Thursday, March 15, 2012

Kerouac Play to Finally Receive Its World Premiere?


Yes.

From a story in the Guardian...

Beat Generation, a three-act play rediscovered in a New Jersey warehouse in 2005, will be staged for the first time this October in Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. The Merrimack Repertory Theatre and the University of Massachusetts Lowell will deliver eight performances of staged reading as the centrepiece of this year's Jack Kerouac Literary festival.

Written in 1957, shortly after the publication of On the Road, Beat Generation shows a day in the life of Jack Duluoz, Kerouac's drink-and-drug-fuelled alter ego. The play draws on his own life and those of other Beat writers including Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg, who subsequently starred in the film Pull My Daisy, which was based in part on the play.

Kerouac had sent his work to numerous producers and actors, including Marlon Brando, in an attempt to drum up interest for a production, but after failing to do so asked his agent Sterling Lord to shelve the script.

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