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.