Mercury Theatre

The Mercury Theatre was a theater group in New York City, which was founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman. The first production of the Mercury Theatre was listed in June 1937. After initial successes, the stage theater group started a year later, their collaboration with the radio.

Orson Welles had previously staged numerous plays, including a seven-part adaptation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. 1938, the opportunity was offered to him to draw up a weekly one-hour series, which was originally called First Person Singular and was later renamed The Mercury Theatre on the Air. Welles insisted that the theater company - actors and other employees - in the work on the series are integrated. Although this requirement was as unusual as expensive, he could enforce against those responsible.

In the first year, 1938, the most famous piece of radio drama history, HG Wells' The War of the Worlds was (English War of the Worlds ) in collaboration with the CBS.