On Sunday, October 28 at 7 p.m., the Shadowland Theatre will be kicking off their lobby concert series which will run through the winter and spring by hosting a production of Orson Welles' famous 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds as an on-stage radio play, featuring many members of the community, including Mayor Jeff Kaplan, Noonday Club Citizen of the Year Dr. Mark Kraft, and Ellenville High School Principal Ron Chiasson.

Directed by Shadowland Producing Artistic Director Brendan Burke, the tickets will cost $15, with a discounted rate of $10 a ticket for seniors and students, and the money raised will go into funding the Shadowland. Burke is optimistic about the appeal the one-time-only production will have for community residents.

“It's good for a family audience. It's a little bit historical, a little bit interesting, and hopefully it'll be funny. It'll just be a fun night for the community and a good way to raise money for the theatre,” says Burke.

Local musician and Shadowland board member John Simon helped get the ball rolling for the event, wanting to start the Lobby Concert Series off “with a bang.”

“We want to do one a month, and October is Halloween, so a friend of mine actually suggested that we do War of the Worlds as a radio broadcast with an audience, so that's what we're going to do,” says Simon. “And we're going to use the actual theatre for that one because we imagine it'll be a popular thing for everybody because of the fact that all the parts are going to be played by Ellenville celebrities.”

Simon is also excited about the commercials the radio-play will feature for local businesses, so he's currently writing up radio-style jingles that will be sung during the performance.

“This is a thing that directly involves the community with the theatre, so I think that maybe people will come away with a sense that the theatre's serving the community, and that the community's serving the theatre, too.”

In the lead role of Professor Richard Pearson, originally played by Orson Welles himself, will be the Ellenville Journal's own Joe Bevilacqua, an old hand at radio, having done extensive work for NPR and XM Satellite radio in addition to writing and producing hundreds of radio plays.

“It's been a lot of fun,” says Bevilacqua. “John Simon came to me originally a few months ago and asked me if I'd be interested in helping out.”

Relying on his 35 years of radio experience, Bevilacqua is also designing the show's sound effects, serving as the sound effects technical advisor for the production. His long-time collaborator Ken Savoy, a member of Bevilacqua's comedy troupe Liquid Comedy, will be the sound effects operator on stage.

Interestingly, Welles's The War of the Worlds has been intertwined with Bevilacqua's career, the radio veteran having produced a documentary in 1988 in commemoration of the original broadcast's fiftieth anniversary, in which he was able to interview the original scriptwriter and producer of Welles's production. It seems likely that Bevilacqua's experience and intimate knowledge of the show will serve to make the experience quite a treat for all who come to see it.

After the October 28 production, the Shadowland's Lobby Concert Series will continue with shows already lined up until the end of the year. On November 17, two audience favorites, Meghan Cary and Rosanne Raneri, will be playing a double-bill. On December 15, jazz singer Terry Blaine and jazz pianist Mark Shane will perform.

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