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Thank you so much for coming out to War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast, this is such a powerful little piece of theatre. Not only because we have an absolutely fantastic cast of talented actors and actresses, but because this is an extremely important piece for the times we live in. As you’ll notice throughout the piece this little radio broadcast, meant to bit just a little bit of Halloween fun, had a powerful effect on the United States. And the panic it caused is still talked about to this date. Even though the broadcast was very intentional about the fact it was fictitious, many Americans thought the broadcast was real and went into a panic. At that time radio was a relatively new invention, and very few people were aware of the effect mass media could have on the public. We are currently experience a very similar state of affairs with the prevalence of social media. How often do we share memes and news stories without fact checking or reading the entire article?

How often are people fired from their jobs based solely on what someone posts on their social media? How often have we seen people harassed online by angry mobs of people riled up by something they read online? Often the speed at which technology advances often eclipses our maturity as a society, and I think it’s important that we take a minute to think about our relationship to mass media, and perhaps we should be a little more careful about what media we choose to believe and which we shouldn’t…Happy Halloween

Please make sure you come out to see Chris’ next directing project Miracle on 34^th Street: The Musical opening Nov 30^th at Medina County Showbiz Company.