This November will mark the first fall play at Wayland High School in many years, Larry Marrs and His Radio All-Stars, which will run November 11th – 13th.

After many years of fall musicals and spring plays, drama teacher Richard Weingartner is making a change. Instead of having the play in the spring, it will now be performed in the fall, whereas the musical will take place in the spring.  In addition to the lineup change, this year’s fall play offers its own excitement, doing something Wayland has never seen before.

As this is the last year of the Little Theater’s legacy at the Wayland High School, Weingartner wants to end with something that will leave a lasting impression in the room.  The fall play a mixes a novel and and original material created by the members of the cast. As the story starts, we are introduced to Larry Marrs and his Radio All-Stars.

Marrs is a fictitious famous singer-entertainer who hosts a radio variety show. A war of the worlds begins, based on the book War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, and interrupts the show as live, breaking news.

The mix of reality and science fiction throughout the play should attract a wide audience.  The most intriguing part of the fall play is the “ambitious unknown,” according to Weingartner.

“There’s a little bit of a thriller in the production because we as audience like to be scared by the unknown and the outside,” he said. “There’s something out there that is very tangible even though it’s very mysterious. Fear of the unknown is very palpable for us.”

However, the “ambitious unknown” has another meaning for Weingartner. “Writing an original piece always feels ambitious mainly because the outcome is an unknown entity at first,” he said. ” Combining an original piece, Larry Marrs and his Radio All-Stars, with an existing piece, War of the Worlds, really feels unknown at first. But then after a while, you settle in on your choices and trust your instincts and trust your actors.”

Students in the play, however, have a different idea of what will attract audiences.

“The cool appeal is that everything that’s in the play has an equivalent to today,” says junior Jonah Greenawalt.  “Sort of like Jersey Shore back in the 1930’s. It relates to today, 80 years ago.”

Junior Debbie Ng thinks “the story of it” will be what attracts most people.

However, there’s another twist planned to give the play the authenticity of a real radio drama. The play’s technical crew plans to stream the play on the Wayland Channel as if it were a live radio show, so the theater audience will be the real audience for the live radio and television broadcast.

“I myself can’t wait to see if the experiment works,” said Weingartner.

The fall play will run on November 11th, 12th, and 13th, at 7:30 PM. Tickets will be sold in school that week and at the door.