The annual SummerScape and Bard Music Festival runs from July 5 through August 18, and includes a seven-week schedule of theater, film, opera, dance, classical music, discussions, and Spiegeltent cabaret.
One highly anticipated event for the 2013 season is a stage adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita. The book, which was written (and suppressed) in Stalinist Russia over the course of Bulgakov’s life, wasn’t published until the late 1970s. In the novel—part political satire, part magical fantasy, part love story—the devil comes to Moscow and wreaks havoc on the nascent Soviet state.
Gideon Lester, director of Bard’s Theater and Performance Program, cowrote the stage adaptation with the celebrated Hungarian director János Szász, who directs the Bard production. This is the first US stage adaptation of the novel in more than 20 years.
Listen in as Gideon Lester discusses the process of adapting Bulgakov’s sprawling masterpiece, as well as upcoming plans for the Live Arts Bard program, which he founded and runs. Jay Blotcher, who wrote a preview of Bard SummerScape 2013 for the July issue of Chronogram, also joins the podcast.
“The Master and Margarita” runs from July 11-21 at Bard’s Fisher Center. For ticket information, and details about other shows planned for the 2013 SummerScape season, click here.
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This article appears in June 2013.
I think you should have asked permission to Bettina Egger, author of the illustration you used. Or, at least, you could have mentioned her, rather than this Carol Zaroom, who used someone else’s work – and not to “enhance” it.
Jan, thanks for bringing this to our attention. This image was provided to Chronogram and we were not aware of its origin, and as soon as we were made aware of this we immediately took it down and brought it to the attention of Bard College, who is looking into it the rights issue.