A Theater in the Dark presents the first staged reading of playwright Rick Kinnebrew’s captivating examination of one of the late 19th century’s most notorious characters. Directed by Corey Bradberry and presented in the style of classic radio dramas of the 1930s and 1940s, the production combines the written word, human voices, original music, and rich soundscapes ranging from the Ferris wheel to the gallows where Holmes was executed.
Rick Kinnebrew, an Evanstonian and retired employee at the Evanston Public Library, does not recall those programs first- hand … he’s too young … but became a fan growing up.
“As a child,” Kinnebrew recalls, “I listend to 33 1/3 rpm recordings of old-time radio shows.”
And so, as an adult, Kinnebrew penned a radio mystery play of his own : “White City, An Audible Exhibition on H.H Holmes, Murderer.”
It’s the story of a man who Encyclopedia Britannica.com says is “widely considered the country’s first serial killer,” with, depending on whom you choose to believe, from 20 to 200 victims.
New drama by Corey Bradberry will be available to press for advance listening beginning October 20 prior to general release on November 3.
CHICAGO - A Theater In The Dark has announced its launch date and casting for the second production of its 2022-23 season – the original drama A MURDER IN THE COURT OF XANADU, written & directed by Corey Bradberry and featuring an original musical score by Paul Sottnik. Following the theater’s popular and award-winning audio productions of A WHITE WHALE, A WAR OF THE WORLDS, A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN THE DARK and A MATTER OF RED HERRINGS (all of which are now available to stream), A MURDER IN THE COURT OF XANADU will be available to the public for streaming at www.atheaterinthedark.com beginning Thursday, November 3.
Though many theater lovers may be new to audio-only performances, this writer thinks that what Theater in the Dark lacks in physical space, they more than make up for with an authentic, fully fleshed out theatrical experience. This production is particularly well-suited for viewers who enjoy a twist on a classic genre or more experimental works — though, surely, anyone who listens in will not be disappointed.
**** Recommended **** A Matter of Red Herrings. a mystery spoof produced by A Theater in the Dark, is a terrific new option for theater lovers. You don’t have to go to a theater to enjoy it! You listen to it! Just like an audio book or a podcast, you can listen wherever you are – at home, in your car, even while you’re working out! You’ll be laughing in no time listening to all the bad puns and detective story clichés.
It’s Chicago, 1929. “The streets are wet, the gin is dry, and danger lurks around every corner.” And, yes, “it was a dark and stormy night” when we meet the hero of A Matter of Red Herrings, Detective Stainless Steel, looking for a new partner after the untimely demise of her previous partner six months earlier. She gets Detective-in-Training Watley Holm, “overweight, over 50,” and generally not the type who finds their way into the crime-fighting business. And so begins a pitch-perfect pastiche of every hardboiled detective drama you’ve ever seen, read or heard. There are gangsters, showgirls, newsies, bad accents, horse races and priceless artifacts that go missing.
It was a dark and not-so-stormy night. A night desperate for deception. Without a cloud in the sky, I turned to a different kind of cumulonimbus: a sound cloud. I hit play on Theatre in the Dark’s A Matter of Red Herrings and found myself in the streets of a rainy 1920s Chicago. This 80-minute audio play by Greg Garrison harkens back to the crime novels that set the standard for fiction’s greatest detectives. Directed by Corey Bradberry, A Matter of Red Herrings cheerfully introduces Detective Stainless Steal to a prestigious line of fictional Chicago sleuths.
Season to open with streaming of new mystery comedy, A MATTER OF RED HERRINGS, available to press for advance listening beginning July 18
CHICAGO - A Theater In The Dark announced it will open its 2022-23 season with the release of a new original audio play, the detective comedy A MATTER OF RED HERRINGS. Filled to the fedora’s brim with noir archetypes, the show chronicles the misadventures of a pair of detectives trying to hunt down a priceless artifact in 1920s Chicago. Following the theater’s popular and award-winning audio productions of A WHITE WHALE, A WAR OF THE WORLDS, and A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN THE DARK, the mystery will be available to the public for streaming at www.atheaterinthedark.com beginning Thursday, August 4. It will be available for advance streaming to the media for review beginning July 18, 2022. Please email John Olson (john@johnolsoncomm.com) to request a link to review.
