A new stage adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is in development, with Pulitzer Prize winner Martyna Majok attached as the playwright.
Glass Half Full Productions (POTUS, Betrayal) and Aaron Glick (Kimberly Akimbo, What the Constitution Means to Me) are producing the adaptation, which is in early stages of development and aiming for Broadway. Majok comes to the project after winning the 2018 Pulitzer prize for drama for her Broadway play, Cost of Living.
In addition to writing Sanctuary City, Queens, and Ironbound, Majok wrote the libretto for the new musical Gatsby: An American Myth, with music by Florence Welch and Thomas Bartlett, which premiered last summer at the American Repertory Theater.
“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,” Majok said.
The book, published in 1953, is set in a dystopian future in which books are forbidden and burned by firemen, as society has turned toward television and other mass media instead. One fireman, Guy Montag, begins to question the book burning and attempts to reintroduce literature into his life.
The book has been adapted into several mediums since its publication, including the 1966 film adaptation by François Truffaut and the 2018 HBO adaptation, a radio drama and a stage play, which was adapted by Bradbury himself.
“It is a privilege and thrill to bring this seminal novel to the stage, with one of our most visceral and acclaimed living writers,” the producers said 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 added: “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.”
