We've long been proud to host Charles Ruas's production of the radio play for the Audio Experimental Theatre, which was first broadcast on New York City's WBAI FM on July 17th, 1977. In addition to the two Adam sisters, the radio play's cast also included Marilyn Hacker, Robert Hershon, and Barbara Wise in major roles. Those recordings have long been augmented by Kristin Prevallet's "Notes on San Francisco's Burning" taken from her excellent A Helen Adam Reader (2007), which features some charming anecdotes about the drama's production, including this recollection from musical director Rob Wynne regarding the "structured chaos" of the recording process: "It took a few months to pull it all together, often ending up after a session at Helen & Pat's apartment, surrounded by her collection of agates and stones, in which she saw images and stories. She always served celery filled with peanut butter, a bizarre but oddly delicious combination."
That latter staging is now paired with another: a 1962 recording adapted from a 1961 production directed by Kermit Sheets for the San Francisco Playhouse, which features the drama's original electronic soundtrack, composed by Warner Jepson. Jepson, a wizard on the difficult-to-master Buchla synthesizer and a prominent figure in San Francisco's avant garde music scene, was kind enough to share these original recordings with us prior to his death in 2011. While we've only posted the production itself on Adam's page, there's also a link to additional photographs, press clippings, and other ephemera from the production on Jepson's PennSound author page. Finally, we've also added a link to Norman MacAffee's "Sixteen Drawings for Helen Adam's San Francisco's Burning" at Jacket2, which we mentioned in last week's tribute to the late artist.
Taken together, these provide listeners the potential to truly immerse themselves in the Adam sisters' iconic and iconoclastic oddball drama. You can find all of the aforementioned resources, as well as more work from the poet on PennSound's Helen Adam author page.