Directed by Corey Bradberry and written by Greg Garrison, with original music by Paul Sottnik, the show focuses on Detective Stainless Steel as she balances training a new partner and facing down deadly criminals while managing a client she’ll never forget: her ex-wife. From racetracks to rooftops, car chases to funerals, A MATTER OF RED HERRINGS is about identity, forgiveness, and the comedy of courage told with its tongue firmly holstered in its cheek. Starring Amy Gorelow and Julian 'joolz' Stroop as the two detectives, this laugh out loud comedy utilizes the gags and thrills of any Golden Age radio play. For tickets and more information visit, https://www.atheaterinthedark.com/
The cast of A MATTER OF RED HERRINGS includes Amy Gorelow (Piccolo Theatre) as Detective Stainless Steel, Julian 'joolz' Stroop (Chicago Immersive, Strawdog Theater Company, Midsommer Flight) as Detective-in-Training Watley Holm, Christopher Meister (Goodman, Victory Gardens, Lookingglass, Gift, Jackalope) as Vinnie Valconi & Others, Laura Michele Erle as Vesper Kind & Others, playwright Greg Garrison as The Announcer, and director Corey Bradberry as Rod Wrong.
(LEFT TO RIGHT Corey Bradberry, Laura Michele Erle, Amy Gorelow, Greg Garrison, Christopher Meister, Paul Sottnik, Julian ‘joolz’ Stroop)
A MATTER OF RED HERRINGS will be followed in the 2022-23 season by A MURDER IN THE COURT OF XANADU, written & directed by Corey Bradberry, with a digital streaming release planned for fall 2022. In this original drama, the court of Kublai Khan’s Xanadu is transposed into the 21st century as one of the largest international corporations on the planet. However, the empire is threatened from within by a savvy financial executive named Ahmad. As Ahmad consolidates power and Khan drinks himself to an early grave, ghosts from the past come back to threaten the fortress they’ve both built for themselves. With unexpected twists in every scene and infused throughout with historical detail, this story serves up a murder mystery most foul and unusual while bringing into the present the largest empire of the ancient world.
A MURDER IN THE COURT OF XANADU is being created in conjunction with grants from Illinois Arts Council and the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.
The third and final audio production of A Theater in the Dark’s 2022-23 season will be the original audio play THE WHITE CITY: AN AUDIBLE EXHIBITION ON H.H. HOLMES, MURDERER by Rick Kinnebrew, directed by Corey Bradberry. Planned for a digital streaming release early 2023, WHITE CITY is a theatrical thriller surrounding the notorious Chicago serial killer H. H. Holmes, who is said to have murdered more than 20 people during the World’s Columbian Exposition.in 1893. The story focuses on the victim of the only murder for which Holmes was convicted, his business partner Ben Pitezel.
Audiences can access each production individually, for $10 per stream, or they can subscribe to the full season in two different ways – Season Passes, or by Patreon subscription. Season Passes can be purchased at https://www.theatreinthedark.com/store/2223seasonpass and will give access to all three of the ‘22-’23 season’s audio plays for $25.00. Patreon subscriptions are available at https://www.patreon.com/atheaterinthedark for $3.25 per month and will provide the additional benefit of access to A Theater in the Dark’s entire library of streamable audio plays (THREE STORIES UP, A WAR OF THE WORLDS, A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN THE DARK, and A WHITE WHALE), along with access to the ’22-’23 season’s new productions. With either the Season Pass or Patreon subscription, listeners will be contacted as new audio plays are released and will be given advance access to the plays ahead of the general public.
A Theater in the Dark emerged in fall 2019 with its innovative in-person production of its original noir thriller THREE STORIES UP, performed for audiences sitting in complete darkness, When the COVID pandemic shut down all live performances in 2020, the company was perfectly positioned to pivot to streaming productions of audio plays. Returning to the traditions of the golden age of radio, they received critical acclaim and popular success with their live audio play productions of A WAR OF THE WORLDS, A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN THE DARK, and A WHITE WHALE.
The CHICAGO SUN-TIMES said A Theater in the Dark’s 2021 A WHITE WHALE (an original adaptation of Melville’s MOBY DICK) was “packed from stem-to-stem with some of the best, most evocative writing I’ve heard from a theater this year.” The production was honored with the “Critics Choice Award” of the 2021 Atlanta Audio Fringe Festival and the “Best Audio Production” at the 2021 Thornhill Theatre Festival.
