Proteus

Here the poet Paul Muldoon performs the opening words of Proteus as Stephen Dedalus walks along the beach

The Circe Episode Webcast Live!

You can watch Caraid O'Brien, Aaron Beall and Tara Bahna-James perform the Circe episode webcast live for Global Bloomsday.  This 36 hour festival began in Australia and ended in Boston over Bloomsday 2013.   Radio Bloomsday represented New York City, one of 25 cities over 4 continents taking part in the event.   In this scene Bloom meets the gender shifting Madame Bella Cohen in a brothel in Dublin's redlight district.  Martin O'Connell plays the button accordion, Marie-Louise Bowe is on fiddle, and Christine de Michele sings Loves Old Sweet Song at the end of the broadcast.

Special thanks to Saemus Rodriguez and Dan Coughlin at MNN, Manhattan's Public Access Television Station, where this episode was broadcast.  Also thanks to Nathan Miller for his help with the webcast.  The Radio Bloomsday 2013:  In Search of a Father rebroadcast will be on WBAI 99.5 FM and wbai.org on Saturday, July 6th from 7pm to 2am.

The Cabbie and Molly Bloom

In the wee hours of the morning on June 17th, 2013, a cabbie drives around Manhattan listening to Molly Bloom's conversation with herself performed live on the radio and broadcast on WBAI 94.5FM in NYC and on the Pacifica Radio Network nationwide.  It's from the last few pages of James Joyce's novel Ulysses, so a reminder, not safe for work or small children.  Molly Bloom is performed by Caraid O'Brien and Bernadette Quigley.

The music at the end of the clip is by Tarab.ie

WBAI will be rebroadcasting the entire Radio Bloomsday 2013:  In Search of a Father on Saturday, July 6th, 2013 beginning at 7pm on WBAI.ORG and 99.5FM including the entire 2 and a half hour Molly Bloom episode.

Radio Bloomsday 2013: Set List!

Happy Bloomsday!  We have about 24 hours programming to offer you today. Here are some highlights:

At 11am EST, Bernadette Quigley and Caraid O'Brien are interviewed by Janet Coleman on wbai.org about their duo performance of Molly Bloom with special musical guests, Marie-Louise Bowe, Martin O'Connell and Christine de Michele

At 1.30pm Caraid O'Brien, Aaron Beall, Tara Bahna James, Marie Louise Bowe, Martin O'Connell and Christine de Michele do a live webcast of the Circe episode at MNN Networks broadcast on globalbloomsday.com

From 7pm to 2am EST is our live nationwide radio broadcast, that you can listen to at wbai.org and 99.5FM.  In California, the broadcast can be heard on KPFK in Los Angeles and KPFA in Berkeley beginning at 7pm local time.  Below is our set list for the evening, subject to last minute changes of course.  Enjoy.

Radio Bloomsday Set List

7pm     In Search of Father                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Telemachus with Roger Norris on voice and Graeme Norris on saxophone                                                                                    

Garrison Keillor - Wandering Rocks                                                  

Mannix Beall O’Brien and Felix Norris-Lindsay -  Cyclops                                      

Kate Valk - W.B Yeats The Stolen Child                                                              

Johnny O’Callaghan in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man                                                           

Heather Woodbury – Wandering Rocks                                                                                                                                                    

Brian O’Doherty – Wandering Rocks                                                                                                 

Nick McDonnell – Wandering Rocks                                               

Paul Muldoon – Proteus                                                               

John Lithgow – Alone by James Joyce                                                              

Calypso – Jerry Stiller and Amy Stiller                                                           

Nausicaa – Mara McEwin                                                                       

8pm     Mother Father God                                                                                                                  

Janet Coleman and David Dozer – Father in all His meanings                                               

Michael Elias – Bloom’s Father Dying                                       

Jerry Stiller – Aeolus                                   

Tom Hagen – Telemachus                                                                                                                           

Ithaca – Paul Dooley/Bob Odenkirk                                                           

Susannah Norris – Lindsay – Cyclops and Circe

Ralph Martin  Whistle           

Johnny Coughlan Banjo           

Brad Maestas  Mandolin            

Steven Antonelli guitar

John Ligthgow Oxen of the Sun                                                           

Alec Baldwin – A Portrait of the Artist                                                           

Fiana Toibin  - Scylla and Charybdis                                                                                                             

Hamlet – T Ryder Smith                                                                       

Frank Delaney – Leopold Bloom in Church                                                                                               

John Spinks –  Wandering Rocks                                                                                                             

Bob Fass – Cyclops

Barbara Ann Michaels - Cyclops                                                  

                                                                                                                          

