Orson Welles with an entirely African American cast, and the political musical "The Cradle Will Rock". In 1937 he and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory theatre company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941. Welles found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel "The War of the Worlds" performed for his radio anthology series "The Mercury Theatre on the Air". It reportedly caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was actually occurring. Although some contemporary sources say these
The War of the Worlds (radio drama) the consequence is you can still play with ideas of terror and conflict... It's a natural thing to do until you're right up against it." "Until it ceases to be a game," Welles said, a phrase that Wells repeated. Britain and France had then been at war with Nazi Germany for more than a year. As the Mercury's second theatre season began in 1938, Orson Welles and John Houseman were unable to write the "Mercury Theatre on the Air" broadcasts on their own. They hired Howard Koch, whose experience in having a play performed by the Federal Theatre Project in