Ray Bradbury's Pillar of Life is headed to Off-Broadway! Directed by Ezra Buzzington, Pillar of Life graces New York City's Theater Row with genre favorite Bill Oberst, Jr. (Scream Queens) as part of the United Solo Theatre Festival. Continue reading for more details on the show and its theater run.
Press Release: Like a character in his own fiction, Ray Bradbury just won't stay dead. The celebrated fantasy/sci-fi author passed away in 2012 (August 22nd would have been his 97th birthday) but his books are best-sellers at Amazon, his novel Fahrenheit 451 is in production at HBO Films starring Michael B. Jordan (Creed, Friday Night Lights) and his name gets 100,000 Google searches each month. Now one of indie horror's own, Bill Oberst Jr. (Criminal Minds, Scream Queens) is taking Bradbury Off-Broadway.
Oberst's solo performance, Ray Bradbury's Pillar of Fire, a tale of the walking dead that is one of Bradbury's darkest early works, comes to New York City's Theater Row on Sunday, Sept. 17 at 6:00 pm as a part of the United Solo Theatre Festival after two sold-out runs in Los Angeles, directed by Ezra Buzzington.
Ray Bradbury later called the 1948 novella “a rehearsal for Fahrenheit 451. ” Oberst calls it a hymn to Halloween. “From the opening sentence: 'He came out of the Earth hating,' Bradbury is defending Halloween and horror against those who want a world without superstition,” said the actor. “In 2349, burial is banned – they burn people's bodies like trash. There's only one dead man left, and he's pissed! Only Ray Bradbury can make you cheer for a zombie terrorist.”
Oberst, who shares a love of silent film's Lon Chaney with Bradbury (Ron Chaney presented Oberst with the first Lon Chaney Award in 2014) is also writing an authorized solo stage portrayal of Bradbury himself, under the oversight of the author's estate. The FX makeup transformation for that 2018 project is being designed by Jeff Farley, whose work on Babylon 5 won him an Emmy nomination.
Details on the NYC performance of Ray Bradbury's Pillar of Fire are at unitedsolo.org/us/raybradburys-2017.
*Above photo courtesy of Joaquin Montalvan.
Tamika hails from North Beach, Maryland, a tiny town inches from the Chesapeake Bay.She knew she wanted to be an actor after reciting a soliloquy by Sojourner Truth in front of her entire fifth grade class. Since then, she's appeared in over 20 film and television projects. In addition to acting, Tamika is the Indie Spotlight manager for Daily Dead, where she brings readers news on independent horror projects every weekend.
The first horror film Tamika watched was Child's Play. Being eight years old at the time, she remembers being so scared when Chucky came to life that she projectile vomited. It's tough for her to choose only one movie as her favorite horror film, so she picked two: Nosferatu and The Stepford Wives (1975).
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