Performing Arts Series: L.A. Theatre Works
Johnson County Community College
Press Release
College Information and Publications
913-469-8500
Julie Haas, Associate Vice President, Marketing Communications, ext. 3120
Peggy Graham, Writer, ext. 3425
Tyler Cundith, Sports Information Director, ext. 3122
8/25/09
Story by Peggy Graham
Set your dial for LA Theatre Works’ science fiction
In a special back-to-back double bill of chills, thrills and great science literature, America’s premier radio theater company L.A. Theatre Works, with Susan Albert Loewenberg producing director, presents War of the Worlds, witten by H.G. Wells, and The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, at 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Oct. 2-3, in Yardley Hall of the Carlsen Center, Johnson County Community College. Plays are complete with props, sets and costumes.
Cast for this production are the fine television actors Tom Virtue (Star Trek Voyager, 7th Heaven), Josh Clark (Heroes, Star Trek Voyager, E.R. and L.A. Law), Kyle Colerider-Krugh (Third Rock From The Sun, E.R.) and stage actors Kenneth Alan Williams, Peter McDonald, Diane Adair, and Kate Steele. Star Trek alum John de Lancie (Q) is directing this superb cast.
This 60-minute War of the Worlds performance recreates Orson Welles’ infamous Oct. 30, 1938, radio broadcast simulating an “eyewitness report” of an invasion from Mars, so real that it caused a nationwide panic. The broadcast used an adaptation of the original 1898 H.G. Wells book, which was updated by Howard Koch, Mercury Theatre of the Air writer, who changed the time and location from Victorian England to a small town on the U.S. East Coast.
LATW follows this tradition. In The Lost World, 50-minutes, Professor Challenger leads a harrowing four-person expedition through the remote jungles of South America to settle the validity of his extraordinary claim that prehistoric animals exist. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s rollicking adventure tale, adapted by John de Lancie and Nat Segaloff, follows a scientific expedition deep into the Amazon jungle — right back into the times of dinosaurs and cave men. Before Jurassic Park, before Indiana Jones — there was The Lost World.
Both original pieces of science fiction were written at the time of an extensive British Empire. Their fascination still resonates today as concerns swirl around our environment and protecting our borders.
Under the leadership of producing director, Susan Albert Loewenberg, LATW produces and records radio plays performed in front of live audiences and also provides weekly broadcast to select NPR stations and XM Satellite Radio, internationally on the BBC, CBC, Voice of America and many other English language networks.
Works by Eugene O’Neill, David Henry Hwang, Athol Fugard, Wendy Wasserstein, Neil Simon, David Mamet, Charlayne Woodard, Arthur Miller and others have been performed and recorded by LATW with casts of the most critically acclaimed film and stage actors — Leonard Nimoy, Richard Dreyfuss, Chad Lowe, Hilary Swank, Laurence Fishburne, Neil Patrick Harris, Ed Asner and many others.
Tickets for the evening are $30 and $20, available by calling the Performing Arts Series box office at 913-469-4445 or online at www.jccc.edu/TheSeries.
Performing Arts Education will sponsor a master class where L.A. Theatre professionals share their craft. Call 913-469-8500, ext. 4221, for more information.
###
