Revised Original Playscript

The Anthem Sprinters: A Comedy in Two Acts [Playscript]

Bradbury, Ray

Publication: Los Angeles: Alert Duplicating Service, May 15, 1969.

Notes: The "final final" script for this Irish play which combined four of Bradbury's earlier one-act plays into a single narrative. This version was (apparently) based on revisions Bradbury decided to make after the play was performed at the Beverly Hills Playhouse in 1967 and the Coronet Theater in 1968. This version has not been published in book form.

The Anthem Sprinters, based on a story of the same name, was inspired by Bradbury's time in Ireland while working on the screenplay for Moby-Dick. The comic premise has to do with who can leave a movie theater fastest at the end of the show while the national anthem plays.

Bradbury had completed a three-act version in 1966 and shorter versions were performed in the late 1960s, before this version was published. Bradbury later reconfigured it again as a one-man play, now included in The Illustrated Bradbury, a sequence of theater pieces published by Dramatic Publishing.

[i–ii] 1–41 [41a: Act Two divider] 42–86 [87: Alert Duplicating] leaves photocopied on cream-colored paper and bound in the original goldenrod brad-bound cardstock covers.

REFERENCES: See Ben P. Indick, Ray Bradbury: Dramatist, pp. 27–28 and William F. Nolan, The Ray Bradbury Companion, p. 238.

Edition + Condition: First edition. A fine copy. The publisher's imprint appears on the last leaf; the address is 8014 West Third Street; the phone number has an area code and ends in 2103.

Item No: #364038

Price: $650