Girl meets boy... genius

We're experiencing a wave of Orson Welles mania these days.
I have been watching the two-disc DVD of "Citizen Kane," and the feature-length documentary on Welles that accompanies it.
I have been enthralled with the story of the "voodoo" staging of "Macbeth" that Welles created when he was 20. Welles wanted to give the all-black cast of Harlem's Negro Theatre Unit a classic to perform, so he relocated "Macbeth" in Haiti. The play's success greatly enhanced Welles' growing reputation.
Two years later, Welles stunned America with the chilling "War of the Worlds" broadcast on CBS Radio.
I introduced my 11-year-old daughter Kerstin to the Oct. 30, 1938 broadcast last night (we found it online here) and she has listened to it twice since.
She loves it!
As you probably recall, Welles retold the H.G. Wells classic novel in contemporary times and in near-documentary style. Welles interrupted a seemingly ordinary music show with increasingly ominous, simulated news flashes of a Martian invasion of Grover's Mill, N.J.
Many people tuned in to the broadcast after an introductory statement reaffirming its fictional nature, so a great many people believed the news reports and panicked.
Studies suggest 1.2 million listeners were "genuinely frightened" by the broadcast.
Kerstin said listening to the Welles broadcast makes her want to read the Wells original book. So, "War of the Worlds" continues to entertain and inspire, even nearly 70 years after it first aired.