Radio Free Stein

Description:

Radio Free Stein was a series produced by Adam Frank that staged the theatrical works of Gertrude Stein through sound. The first iteration of the project took place in the Grand Luxe Hall and reimagined Stein’s experimental “word portrait,” For the Country Entirely. A Play in Letters (1916) as a production directed by Adam Henderson.

Divided into five acts, the audiodrama featured actors Kurt Evans, Lucia Frangione, Cara McDowell, and Alan Marriott; and a string quartet composed of Mark Ferris (violin), Domagoj Ivanovic (violin), Marcus Takizawa (viola), and Rebecca Wenham (cello), who performed an original score composed by Dorothy Chang.

The twenty-minute performance was followed by short presentations by Frank, Chang, and Henderson, before the actors and musicians returned to the stage to present a second performance of the work. 

This first iteration of Radio Free Stein was presented as part of A Biocultural Hinge: Theorizing Affect and Emotion Across the Disciplines, a Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies International Roundtable Discussion organized by Adam Frank and Shelly Rosenblum with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia.

Video documentation is available upon request.