New podcast episode: Ray Bradbury on Stage!

It's been a while, but I'm back with a new series of Bradbury 100 podcast episodes.

I get things started with a look at Ray Bradbury as a playwright, tracing his career as a theatre writer from the 1950s to the 2010s. I cover both successes and failures, and discuss both "faithful" and "playful" adaptations of his own work.

I have touched on some of this before - see episode 12, where I talked about Colonial Radio Theatre's audio performances of Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes, which both used Ray's plays (rather than his books).

And elsewhere on Bradburymedia you will find a review of a performance of Fahrenheit 451.

Coming up in future episodes of the podcast, I'll have more in the Chronological Bradbury strand, a look at some lesser-known Bradbury films, and some Bradbury fiction.

Here's the new episode - and, of course, you can also listen via any decent podcast app (see the bottom of the page for some of the options).

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 58 - Ray Bradbury on Stage

 

 

 

 

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Bradbury 100 - new episode

Time for another all-new episode of my audio podcast Bradbury 100. This week I'm joined by filmmaker and visual effects artist Christopher Cooksey to discuss the challenges and joys of bringing Ray's work to life in the visual realm.

Christopher is the co-producer of Bill Oberst Jr's stage production Ray Bradbury - LIVE (Forever). Ostensibly a one-person show, it's really a visual feast. Bill, alone on stage (except for one dance scene), is nevertheless able to walk around Bradbury's world with the aid of visual projections and audio effects. This video, from Christopher's Youtube channel, shows some of the work that went into making the visuals for the show.

 

 

To put Bill and Christopher's work in context, in the first part of the podcast I talk about Bradbury's own use of audio-visual elements in his stage plays. You can find Ray's plays in print in a number of books. Dramatic Publishing carries nearly all of them for would-be performers and play producers, and there are some play collections aimed at general readers. The introductions and production notes in these are often as entertaining as the plays.

Find out more about Christopher Cooksey from his extensive Youtube channel and from his website.

And now, enjoy the episode:

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - episode 22 - with film-maker Christopher Cooksey

Ray Bradbury's Birthday

Ray Douglas Bradbury was born ninety-four years ago today.

Even now, two years after he passed away, the fascination with his life and work continues. In a few weeks' time, a second volume of literary biography will be published: Ray Bradbury Unbound by Jon Eller. Shortly after, the second volume of The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury: a Critical Edition will appear. The successful tribute volume Shadow Show is being developed into a comic-book series. Film composer John Massari has developed his Ray Bradbury Theater music into a symphonic suite. Dramatic Publishing is expanding its list of Bradbury-authored theatre plays with Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Illustrated Bradbury. And this week, the Indianapolis Public Library inaugurated an annual Ray Bradbury Lecture in conjunction with Indiana University's Center for Ray Bradbury Studies.

I think that deserves a round of applause!

KALEIDOSCOPE returns...

Following hot on the heels of Brian Sibley's radio dramatisation of Bradbury's "Kaleidoscope" (as part of The Illustrated Man for Radio 4's Dangerous Visions season), the archive radio channel BBC Radio 4Extra is today broadcasting a 1991 production of the same story. 4Extra's web page thinks it's a new production, but it isn't.

"Kaleidoscope" is a classic SF short story, in which a group of astronauts find themselves flung aimlessly through space when their spaceship is destroyed; each one of them faces a slow, isolated death. As I have noted elsewhere, the premise seems to have inspired part of John Carpenter's movie Dark Star and Alfonso Cuaron's recent Gravity.

This 1991 radio adaptation is unusual, because the script is by Bradbury himself. It's a modified version of his stage play, and based on his own original short story. It was only the second BBC production to have used a Bradbury script (the first was Leviathan '99, which I reviewed here.).

The 1991 "Kaleidoscope" was directed by Hamish Wilson, who later co-produced the Bradbury series Tales of the Bizarre. It was also the first BBC production to use digital sampling technology in a drama production: they used a Synclavier to create the complex soundscape.

As with most BBC Radio broadcasts, the show will be available for streaming on the web for seven days, and should be accessible from anywhere in the world. Here's a direct link to the web page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0499l5n

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Today is also the 91st birthday of science fiction writer, critic and historian James Gunn. I met Jim last year, as I recounted in this blog post.  He's still going strong, and last year published a well-received novel, Transcendental.

Ray Bradbury Miscellanea

A good ticket, apparently not used... "The Anthem Sprinters" is one of Bradbury's Irish plays, a tall tale of men who compete to leave the cinema before the national anthem begins.