Chicago's Griffin Theatre has mounted a live production of my young adult novel Little Brother, adapted by William Massolia. This is incredibly exciting; Time Out Chicago gave it four stars, saying, "Doctorow raises many worthy points about the relationship between our safeties and our freedoms, and in Milne's bracing production, newcomer Mike Harvey as Marcus makes a confident tour guide." Bill Shunn, writing in Sci-Fi Wire, said, "Little Brother is an exciting and thought-provoking production, imaginatively staged on a bare-bones set with some multimedia elements stirred in."
I've managed to wrangle a trip to Chicago to see the play on July 9 -- I hope to see you there! And if July 9 doesn't work for you, I hope you can catch it on another night.
LITTLE BROTHER: Griffin Theatre, Chicago
Sci Fi Wire: Review: Cory Doctorow's revolutionary novel Little Brother comes to the stage
http://www.canada.com/Technology/Feds+give+cops+Internet+snooping+powers/1706191/story.html
One of the great things about the Chicago theater community is that there’s an abundance of great shows playing on any given night. And so I will regretfully miss my chance to meet Cory in person (and see if he really *does* wear goggles and a red cape) because of my commitment to the Neo-Futurists’ “Film Fest,” which is a series of staged readings of B-movie film scripts. Chicago readers should totally check that series out; it starts on Thursday, June 25 with a staged version of the Vanilla Ice “film” Cool As Ice.
This play is based on the book that introduced my teenage son to science fiction and and opened the door to him to reading for pleasure. We live only a couple of hours away and I’ve been kicking around various ideas for introducing E. to the big city. This looks like just the ticket!
Congrats and kudos to all, but Chicago beat San Francisco to the punch? For shame! How soon we have forgotten the deaths of our fictional Bay Area brethren.
Chicago seem friendly to this sort of production. Years ago I took time off from COMDEX to see a neat production of Daniel Pinkwater’s LIZARD MUSIC. Very charming.
@ 22 Mongo –
Just so there’s no night-of-show confusion, the production is by Griffin, but it’s not being staged at their HQ in Andersonville –it’s at the Athenaeum on Southport.
Too bad the nearby El Gato Negro isn’t still open, would’ve been the perfect place for a post-theater discussion.
@Mongo – #22
The Griffin is no longer in Andersonville. Sadly they lost their lease and that space is now a Brown Elephant.
“Little Brother” is playing at the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport Avenue.
Have Tickets for this Sunday, am really looking forward to it.
It looks like a remarkable production — “Cradle Will Rock” for the 21st Century!
On one of your recent podcasts of Someone Comes To Town, you mentioned you had questions about doing high school plays, related to Little Brother. Are your questions available in print form? My mother-in-law was a high school drama teacher until very recently, and I’d like to see if she can help. Getting her to download the podcast would be more exercise than useful, if I could just point her at a blog entry or something.
Thanks!
It’d be great if the adaptation were made available. I’d love to have a look, and I can think of a few school drama teachers who’d love to too.
Hey Cory,
Are you able to let us know if there are film rights discussions going on? :-)
@1: That’s a great idea — I’ll bring it up with Bill!
@2: Yup — contracts are being negotiated as we speak. I can’t say more until they’re signed, but it’s a producer I like, who’s worked well with friends of mine and with my agent and his other clients, and he seems to want to make something great, so I’m very happy!
That’s fantastic news! The production photos look great—the minimalist set design really captures the mildly dystopian feel of the book.
Being yet another penniless non-Chicagoan myself, I echo the sentiment that it would be marvelous to see an online video of the play (after the show has wrapped, naturally)—or at the very least a public copy of the script (assuming it to have been produced under CC licensing).
Please continue to keep us posted Cory!
Congratulations!
@Streamthetruth:
Did we get out of bed the wrong side this morning? Your personal opinion does not count as fact, friend. Other people may have different ones, and disagreeing with you is not, as you might think, a crime…
Hey! Cool, I’d sure like to see it, but it’s a long way from Sweden.. Will they put the play online?
Ah nuts. Over at Craphound.com, Cory says that they negotiated a commercial license when they did the adaptation, so there’s a pretty good chance that they’re not about to release the script of the play freely to the world. Oh well, we can still all try to build awareness of it so that it might get staged in our various locations.
#4 There is 100% absolutely no cause to be as mind bogglingly rude as you just were. None. Did your mamma really raise you so poorly?
If you dont like it, simply don’t read any posts related to the subject. You may not be aware of this fact, but boingboing does not in fact force readers to read every post. Crazy and novel idea, huh?
“Little Brother” definitely counts as a wonderful thing.
A free culture script for the play would be great. I did a list of “free culture firsts” on the old CC wiki that isn’t there any more, and a free play was one of them…
Congrats!!
As with @1 Rupert, I’d love to read the adaptation. I’d also love to pass it on to some of the kids I know at a local charter school, as I bet they’d have fun with it.
Congrats on that, Cory. How cool!
As an avid fan of civil liberties and human rights I loved the book, and I’d be interested in seeing how it adapts to other mediums.
Little Brother is really informed by Cory’s personality, at times almost like reading like a BoingBoing post, which works great – after all, focusing too much on the pure plot going on without time to explore some other concepts would be kind of a downer. I wonder how the story’s been adapted to accommodate a pure visual retelling.
And I’d love to see people “paying” for their tickets into a fund to buy copies of the book for libraries.
I would so love to see this. I hope they upload it somewhere.
“Yup — contracts are being negotiated as we speak.”
Aaaah! Too awesome to be true!
“if there are film rights discussions going on?”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t anybody have the right to make a film out of the book, without discussing rights?
Man, i loved the book, and i’d really love to go and see this stage production – and i would if i wasnt stuck all the way over here in shoreditch, london – hopelessly broke from having been laid off two weeks ago. would be great if someone could film it so us poor souls on the other side of the pond can see it…
Congratulations Cory!
All the fan translations, and now this. Isn’t it amazing how Creative Commons contributed to the success of your book? Generosity pays.
@11: Yes, provided it’s noncommercial. For a commercial — e.g., studio-financed — film, it has to be separately licensed. That’s what’s happening now.
Aaaah, now I get it. Thanks for the answer, and good luck!
This scary for me. I know a few Chicago actors through the ex-GF including some who have played at the Griffin. I don’t know any of this cast.
Congrats, Cory! I’ll try to join up on July 9!
The Griffin is in Andersonville. The kick-ass restaurant there is a Ann Sather. There are a few good cafes and a great Swedish bakery there, too.
Ooooh. This overlaps with the American Library Association conference, in Chicago from July 9-15th. Any chance you’ll hop over and say hey to all the librarians, Cory? I’m sure a bunch of them will be interested in this…
can you negotiate an exploding-collar clause for the producers and director?