LISTING INFORMATION
A MATTER OF RED HERRINGS
Written by Greg Garrison
Original Music by Paul Sottnik
Directed by Corey Bradberry
Produced by A Theater in the Dark
Available to the public for streaming beginning August 4 at www.atheaterinthedark.com
Price - $10.00 per stream
Season Passes $25.00 Monthly Patreon subscriptions $3.25 per month.
Advance access to press for reviews beginning July 18, 2022.
A love letter to the era of film noir and radio crime drama, A MATTER OF RED HERRINGS is an 80-minute mystery comedy following a pair of detectives hunting down a priceless artifact known as the Red Herring. Fending off the criminal minds of Chicago as well as the ghosts of her past, Detective Stainless Steel balances training a new partner and facing down deadly criminals while managing a client she’ll never forget: her ex-wife. From racetracks to rooftops, car chases to funerals, A MATTER OF RED HERRINGS is about identity, forgiveness, and the comedy of courage told with its tongue firmly holstered in its cheek.
BIOS
Corey Bradberry (Director, Rod Wrong, Co-Sound Design) is a Chicago-based director and producer, Producing Artistic Director of A Theater in the Dark, and a Faculty Member at The Second City Training Center. Most recently, Corey served as Production Manager for A Red Orchid Theatre’s hits THE MOORS and LAST HERMANOS. This past summer, Corey directed SHIPWRECKED!: AN ENTERTAINMENT at Oil Lamp Theatre which won 2021 Broadway World Chicago Awards for “Best Director,” “Best Play,” and “Best Production.” Corey’s audio play A WHITE WHALE, which he wrote and directed, won top prizes at the 2021 Atlanta Audio Fringe Festival and Thornhill Theatre Festival. He also directed A Theater in the Dark’s hit original audio play A WAR OF THE WORLDS. Corey has assistant directed with major institutions including the Second City and Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre. Corey is a 2015 Kennedy Center National Directing Fellow and was awarded the 2013 Emerging Artist Award from the City of Atlanta’s Office of Cultural Affairs. Education: M.F.A. Directing; B.A. Theatre & Performance Studies. Additional Training: Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, Second City Advanced Directing program. IG: corey.bradberry www.coreybradberry.com
Laura Michele Erle (Vesper / Drake / Newsie / others) is a graduate from Hofstra University with a B.F.A. in Performance and minor in Musical Theatre. She currently studies voiceover at The V.O. Dojo and has a dedicated home studio from which she records commercial and narration projects. She is delighted to join A Theater in the Dark for this thrilling audio production, returning to the cast after playing Vesper in the AMORH workshop this past Fall. Regional theater credits include ROMEO AND JULIET (Juliet), SENSE & SENSIBILITY (Fanny Dashwood/Lucy Steele), and THE TURN OF THE SCREW (Governess). An up-and-coming playwright, Laura's first full-length show THREE SISTERS, FOUR WOMEN, co-written with Samantha Haviland, will be coming to NYC in Spring 2023.
Greg Garrison (Playwright, Narrator, Co-Sound Design) is an Atlanta-based playwright and performer who is delighted to be working with A Theater in the Dark once again! He most recently lent his voice to A WAR OF THE WORLDS but has been hard at work releasing two films in the DEAD BY MIDNIGHT series (You42) and can be found this summer telling folks of all ages about Tennessee's grandest natural marvel, Ruby Falls.
Amy Gorelow (Detective Stainless Steel) is a theatre actor, audiobook narrator, musician, and writer. Some favorite roles include Dr. Goebbels (HITLER ON THE ROOF), Katherine of Aragon (SIX DEAD QUEENS), Masha (THE SEAGULL), Margarita (LOW PAY? DON’T PAY!), Ranevskaya (THE CHERRY ORCHARD), Yente (FIDDLER ON THE ROOF), Peg (CRASHING WITH FLAMINGOS), and Bottom (A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM). She traveled to New York with the one-woman show MAKER OF WORLDS, and rocked out on guitar and bass in HEDDA GABLER, A PLAY WITH MUSIC. She has written three children’s books and co-wrote HANSEL AND GRETEL: THE PANTO! for Piccolo Theatre. A proud member of TUTA theatre, she is devising a piece called NIGHT JOURNEY www.amygorelow.com.
