The Battle Over Citizen Kane Mercury Theatre (such as an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth", which featured an all-black cast and was set in the jungle), and the infamy of his October 30, 1938, radio broadcast of H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds", which sent residents of Grover's Mill, New Jersey into a panic, Orson Welles was able to negotiate a virtually unheard-of two-picture deal with RKO Pictures, the smallest of the 'big five' major studios in this era. The deal gave him creative control under a budget limit. "The Battle Over Citizen Kane" also details the lives of Orson Welles and William
Orson Welles experience, allowing Welles to concentrate on subjects that interested him. Welles performed and staged theatrical experiments and productions there. "Todd provided Welles with many valuable experiences", wrote critic Richard France. "He was able to explore and experiment in an atmosphere of acceptance and encouragement. In addition to a theater the school's own radio station was at his disposal." Welles's first radio experience was on the Todd station, where he performed an adaptation of "Sherlock Holmes" that was written by him. On December 28, 1930, when Welles was 15, his father died of heart and kidney failure at the age of