Kaleidoscope
By Ray Bradbury.
Product Code: K20000
Full-length Play
Cast size: 7m. or 7w.
Limited Streaming Rights Available
Rights and availability
This title can be licensed and sold throughout the World.
* Please note the royalty rate listed is the minimum royalty rate per performance. The actual royalty rate will be determined upon completion of a royalty application.
Synopsis
What would you do if you were a million miles from Earth and your rocket ship was hit by a meteor and suddenly split open, leaving you floating in space with only your communicator to link you to your six crew members? Don't know? Faced with this problem, Bradbury's people contemplate their fate and philosophize about life and its purpose. This play is not only a director's dream of possibilities but also a marvelous chance for actors to dig into their beings and face questions of profound magnitude.
Notes
Limited Streaming Rights Available
Details
- Status In stock
- Type of Show Full-length Play
- Product Code K20000
- Minimum Cast Size 7
- Pages of Dialogue 35
- Min. Royalty Rate $110.00/perf
- Approx. Run Time 50 min
- Staging Bare stage with props.
Categories
- Target Audience High School | College and Adult
- Performing Group High School | College Theatre | Community Theatre
- ISBN(13) 9780871295712
Customer Reviews
Actors loved this show. Lots of good, meaningful character stuff for them to dig into. Our audiences were also moved by the show. "Intense" was one parent review.
My cast, crew and I truly enjoyed this show. It has nuances in the script that can bring out the best in the actors and technical challenges for director and tech crew but if done right, creates a moving story that's quite different from most other plays just by its setting.
Kaleidoscope allows the actors and audience members to evaluate their own mortality. Suspense, silence, and emotion all lead to a riveting conclusion for the members of Space Flight Apollo 99. My cast was challenged by the subject matter as well as staging. They had to be able to articulate a character without use of their bodies (as they were floating in space).
Excellent script! The teens find the material challenging and very emotional. I have never heard such silent listening from the audience. Bradbury's themes stand out as strongly today as when this was written.
Hints, Tips, and Tricks
We used painters coveralls for the astronaut suits - sewed NASA patches onto them. White gloves and painter's booties completed the look. When they put their "helmets" on it was just a matter of popping on the hoodie. The set was acting blocks. When the ship exploded, the actors moved the blocks to lights pre-placed on the stage (flat LED pars, and a party light for Applegate's kaleidoscope meteor swarm). Actors were each lit with their own light which went out when their character died. Some actors stood on the block, others in front of. When the character died, they sat on the block with back to the audience (in the "dim"). The most expensive part of all of this was obviously the lights, but those are going to be useful for many shows to come, so they were a good investment.
I think the key to making this play work is the use of light and sound. Once the play is underway, it needs a nearly blacked out stage so lighting the actors is crucial. Sound needs layers of electronic noise, old radio broadcasts and music for certain scenes to reach full potential.
Production Map
| Location | City | State | Opens | Closes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Erie College | Painesville | OH | 03/27/2025 | 03/30/2025 |
Downloads
| File Description | File Format | |
|---|---|---|
| Performance Poster | Download |
Poster Suggestions
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- You can print the poster in its original format and hand write your information.
- Your local copy shop should be able to create prints from a file saved to disk. They might even be able to increase the size of the poster for you (although some loss of resolution will occur).
Gallery
Kaleidoscope-Yantis High School, Yantis, TX
Kaleidoscope - South St. Paul Public Schools, South St. Paul, MN
Also By These Authors
Tara Enedy, Altoona Community Theatre, Altoona, Pa.