Christopher Meister (Vinnie Valconi/Race Announcer/Armand Valdoe/others) is a Chicago-based actor and quite happy to be working with A Theater in the Dark for the first time. Chris has worked with some of Chicago’s best theaters including the Goodman, Victory Gardens, Lookingglass, Gift, Jackalope, and the world-famous Second City. Chris’s film/TV credits include the upcoming Apple+ show SHINING GIRLS, THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE, CHICAGO FIRE, EMPIRE, THE CHI, and as ASA Lake on NBC’s CHICAGO P.D. Chris is also an award-winning filmmaker with films playing at Telluride, Sundance, Slamdance, Hamptons, Austin, and SXSW.
Paul Sottnik (Musician/Composer) is a salad of leafy dance accompanist with a side of songwriter and a light vinaigrette of jazz and musical theater. He writes songs about familiar things like cafes, gardening, mythical creatures and the oppressive tyranny of the capitalist machine. He lives in Chicago, studied piano at SUNY Fredonia and is a multi-instrumentalist.
Julian “joolz” Stroop (Detective-in-Training Watley Holm) (they/them/theirs). Joolz joins with A Theater in the Dark for the first time in A MATTER OF RED HERRINGS. You may have seen them on stage with Chicago Immersive, Strawdog Theater Company, or Midsommer Flight.
About A Theater in the Dark
Inspired by hard-boiled paperback novels and the radio mystery plays of the ‘30s and ‘40s, A Theater in the Dark invites audience members to tune out today’s visual barrage and explore three dimensional soundscapes combining the human voice, recorded sound, and live foley effects to create a theatre experience audiences will never forget. Exceptional in engaging the audience, A Theater in the Dark creates stories through sound - producing both in-person pitch-black theatre experiences and immersive audio plays. Their online audio dramas have broadcast LIVE to listeners in 40 states, 8 Canadian provinces, and 12 countries! Their stories use compelling characters, descriptive language, and stunning soundscapes to pierce through the dark.
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Jack’s fan review of A WHITE WHALE made us giggle at first, but then we blushed at the compliments!
Jack heard our show through the Thornhill Theatre Virtual Audio Festival.
I’ll listen to anything with Dick in the title. Especially if there’s a chance of people getting eaten by something other than zombies. But I wouldn’t give five stars based on that. It has to have other good bits in too and I’m not just talking about rude stuff.
Thanks to popular demand and wonderful feedback from listeners, we're proud to announce A WHITE WHALE is setting sail as a 4-part episodic podcast!
Part One is now available to stream on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode also contains a bonus Q&A with Elizabeth McCoy, who plays Ishmael!
Our Artistic Producer Mack Gordon sat down with the awesome folks at Sit Still, Look Opinionated to talk about Theatre in the Dark. Check it out below, or wherever you get your podcasts:
Originally posted of Broadwayworld.com
Critics may debate themselves silly over the sanity of adapting MOBY DICK, but they've been saying incredible things about MOBY DICK IN THE DARK nevertheless:
"HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Brilliantly adapted." (Around the Town Chicago)
"A final showdown as thrilling as a Spielberg epic." (Total Theater)
"Packed stem-to-stern with some of the best, most evocative writing I've heard from a theater this year." (Chicago Sun-Times)
"An excellent broadcast... old timey radio for the digital age." (WCGO Radio)
"Cyprian's roars and whispers [as Captain Ahab] are equally chilling." (Chicago Reader)
"A perfect way to feed your need for great storytelling." (Buzz Center Stage)
"Listeners can close their eyes and enjoy Moby Dick as the exhilarating tale that it is... just as relevant today as when it was written." (Third Coast Review)
"There is always something truly remarkable and noteworthy about Theatre in the Dark's productions." (Picks in Six)
"A lively, well-acted, well-produced piece of radio theatre... Wonderful, versatile performances." -WDCB Radio's "Dueling Critics"
The show plays through April 10. We asked a few more questions of Theatre in the Dark co-founders about what the final two weeks of the show will hold, and the upcoming streaming release of the radio play.
