2006–2012 · Theatre, film, ceramic
Michael and Ray Bradbury
Seven years of friendship with the author of Fahrenheit 451: a play, a theatre festival, ceramic plaques, and a film finished just in time for Ray to see it.
- Years
- 2006–2012
- Play
- The Ray Bradbury Odyssey, Ojai, 2010
- Festival
- Ray Bradbury Theatre Festival, 2007–09
- Film
- Live Forever, premiered 2012
How it started
Two storytellers in Southern California
Through the 2000s Michael was painting and making ceramic murals in Ventura. From 2006 he also became close friends with Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man. They made many things together in the years that followed.
It was Bradbury, after hearing Michael’s own true stories, who pushed him to start writing them down. The first two books are out →
What they made
Year by year
-
2007
The Ray Bradbury Theatre Festival
Michael co-produced a festival of Bradbury on stage, opening with The Illustrated Man at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura.
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2008
A film, and a plaque by a Mad cartoonist
Michael’s first film about Bradbury was screened at the Ojai Film Festival. For the festival he produced a ceramic plaque designed by Sergio Aragónés of Mad magazine. Book signings followed, and events for the Wright Library at Ventura College and at the Shrine Auditorium.
-
2009
Fahrenheit 451 on stage
The festival continued with Fahrenheit 451 at the Epic Theatre. Michael also turned one of Ray’s own drawings into a ceramic plaque for the festival.
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2010
The Ray Bradbury Odyssey, and a 90th birthday
Michael wrote and produced a play about Ray’s life, The Ray Bradbury Odyssey, staged in Ojai at the Zalk Theatre, Besant Hill School. For Ray’s 90th birthday he designed and produced a ceramic plaque: Ray, in goggles, riding a rocket past Saturn.
-
2012
Live Forever
All through those years Michael filmed Ray, and kept filming until three weeks before his death. The result is a feature about Bradbury’s life, Live Forever. Ray saw a rough cut before he died in June 2012, and the film premiered that year at the Century 10 in Ventura. Michael also designed a ceramic Youth Award plaque for young actors that carried the film’s name.
The footage
Hours of Bradbury that exist nowhere else
Michael’s interviews cover Bradbury’s last years, in his own words. He has been re-editing Live Forever as a four-part series.
Programmers, archives and festivals interested in the film or the footage can get in touch with Michael directly.
The rest of the story
Musician, collector, publisher, muralist
Bradbury was one chapter. Before it came the Omega Guitar Quartet, a decade in Mexico and Rufino Tamayo; after it, the Ventura Historic Mural.