9pm      Fathers, Babies, Birth                                                                                                                                  

Heather Woodbury – Wandering Rocks                                                                                                                                    

Wallace Shawn, Anne Enright – Calypso                                                                                                                                     

Nicholas Elliot Oxen of the Sun –                                                                                                                           

Kate Valk – Oxen of the Sun                                               

Bob Odenkirk – Leopold Bloom monologue                                                                                                                                                          

John Lithgow - Oxen of the Sun                                                                                                                                               

Zeroboy – Sirens                                                                                                                                       

Sirens – Tara Bahna-James, Aaron Beall, Melanie  Martinez                                                                                                             

Eileen Ruby sings John Cage                                                               

James Joyce – Finnegans Wake                                                                                      

10pm      Unfaithful Fathers

                                                                                                               

Tim Jerome – Judge Woolsey decision on Ulysses                                                                                                                           

Marie Louise Bowe and Martin O’Connell  - musical interlude                                                                                                           

Jim Fletcher Solo                                                                                                            

Johnny O’Callaghan and Roma Downey – Lotus Eaters                                                                          

Tim Jerome – Wandering Rocks                                                                                                                           

Marie Louise and Martin and Christine de Michele - Loves Old Sweet Song                                                                                                             

Circe – T. Ryder Smith, Aaron Beall, Charles Busch                                                                          

Frank Delaney – Eumaeus                                                              

Paul Dooley, Bob Odenkirk, Ithaca                                      

Alec Baldwin – James Joyce’s letters to Nora                                                                       

Lord Byron poems – Johnny O’Callaghan, Jaason Simmons                                                                          

                                                                                                                                                  

11pm      The Molly Duologue

Molly (Bernadette Quigley and Caraid O’Brien)                                                                                                             

Tarab – Tarab.ie 
Saw Doctors
John McCormack                                                                                                                                  

2PM END SHOW

Global Bloomsday Festival and Radio Bloomsday!

This year the James Joyce Centre in Dublin is presenting a 36 hour Global Bloomsday festival featuring webcasts from Bloomsdays all over the world.  Beginning in Australia, the webcast features 25 cities across four continents.  Radio Bloomsday is representing New York City and you can watch our webcast online at www.globalbloomsday.com.

We will be reading an excerpt from the Circe episode of Ulysses where Leopold Bloom stumbles into a brothel and has a sadomasochistic encounter with the gender shifting Madame Bella Cohen.  T. Ryder Smith, Aaron Beall, and fiddle player extraordinaire Marie-Louise Bowe will be performing the excerpt webcast live from 1.30 to 2.15pm.

Earlier on Bloomsday morning, WBAI arts director Janet Coleman will interview our two mollies Caraid O'Brien and Bernadette Quigley about their process preparing Molly Bloom's three hour monologue as a dialogue at 11am on wbai.org and 99.5FM in New York City.

Heather Woodbury as ALL of Stephen Dedalus's sisters

One of the great rewards of putting together a 7 hour marathon Radio Bloomsday is connecting with performers I don't personally know but whose work has deeply inspired me.  10 years ago while visiting relatives in Ireland, I popped in to see Heather Woodbury's performance novel Whatever at the Galway Arts Festival.  Irish audiences are notoriously tough customers and in fact, I had never been in an Irish theater before that gave a standing ovation.

Heather's performance was so magnificent, however and the dozens of characters she played so unforgettable that she had no sooner finished when the entire crowd was on its feet.  The drama critic Fintan O'Toole called Heather's writing, the closest thing we have to an American Ulysses.  In any case, my mind was blown and my heart inspired by this one of a kind writer-performer.    

Joining us for her first time at Radio Bloomsday,  we recorded Heather today portraying all of Stephen Dedalus's poverty stricken sisters at the KPFK studios in Los Angeles.  She also plays Blazes Boylan's romance novel obsessed secretary Miss Dunne.  I can't wait for you to hear her uniquely West Coast interpretation of these classic characters this Sunday night, June 16th on wbai.org 99.5 FM in New York City and KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles.   Meanwhile you can subscribe to watch Heather's plays online now.

Molly Bloom in Stereo!

           Each year, Radio Bloomsday ends its 7 hour nationwide broadcast of James Joyce’s Ulysses with the book’s final chapter – a two hour passion filled monologue, by the novel’s heroine, Molly Bloom.  For the first time ever, the complete Molly Bloom monologue from James Joyce’s Ulysses will be performed live by not one but two actresses, Caraid O’Brien and Bernadette Quigley (above), as a conversation that Molly has with her younger self.   

The Molly Bloom monologue is the most sexually explicit chapter in Ulysses and the reason why the book was so frequently censored.  Molly, a soprano, has spent the day in bed with her lover Blazes Boylan while her husband, Leopold Bloom wanders around Dublin.    Radio Bloomsday begins their broadcast of Molly Bloom’s night time thoughts at 11pm.  Throughout the two hour episode, a flood of memories is unleashed as the two Mollys spend the night together, thinking about their life and trying to unravel its mysteries.  Despite all the men that have crossed Molly’s path, she is her own most faithful companion.  

