IM: WHUSDJ
CURRENT SHOW
Jazz and Beyond
The night before Halloween WHUS hosted an exciting radio event, The War of the Worlds, and Storrs and the UConn campus were destroyed before our very ears! This was an updated version of the Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater Company script that was used in the infamous 1938 broadcast. We were half afraid it would not happen, at least not on Tuesday night, because of the weather. But a bold band of radio adventurers came together and put on an amazing show!
I was proud and happy to play a small part in the broadcast, as the engineer and chief bottle washer. WHUS broadcasters Ryan and Trevor as R.C. King and DJ Geist took part in the drama, playing themselves and helping to connect the story to WHUS and UConn. All the other people who participated in the play had no prior association with WHUS, though I hope to change that in the future.
The head of the cast was Mark Lowe playing Professor Pierson and Orson Welles, Mark also served as director and organizer of the whole project. Miriam Drew played the perky Carla Phillips who suffers a terrible fate at the hands of the martian invaders while drawing the audience into the fantastic story. Emma White played several announcers, and delivered the memorable description of the fall of New York as the martian machines invade Manhattan. Timothy Corbett played the Artilleryman with his twisted dreams of a new life underground.
The play also included great performances from James York, Edie Jones, Chris LaCour, Michael Siddell, Steven Mollmann, and Anna Armagno. Grant Steelman produced the sound effects, which were stellar. The whole team delivered a rich and engaging radio theater experience, broadcast live to what we estimate was a very large audience in northeast Connecticut and around the world at whus.org.
I want to offer on behalf of the radio station our sincere gratitude and heartfelt thanks to Mark and the entire crew for all the hard work that went into this project. We were happy to provide a space for the performance, and proud to be associated with such a fine production.