John Houseman abandoned in favor of Bram Stoker's "Dracula", with Welles playing the infamous vampire. During an all night session at Perkins' Restaurant, Welles and Houseman hashed out a script. "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" featured an impressive array of talents, including Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Herrmann, and George Coulouris. "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" subsequently became famous for its notorious 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds", which had put much of the country in a panic. By all accounts, Welles was shocked by the panic that ensued. According to Houseman, "he hadn't the faintest
The Mercury Theatre on the Air October 30, 1938 and is one of the most famous broadcasts in the history of radio due to the panic which it accidentally caused, after which the Campbell Soup Company signed on as sponsor. "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" made its last broadcast December 4, 1938, and "The Campbell Playhouse" began December 9, 1938. After the theatrical successes of the Mercury Theatre, CBS Radio invited Orson Welles to create a summer show for 13 weeks. The series began July 11, 1938, initially titled "First Person Singular", with the formula that Welles would play the lead in each show. Some