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WHAT IS SCI-FEST LA ?
In 2014 actor David Dean Bottrell and veteran Los Angeles theatre producers, Michael Blaha and Lee Costello created SCI-FEST LA: The Los Angeles Science Fiction One-Act Play Festival.
This first-of-its-kind annual festival offered audiences two rotating evenings of new, professionally produced, short sci-fi plays - all performed live on stage. In addition to the producing many original scripts by up-and-coming writers, the Festival also produced stage works by legendary Sci-Fi authors like Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Ursula Le Guin and Ray Bradbury.
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PAT TOWNE directed a show in each of the three years of Sci-Fest's existence - including the showcase piece for the first festival, Ray Bradbury's KALEIDOSCOPE.
WHAT IS KALEIDOSCOPE ?
Written in 1975 Ray Bradbury's KALEIDOSCOPE, based on his own 1947 short story, imagines the conversations between crew mates of a destroyed spacecraft as they float helplessly through space, and their only connection to each other is through the communicator in their suits.
Bradbury's astronauts contemplate their fate and philosophize about life and its purpose as each wait for their air supply to run out.
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KALEIDOSCOPE was the premiere piece for the First Annual Sci-Fest LA and was directed by PAT TOWNE
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1st Annual Sci-Fest LA
1st Annual Sci-Fest LA
1st Annual Sci-Fest LA
1st Annual Sci-Fest LA
WHAT IS A LOGIC NAMED JOE ?
For the Second Annual Sci-Fest LA PAT TOWNE staged a radio play called A LOGIC NAMED JOE that was first heard in 1950 for the science fiction series DIMENSION X.
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Adapted from the 1946 short story by Murray Leinster, A LOGIC NAMED JOE is the story of Ducky a 'logic' (ie. computer) repairman as he notices a frightening growth in the intelligence, ambition, and dangerous actions of a logic Ducky has named 'Joe'.
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WHAT IS ZEBULON CALLING ?
For the Third Annual Sci-Fest LA PAT TOWNE directed the one act sci-fi play ZEBULON CALLING by John P. Dowgin.
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A guy on a bench sits reading his paper when he is met by a homeless man who starts to use the junk he's pushing around in his shopping cart to receive a call... a very long distance call.
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THE PRESS
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES ARTICLE
THE LAWEEKLY ARTICLE
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