Orson Welles: A One-Person Play in Two Acts

By: Michael B. Druxman

Narrated by: Edward E. French

Orson Welles is a one-person play in two acts about the life and times of Orson Welles.

Some say that Orson Welles was a genius, but he always denied that. He did give us Citizen Kane, considered by most critics to be the best film ever made, but after that, his career took one long downward plunge.

The play finds Welles trying to find the financing for one of his film projects. It's a difficult task, since most of the Hollywood community considers him to be a "screwball". Pondering his life with his "other self", he tells us about his alcoholic father, his lonely years as a "gifted child", his rise as the "boy genius" of Broadway and the War of the Worlds radio broadcast that panicked America and made his name a household word. But "genius" can be self-destructive - as was the case with Welles. Time after time, with a new post-Kane success within his grasp, he would knowingly make the wrong move, thereby destroying everything he'd built.

Containing wry stories about William Randolph Hearst, Columbia Pictures' Harry Cohn, and Rita Hayworth, Michael B. Druxman's Orson Welles is the "boy genius" at his best.

©1986 Michael B. Druxman (P)2012 Michael B. Druxman