Co-directed by SITI artistic director Anne Bogart and sound designer Darron L West, Radio Macbeth brings a fresh take to Shakespeare's briefest and most magnetic tragedy. Conceived as a play-within-a-radio-play-within-a-play, Radio Macbeth takes places late at night in the guts of an abandoned theater, where actors gather to rehearse. Darkness plays tricks on their minds making the imagination churn, and the ghosts that have haunted the story since the play's inception flicker and glow. The actors cling to the sanity of the words as the chaos of history becomes undeniably present in the room.
On October 8, 9, 15,and 16, Radio Macbeth is joined by War of the Worlds (which inspired Radio Macbeth) for a special double bill (tickets are $50). This is SITI's restaging of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater's legendary broadcast. On October 30, 1938, mass hysteria seized thousands of people as Welles and "The Mercury Theater On the Air" aired Howard Koch's adaptation of H.G. Wells's novel, The War of the Worlds (Invasion from Mars). Even with several station and program identification breaks, this hour-long radio program convinced anxious listeners that the Earth was the target of a full -scale invasion by aliens.
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Read TDF Stages' exclusive interview with Radio Macbeth's directors, who explain why radio drama is perfect for the stage.