Now that Theatre in the Dark's latest offering is off to the races, critics and audiences are praising the "brilliant adaptation" of MOBY DICK IN THE DARK. How has it been going from your side?
Corey Bradberry: Smoothly, thank you! Our 90-minute adaptation is part mystery, part adventure, part ghost story, and part adventure on the open seas.
Does "screen-fatigue" matter with an audio-only show? It doesn't seem to bother your audiences.
Mack Gordon: It's audio-only, so we encourage people to lean into the experiential aspects of 'going' to the theatre to hear a play. Even better than an uncomfortable folding chair in a studio though, you can dim the lights, fix a mug of grog, and lean back in your favorite recliner or sink into your comfy couch.
CB: And it's live! Our shows are created moment-by-moment, not edited in post. What you hear at home is the pacing and timing the actors set for themselves line by line.
MG: There are very few LIVE digital plays happening right now because of the challenge to provide highly-quality sound without an involved editing process. Our performers seamlessly integrat from Chicago, New Orleans, and Vancouver, with an expansive musical soundscape, along with live foley, and it all sounds fantastic.
So lots of rehearsal?
CB: You got it.
MG: At its worst, virtual theatre is careless and casual. We put in a lot of time and effort to make sure we're thoughtful and deliberate about what the audience receives.
And audiences are responding! A listener from Atlanta commented "Sea salt on my face and white brine caked in Ed's beard, we felt as if we were there!" Another audience member, from Olympia, Washington, says "The ability to just chill out and listen is so nice... A one of a kind experience."
MG: One of my favorite things about our shows is that anyone can listen from anywhere in the world. Over the past year we've had audiences tune in from 40 different states, 4 Canadian provinces, and 12 different countries.
CB: For folks who can't join our scheduled broadcasts, we're launching an on-demand streaming option of the show available April 1-10.
MOBY DICK IN THE DARK plays through April 10 (8pm central Thurs-Sat, 7pm central Sunday, special West Coast performances 8pm pacific on Wed 4/7), and all tickets are Pay-What-You-Can. Tickets and info at theatreinthedark.com
As he moved forward in life, HG Wells' work in science fiction dissipated and he began to identify himself as a journalist instead of a novelist, transitioning his work to depict the conditions of the lower middle class instead of fantastic visions of spider-like beings engaging the Earth in battle. His parents had been domestic servants until an inheritance allowed them to buy their own shop, but it was run poorly, with outdated stock and a bad location. His father made the majority of his income as a professional cricket player until a leg injury forced him into early retirement. With his family's income dwindling, Wells became a draper's apprentice, working 13 hour long shifts and sleeping in a dormitory. It was during this vocation that he devoted himself to the reading of the classics.
After his studies were finished he was poor once again, and began to write short humorous pieces to help him survive while living with his aunt. Many of these early pieces were published anonymously and are lost forever, though his success with these shorter pieces encouraged him to work on his first full-length novel, The Time Machine.
His memories of the drapery led to the later novels The Wheels of Chance; The History of Mr. Polly; and Kipps -- didactic, political pieces which critiqued English Society's distribution of wealth. He always had metaphor in mind but discovered that his metaphors were too easily misinterpreted. And so he lowered the veil and spoke directly to his readers about the danger and inequity of capitalism.
Wells visited Russia three times: 1914, 1920 and 1934. He met Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. In his book Russia in the Shadows, Wells portrayed Russia as recovering from a total social collapse: "the completest that has ever happened to any modern social organisation."
On 23 July 1934, after visiting U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wells went to the Soviet Union and interviewed Joseph Stalin for three hours for the New Statesman magazine, which was extremely rare at that time. He told Stalin how he had seen 'the happy faces of healthy people' in contrast with his previous visit to Moscow in 1920. However he also criticized the lawlessness, class discrimination, state violence, and absence of free expression. Stalin enjoyed the conversation and replied accordingly. As the chairman of the London-based PEN Club, which protected the rights of authors to write without being intimidated, Wells hoped by his trip to USSR he could win Stalin over by force of argument. Before he left, he realized that no reform was to happen in the near future.
Wells was friends with Winston Churchill and Churchill used The War of the Worlds section title, “The Gathering Storm” as the center in one of his most famous speeches, describing the rise of Nazi Germany.