  Caraid O’Brien (left) has directed and performed Molly Bloom for Radio Bloomsday each year beginning in 2008.  Bernadette Quigley has performed the Molly monologue live at Symphony Space.  Her other credits include  The Suspect (upcoming), Dream House starring Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz & Naomi Watts, Holger Ernst’s The House Is Burning, Jim Sheridan’s Oscar-nominated In America, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Third Watch, and Kings, starring Ian McShane.  Quigley has worked extensively in the theatre including the National Tour of Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa, having understudied the Tony Award-winning play on Broadway.  Off-Broadway credits include Staci Swedeen’s The Goldman Project (Abingdon Theatre); Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan (Actors Studio); God of Vengeance (Jewish Repertory); and many leading roles at the Irish Arts Center in such plays as Billy Roche’s Poor Beast in the Rain & Kenneth Branagh’s Public Enemy.

            Other performers in this year’s broadcast include Alec Baldwin, Wallace Shawn, Anne Enright, Marc Maron, Bob Odenkirk, Jerry Stiller, John Lithgow, Heather Woodbury and Paul Dooley.   

             Radio Bloomsday is a seven hour nationwide live broadcast on the Pacifica Radio Network “where artists interpret James Joyce’s Ulysses.”  WBAI and the Pacifica Radio Network have been presenting marathon performances of James Joyce’s Ulysses for over 30 years.  Since 2008, Radio Bloomsday has been directed by Caraid O’Brien in collaboration with Janet Coleman, WBAI’s Arts Director.  KPFK in Los Angeles will also carry the broadcast including the complete Molly Bloom monologue.  

All Star Cast for Radio Bloomsday 2013: In Search of a Father

             Radio Bloomsday 2013:  In Search of a Father broadcasts live on Father’s Day, Sunday, June 16^th from 7pm to 2am on WBAI 99.5FM and on wbai.org.   This year’s broadcast includes a kaleidoscope of global artistic talent united by a passion for getting under the hood of the most influential novel of the twentieth century – James Joyce’s Ulysses.  Artists include Alec Baldwin, Aaron Beall, Mannix Beall-O'Brien, Charles Busch, Bob Dishy, Janet Coleman, Frank Delaney, Paul Dooley, Roma Downey, David Dozer, Michael Elias, Nicholas Elliot, Anne Enright, Bob Fass, Jim Fletcher, Judy Graubart,  Tim Jerome, Felix Norris-Lindsay, Susannah Norris-Lindsay, John McDonough, Paul Muldoon, Johnny O’Callaghan, Bob Odenkirk, Brian O’Doherty, Roger Norris, T. Ryder Smith, John Spinks, Amy Stiller, Jerry Stiller, Fiana Toibin, Kate Valk, Heather Woodbury and Zeroboy.

At 11pm, Caraid O’Brien will revisit her acclaimed Molly Bloom monologue as a dialogue that Molly Bloom has with herself performing together with Bernadette Quigley (In America, Law & Order).  Musicians appearing live on the broadcast include All Ireland button accordion champion, Martin O’Connell, fiddle player Marie-Louise Bowe, singers Eileen Ruby and Christine de Michele, Steven Antonelli, Ralph Martin, Johnny Coughlan, Brad Maestas and Keith Connolly. 

Radio Bloomsday is a seven hour nationwide live broadcast on the Pacifica Radio Network “where artists interpret James Joyce’s Ulysses.”  Coinciding with Father’s Day, this year’s program highlights the many different, sometimes tender and often difficult relationships between Fathers and their children seen throughout Ulysses. WBAI and the Pacifica Radio Network have been broadcasting marathon performances of James Joyce’s Ulysses for over 30 years.  Since 2008, Radio Bloomsday has been directed by Caraid O’Brien in collaboration with Janet Coleman, WBAI’s Arts Director.  KPFK in Los Angeles will also carry the broadcast.  

Radio Bloomsday 2013: In Search of a Father

Welcome to Radio Bloomsday 2013:  In Search of A Father!  This year's broadcast occurs on Sunday, June 16th from 7pm to 2am on WBAI 99.5FM in New York City and on wbai.org anywhere in the world and coincides with Father's Day in the United States.  In celebration of Father's Day, we are focusing our program on the many ruminations on fatherhood that Joyce's characters express throughout his epic novel.   The photo above is of James Joyce and his grandson, Stephen.

Some of the scenes in Ulysses that we will be highlighting this year include Bloom's tender relationship with his daughter Molly, his painful memories of his own father's suicide and his son's death at 11 days old.  Bloom also stands in as a surrogate for Stephen Dedalus, the young poet and school teacher whose own father is a violent, angry drunk.  Simon and Stephen's contentious relationship was modeled on Joyce's own relationship with his alcoholic father, who like Simon was not able to support his growing family.

We have an extraordinary all star cast for you this year that we will be announcing shortly.  Also stay tuned for news on an exciting new take on Molly Bloom's monologue!