 1938, when he and his Mercury Theatre actors terrified the nation with their broadcast on CBS of a dramatization of the H. G. Wells 1898 novel, The War of the Worlds. The Mercury Theatre on the Air became The Campbell Playhouse in December 1938.        
 
The event has been documented, written about and recreated on radio with the production by The Lux Radio Theater as well as on television with a production by Studio One on CBS (link below).         

But Welles produced and directed many other brilliant shows for theater with an amazing variety of talent!   












Faustus - 1937



The Columbia Workshop broadcast of the Archibald MacLeish radio play The Fall of the City (April 11, 1937) made Welles an overnight star.        





  


Citizen Kane - 1941












The Stranger - 1946








Macbeth - 1948


       
      
Viewfinder links:       
       
Lux Radio Theater        
Archibald MacLeish         
The Mercury Theater        
William Shakespeare       
Orson Welles       
       
Net links:       
       
The Boston Globe ~ Magician      
       
       
       
       
       
Styrous® ~  Wednesday, May 5, 2021      
      











No comments:

Post a Comment

PLEASE NOTE: comments are moderated BEFORE they are posted so DO NOT appear immediately.

Thank you.