Wells was also a Signatories of “The Authors' Declaration,” a manifesto decrying the German occupation of Belgium, which defended and sold England's declaration of war on Germany in 1914.
Wells's extensive writings on equality and human rights, most notably The Rights of Man (1940), laid the groundwork for the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations shortly after Wells' death.
In his last book Mind at the End of Its Tether (1945), Wells considered the idea that humanity being replaced by another species might not be such a bad idea after all.
Director, co-adapter, stage manager, and co-sound designer (we all wear a lot of hats) Corey Bradberry has a virtual sit-down with 101.5FM Huntley Community Radio’s Rikki Lee Travolta on “It’s Showtime with Rikki Lee” to discuss A WAR OF THE WORLDS.
Listen to the conversation below, and check out Rikki Lee’s previous episodes
Mars is back in the news this week, with the discover of “buried lakes of liquid water” found on Mars.
“Liquid water is vital for biology, so the finding will be of interest to researchers studying the potential for life elsewhere in the Solar System.
But the lakes are also thought to be extremely salty, which could make it difficult for any microbial life to survive in them...
Whether life could survive in such conditions depends on just how salty these Martian pools are. On Earth, only very specific types of microbes, known as halophiles, can survive in the saltiest bodies of water...
For this reason, they could still retain traces of any life forms that could have evolved when Mars had a dense atmosphere, a milder climate and the presence of liquid water on the surface, similar to the early Earth.””
"O Realist of the Fantastic!" - Joseph Conrad on HG Wells.
Collectively, HG Wells, Jules Verne, and Hugo Gernsback--publisher of the first science fiction magazine and the namesake for the Hugo Awards--are known as the Fathers of Science Fiction. Wells' best known works include The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). He was a political socialist and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.
Some of the most interesting aspects of Wells' life were his prophetic social predictions. In his time, he foretold of numerous innovations: aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television, and even the World Wide Web. He always strove to make the story as credible as possible even if the reader knew the events or circumstances were impossible – this literary give-in is now referred to as “suspension of disbelief.” Even though time travel and invisibility had been written about before, they'd never received such a commitment to realism, explanation, and evidence.
Wells wrote:
"the more impossible the story I had to tell, the more ordinary must be the setting, and the circumstances.”
This method is frequently known as Wells's Law, which dictates that a science fiction story should contain only a single extraordinary assumption. “As soon as the magic trick has been done, the whole business of the fantasy writer is to keep everything else human and real. Touches of prosaic detail are imperative and a rigorous adherence to the hypothesis. Any extra fantasy outside the cardinal assumption immediately gives a touch of irresponsible silliness to the invention.”
Wells' came by his understandings of science through rigorous study. In London, he was a student under “Darwin’s Bulldog” Thomas Henry Huxley. Inured by Darwinian Theory, Wells' invented the literary trope of 'Uplift', pioneered in The Island of Dr. Moreau, wherein intelligent beings evolve certain species of less-intelligent animals through scientific interventions such as genetic engineering.
In The World Set Free (1914), Wells was the first to describe a nuclear weapon and depict its subsequent radioactive decay. Though scientists were aware of the natural decay of radium, Wells invented the idea of harnessing an acceleration of that process to produce bombs that “continue to explode” for days on end. In 1932, The World Set Free had a massive impression on Leo Szilard, the physicist and the conceiver of nuclear chain reaction.
His nonfiction bestseller, Anticipations (1901) predicted the sexual revolution, the formation of a European Union, and the way that cars and trains would disperse dense, city populations into smaller suburbs.
Wells' is also renowned in the gaming community for the idea of miniature table-top war games. Fans of Warhammer, 50k, Heroscape, and Heroclix owe a debt to Wells for setting out the rules for fighting battles with miniature toy soldiers in his books Floor Games (1911) and Little Wars (1913).
Of course, the simple act of predicting an event or technology doesn't necessarily prepare humanity for what to do in the face of that inevitable evolution. Wells' growing cynicism in his later years must have been a sort of Cassandra effect – knowing the future can be as much a burden as a blessing. In fact, as Wells approached death, he told confidants that his epitaph should read:
“I told you so. You damned fools.”
