Cory Doctorow writes that “Chicago’s Griffin Theatre has mounted a live production of my young adult novel Little Brother, adapted by William Massolia. This is incredibly exciting; Time Out Chicago gave it four stars, saying, ‘Doctorow raises many worthy points about the relationship between our safeties and our freedoms, and in this bracing production, newcomer Mike Harvey as Marcus makes a confident tour guide.’ Bill Shunn, writing in Sci-Fi Wire, said, ‘Little Brother is an exciting and thought-provoking production, imaginatively staged on a bare-bones set with some multimedia elements stirred in.'”
Doctorow himself plans to be in Chicago to see the performance on 9 July. If you won’t be joining him that day, Little Brother is on the boards Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30PM, and Sundays at 3PM, from now through 19 July at the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 North Southport Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. Tickets are $15-$25, from 800-982-2787. For more information, see this page.
Directed by Dorothy Milne, the theatre says Little Brother is “A rousing tale of techno-geek rebellion. Cory Doctorow gives us a vision of the future as seen through the eyes of Marcus, aka ‘wln5t0n’, a seventeen year old hacker who decides to fight back against a government out of control. Paying homage to Orwell’s 1984, Little Brother looks at the aftermath of a terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at a very wrong time, Marcus is arrested and spends days in an undisclosed location where he is brutalized by federal agents. After his release Marcus starts a rebellion via an X-Box, a tool he’s able to hack to create a secure underground internet. He and his friends and allies share knowledge, ideas, risks, and bandwidth—wreaking havoc on a government that’s out to destroy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Massolia and Milne previously worked together in 2005 on the Griffin’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust.