This is the blog location for my companion website over at https://www.carrielynn-storyteller.com/finding-fitzgerald
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Updated FindingFitzgerald Website
While most of the content remains the same, we've update the look of our home on the web. Much of the activity still occurs on Facebook, but we welcome you over at FindingFitzgerald.com as well. Please stop by and let us know what you think.
This will be a long post, but hopefully the information will be of interest, though someone else may have gotten to you before me regarding one section of your book I will discuss a few paragraphs down below.
I recently read your book Finding Fitzgerald and it’s a very interesting and fun read for me. Like you, i was quite distressed about all the liberties JD apparently took with his “nonfiction” books. The Great Brain series was one of my absolute favorites as a child and I later read Papa Married a Mormon and Mama’s Boarding House. I still need to read Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse but it’s hard to find. I would love to buy copies of it and Mama’s Boarding House, but I’m not willing to spend over $100 for either. I just did a search of online booksellers for UWATFC and the cheapest copy I found was $180. Decidedly out of my price range.
I recently read The Great Brain is Back for the first time because it came out much later than the others so I wasn’t able to read it as a child. That was exciting. I read it along with your book in fact. Thanks for reminding me of Brave Buffalo Fighter from 1973. I forgot about that one. Even though I distinctly remember my library having a copy of it as child, I never read it for some reason. Hopefully I can find a copy at a local bookstore or somewhere that doesn’t cost hundreds of dollars.
Now for the information I was going to share. Regarding the chapter in your book talking about theatrical productions of Papa Married a Mormon, which I have a deep interest in. I didn’t know about the Promised Valley Playhouse production of PMAM in 1969. I would have been too young to have known about it at the time, though I attended that Playhouse several times in my life before it was shut down. On a side note, I saw the play Promised Valley every year with my family and would love to have seen the original play version of The Best Two Years before the theater shut down.
I didn’t know about the other production you talked about featuring the memorable performance of Queenie in what I gather was the early 2000s.That sounded great. I’m curious to know the town in Utah where it was performed. I’m sure it was exciting to be on a panel with the playwright.
There were a couple productions you didn’t mention and may not have known about. The productions I saw had to have been in the early 1990s at the Pages Lane Theater in Centerville, Utah. The first one I saw was Papa Married a Mormon. I think the production I saw was a revival because I swear I read that John Fitzgerald saw an earlier production of the same adaptation at Pages Lane, that had to have taken place in the 80s before he died. I think it said he liked it.
I remembered liking the production on some level, but to be honest much of the acting was subpar at best, which was distracting. However, a year or two later Pages Lane did a production of Mama’s Boarding House that was a vast improvement on PMAM and I loved it. On another side note, Pages Lane Theater has evolved into Centerpoint Theater and I hear their productions are very impressive now. I need to get season tickets. They just did a production of the musical Once that I was dying to see but didn’t make it to sadly. I saw the movie version at Sundance and loved it.
Anyway, I thought you would be interested in hearing about a few theatrical adaptations you may not have known about. I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for your research and hard work writing the book. I enjoyed it very much. I will check back later to see if you responded.
Great Website! I always loved these books, and it's nice to see a little resource on the background.
ReplyDeleteLinks to a Chinese site now.
ReplyDeleteHi Carrie,
ReplyDeleteThis will be a long post, but hopefully the information will be of interest, though someone else may have gotten to you before me regarding one section of your book I will discuss a few paragraphs down below.
I recently read your book Finding Fitzgerald and it’s a very interesting and fun read for me. Like you, i was quite distressed about all the liberties JD apparently took with his “nonfiction” books. The Great Brain series was one of my absolute favorites as a child and I later read Papa Married a Mormon and Mama’s Boarding House. I still need to read Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse but it’s hard to find. I would love to buy copies of it and Mama’s Boarding House, but I’m not willing to spend over $100 for either. I just did a search of online booksellers for UWATFC and the cheapest copy I found was $180. Decidedly out of my price range.
I recently read The Great Brain is Back for the first time because it came out much later than the others so I wasn’t able to read it as a child. That was exciting. I read it along with your book in fact. Thanks for reminding me of Brave Buffalo Fighter from 1973. I forgot about that one. Even though I distinctly remember my library having a copy of it as child, I never read it for some reason. Hopefully I can find a copy at a local bookstore or somewhere that doesn’t cost hundreds of dollars.
Now for the information I was going to share. Regarding the chapter in your book talking about theatrical productions of Papa Married a Mormon, which I have a deep interest in. I didn’t know about the Promised Valley Playhouse production of PMAM in 1969. I would have been too young to have known about it at the time, though I attended that Playhouse several times in my life before it was shut down. On a side note, I saw the play Promised Valley every year with my family and would love to have seen the original play version of The Best Two Years before the theater shut down.
I didn’t know about the other production you talked about featuring the memorable performance of Queenie in what I gather was the early 2000s.That sounded great. I’m curious to know the town in Utah where it was performed. I’m sure it was exciting to be on a panel with the playwright.
There were a couple productions you didn’t mention and may not have known about. The productions I saw had to have been in the early 1990s at the Pages Lane Theater in Centerville, Utah. The first one I saw was Papa Married a Mormon. I think the production I saw was a revival because I swear I read that John Fitzgerald saw an earlier production of the same adaptation at Pages Lane, that had to have taken place in the 80s before he died. I think it said he liked it.
I remembered liking the production on some level, but to be honest much of the acting was subpar at best, which was distracting. However, a year or two later Pages Lane did a production of Mama’s Boarding House that was a vast improvement on PMAM and I loved it. On another side note, Pages Lane Theater has evolved into Centerpoint Theater and I hear their productions are very impressive now. I need to get season tickets. They just did a production of the musical Once that I was dying to see but didn’t make it to sadly. I saw the movie version at Sundance and loved it.
Anyway, I thought you would be interested in hearing about a few theatrical adaptations you may not have known about. I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for your research and hard work writing the book. I enjoyed it very much. I will check back later to see if you responded.
Take care, Noel