From the mind of noted playwright, Laura Axelrod, comes Project 1968, a complete reinterpretation of a year that both shaped the world and shaped a generation. Weaving period radio broadcasts, LBJ's presidential documents, news dispatches and stories told through blog posts, the project seeks to make the past meaningful to a present generation.
(PRWEB) May 15, 2008 -- Project 1968 (http://www.project1968.com/) is a unique multimedia project from noted writer Laura Axelrod, based on her play "War is Kind: The 1968 Democratic Convention". Centered on the fictional stories of two women growing up during that most pivotal era, the blog docu-novel conjures a multifaceted kaleidoscope, transporting the reader back to those pivotal times through blog postings, period audio files, You Tube online videos, still photographs, interviews and a complete bibliography. Project 1968 makes the period accessible and interesting to Baby Boomers, who lived through the period, and younger women alike.
"We still have plenty to learn from the events of 1968. I was not alive back then, but it's time for people like me to determine what those events mean, especially if we don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past." Axelrod said.
Marking its 40th anniversary, no year has the resonance of 1968. From the U.S. Presidential election, the civil unrest surrounding the Democratic convention in Chicago, the Prague Spring, the unpopular Vietnam War and the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King and Democratic front-runner Bobby Kennedy, many consider the year as one of America's defining moments. Project 1968 distills the currents of the times and imagines how women experienced them. Centered around two fictional figures 18 year old college freshman Janine Stephenson, on leave from the University of Wisconsin to campaign for Eugene McCarthy, and 23-year-old peace activist Amy Hollingsworth, the project traces the events that lead them to the heart of the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention.
Axelrod researched over 10,000 pages of original government documents and period news accounts; she spent over a year at the Lyndon Baines Johnson library gathering first-hand impressions of the era. Her imagining is grounded in a deep knowledge of the time. Seamlessly incorporating LBJ's newly released tapes, BBC recordings, and Pacifica broadcasts with her narratives, the project is both ambitious and deeply satisfying.
"There hasn't been much written about the McCarthy campaign or the role of women in 1968. It's fascinating living vicariously through the roles of these characters. Readers are having quite a reaction to it as well," she said. Visit www.project1968.org or find the project on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/project1968.
About Laura Axelrod
Laura Axelrod is an accomplished author and literary reviewer. She earned both a BFA and MFA from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Her plays have been performed both in the U.S and Europe. Her play "Everybody in This House," was called "totally uncompromising" and "superbly written" by The Stage, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her reviews appear regularly in the Birmingham News and on the Newhouse News Service wire. To schedule an interview with Axelrod, call her at 917/412-7390.
###
Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/U3VtbS1TdW1tLUNvdXAtU3F1YS1DcmFzLVplcm8=
|
