The sky is falling! Isn't it? In Fake News!, students from Professor Lincoln's Media Culture course present a fast-paced adventure through the culture of fear. Destinations include a spin on the most infamous broadcast of all time, Orson Welles' adaptation of The War of the Worlds, and a climax never before seen on a public stage! Can they pull the rug out from under an audience who feels they can’t be tricked? Don’t touch that dial! The art of fake news is about to be taken to dizzying heights.

Playwright’s Notes

“Fake is as old as the Eden tree...”
- Orson Welles

I've always been fascinated by the legendary showmanship of Orson Welles. And one of the chapters of his life that most intrigues me is the story behind the infamous 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast and how this notoriety led Welles to Hollywood and Citizen Kane and the rest of his extraordinary career. A few years back, after the success of my live radio play adaptations of It's a Wonderful Life and others, I started working on a play inspired by this chapter in Welles' life. As fate would have it, around this same time I got a call from my publisher telling me that they had obtained rights from the estate of Howard Koch, writer of the 1938 War of the Worlds radio play, and asking whether I'd be interested in writing a play using the broadcast as its centerpiece. I immediately said yes and began the process of discovering how to best focus the additional content to frame the original radio play. 

I crafted a few different takes on the material, including one focused on the listeners of the 1938 broadcast. After workshops in New York City and under the guidance of director Hunter Foster and others, the decision was made to publish War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast, taking its subtitle from Koch's book on his experience with the original broadcast. This version also matches the radio-play-within-a-play structure of my other published titles. 

In 2017, I was presented with the opportunity to write another version of the material by Fran Kondziela, director of the theatre program at Fairfield Ludlowe High School. This is where the concept of focusing on a group of students presenting their own stylized take on the broadcast, along with the title Fake News!, was born. Following this workshop premiere at Ludlowe, my involvement with Sacred Heart University teaching playwriting and mentoring Theatrefest students led to the opportunity to reimagine the high school version of Fake News! once again, this time set in a college environment. 

Through workshops with the SHU Theatre Arts Program students and director John Flaherty, the play was reshaped and resized. The Ludlowe workshop had a cast of 26, and there are six actors in the SHU version. The Ludlowe workshop was in two acts and ran two hours, the SHU workshop is one act and runs just over an hour. The goal of manipulating the audience, much in the way the original radio broadcast did with its audience and the way the media and marketing manipulate us 24/7, became a main focus. Will we succeed in pulling the rug out from under you? Stay tuned...

This play is about many things. It's about history -- and history repeating itself. It's about the media and the culture of fear. It’s about juxtaposition and misdirection. But, at its heart, it’s about the fearlessness of unplugging and living in the moment. 

- Joe Landry
Playwright, Fake News! (or 'The War of the Worlds' Project)