B'way Update: Fahrenheit 451; More Gilded Age Casting

Julie Christie and Oskar Werner in
Francois Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

Ray Bradbury's 1953 science-fiction classic Fahrenheit 451 will be adapted for the Broadway stage by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Martyna Majok (Cost of Living). Bradbury's dystopian novel is set in a near future where firemen set books to blaze rather than rescuing people from flames. There have been two film versions of the novel. Francois Truffaut, in one of his rare English-language movies, adapted the work in 1966 with Oskar Werner, Julie Christie and Cyril Cusack. Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon starred in a 2018 TV version for HBO. This will be the first time a Bradbury work has been seen on Broadway. A program of three one-acts based on his short stories titled The World of Ray Bradbury played Off-Broadway in 1965.

Majok said, "The relevancy of mind domination and the end of the world in our current age needs no words; what struck me most in Fahrenheit 451 was its lens on our loneliness. How our yearning for connection and fear of its absence can be feasted upon. How we long to devote ourselves to something true and lasting in a fracturing society. And the ways we blow up our lives to unearth the truth we've buried – which will shatter us into our most honest selves. As Bradbury writes, 'We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in awhile.'"
 
“It is a privilege and thrill to bring this seminal novel to the stage, with one of our most visceral and acclaimed living writers,” said the producers in a statement. “Mr. Bradbury’s and Ms. Majok’s works both stem from the deeply human and personal, and we’re excited by the significance of this collaboration.”
 
The Bradbury Estate commented that, “We are delighted to bring Fahrenheit 451 to a new audience, with the impact and intimacy that only theater can offer, to be working with producers who care so deeply for the work and with Martyna Majok, a truly great dramatist of enormous intelligence, sensitivity and skill.”