Comments on: Ray Bradbury and the Lost Planetarium Show

By: Jonathan R. Eller

Jonathan R. Eller — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 21:04:06 +0000

Dear David Romanowski,

Enjoyed your retrospective on Mr. Bradbury’s Smithsonian work. The Ghosts of Forever and The Great Shout of the Universe have more complicated histories. Please contact me at the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies if you would like further background.

Sincerely,

Jon Eller, Professor of English
Director, Center for Ray Bradbury Studies
Indiana University School of Liberal Arts (IUPUI)

By: Dean Jameson

Dean Jameson — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 18:24:19 +0000

I am jealous beyond words that you’ve read that script and I have not. Please work with the Bradbury estate to see it made into a planetarium show.

By: James Bryant

James Bryant — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 18:17:28 +0000

It seems Bradbury had sort of a “thing” with the Smithsonian in the early 1980s: when I worked in the Insect Zoo over in Natural HIstory, he toured the Museum one day, and spent quite a bit of time in the old “freeze-dry taxidermy” lab! That evening he gave a lecture in Baird Auditorium for the Resident Associates and brought everyone to their feet with a rousing conclusion to his talk. He was always a poet and a firebrand, even when I saw him here in Riverside, CA about 10 years ago. He said that evening at NMNH that he wanted to be buried on Mars. Wouldn’t it be nice if something like that happened?

By: Dr. Gene Nelson

Dr. Gene Nelson — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 15:27:44 +0000

As a NASM Docent at the National Mall when work assignments take me to Washington, DC, I enjoyed your story about the Ghosts of Forever. I also hope for an Einstein Planetarium show after approval from Ray’s estate, perhaps with a few edits. I heard Ray give an inspirational talk at a California Scholastic Federation meeting at the University of California at Irvine in spring, 1969. Such a planetarium show would mesh well with NASM’s mission to educate and inspire.

By: David Romanowski

David Romanowski — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:29:26 +0000

Thanks Ken B for your thoughts and memories too. And Tamara, as for whether I think it would have made a good planetarium show, it’s hard for me to say. It clearly needed work, but I haven’t studied it thoroughly enough to decide whether it could or should have been salvaged. But I would have loved to have had the chance to try.

By: Ken B

Ken B — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 11:12:56 +0000

Excellent article! Thank you for sharing your memories. The announcement of Mr Bradbury’s passing brought back memories for me as well. As a kid, my father introduced me to his favorite genre of books – science fiction, including Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, books by Clarke, and many others. On this day before Father’s Day, it’s a fond recollection of one of the many things I share with my father, and now with my daughter (although she is as interested in theater as I was in sci-fi as a kid. ) She has still shared time experiencing the wonder of a planetarium and some contemporary sci-fi with me. Hopefully, planetariums will continue to amaze youth as they did for me, and maybe Bradbury’s script could eventually be more widely adopted for more people to see and foster that dreamer in all whom it touches.

By: David Romanowski

David Romanowski — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:13:08 +0000

Thanks for your comments! Unfortunately, having the Bradbury script in our files doesn’t mean we can do with it whatever we want. Because of possible copyright issues, we can’t produce the show, or publish, distribute, or even copy the script.

It’s interesting to hear that Bradbury repurposed it as a slide show for the California Museum of Science and Industry. Here’s a brief insight about the script from his note that accompanied it:

“I have been not informational but inspirational . . . I don’t think a planetarium is a place to teach, per se. It is, after all, theatre. And just as I was inspired by museums when I was a child . . . so I feel that you and I and everyone connected with your planetarium, are in the business of shaking people up and rousing their blood so they go out of the show half-mad with love and stunned with the beauties of space. If we do that, the rest will follow . . .”

By: Derrick Pitts

Derrick Pitts — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:20:14 +0000

I’m ‘in’ too David. I’d certainly run it at Fels.

By: Tamara Schwarz

Tamara Schwarz — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 05:34:33 +0000

So, you didn’t reveal what YOU thought of the script. Do you think it would have made a good planetarium show?

By: Ken Brandt

Ken Brandt — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 00:55:15 +0000

How wonderful that he was involved at all! I wish someone would have sat down with him and reworked the phrasings image by image, if need be. Oh well.
I would love to collaborate on a show themed on Bradbury’s unquenchable wonder, and go into depth into the many facets of 20th century design, writing, and screenplays he delved in.