This project is now complete! All audio files can be found on our catalog page: http://librivox.org/major-barbara-by-george-bernard-shaw/
Volunteers outside the USA: George Bernard Shaw died in 1950. The author's work is still protected by copyright in places, like Europe, where copyright is author's death plus 70 years.
George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara focuses on the family of aristocratic Lady Britomart Undershaft and her estranged husband Andrew, a millionaire armaments manufacturer. Their daughters Sarah and Barbara are both engaged to be married, and Lady Britomart decides to ask Andrew for monetary support. Barbara is a Major in the Salvation Army, and agrees to let her father visit the mission in the East End of London where she works. In exchange, she agrees to visit his munitions factory. The conflict between Barbara's philanthropic idealism and her father's hard-headed capitalism clash when he decides he wants to fund the Salvation Army. Shaw's comedy, as always, delves into political and social issues of the period, and provides a roster of finely- and humorously-drawn characters. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)
- Is there a deadline?
We ask that you submit your recorded sections within 1-2 months of placing your claim (or by the target completion date, whatever is sooner). Please note that to be fair to the readers who have completed their sections in a timely way, if you haven't submitted your recording(s) after two months, your sections will automatically be re-opened for other readers to claim, unless you post in this thread to request an extension. Extensions will be granted at the discretion of the Book Coordinator. If you cannot do your section, for whatever reason, just let me know and it'll go back to the pool. There's no shame in this; we're all volunteers and things happen. The target completion date for this project is 2012-Aug-06 . - How to claim a part, and 'how it all works' here
To find a role to record, simply look at point 5. below at the sections. All the ones without names beside them are "up for grabs." Click "Post reply" at the top left of the screen and tell us which role you'd like to read. Read points 6. to 8. below for what to do before, during and after your recording. - New to recording?
Please read our Newbie Guide to Recording! - Where do I find the text? Source text (please only read from this text!): http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3790
- Please claim roles (the numbers in the first column below)! Please note: All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. When you submit your recording, you will be placing your recording in the public domain as well.
If this is your first recording, please let me know under which name or pseudonym you'd like to appear in the LibriVox catalogue. We can also link to a personal website/blog.
Setting: London
Act I: Lady Britomart's house in Wilton Crescent
Act II: The Salvation Army shelter in West Ham
Act III: Lady Britomart's house, later at the Undershaft munitions works in Perivale St Andrews
Character descriptions:
Stephen Undershaft: Lady Britomart and Andrew's son; "He is a gravely correct young man under 25, taking himself very seriously, but still in some awe of his mother, from childish habit and bachelor shyness rather than from any weakness of character."
Lady Britomart: "a woman of fifty or thereabouts, well dressed and yet careless of her dress, well bred and quite reckless of her breeding, well mannered and yet appallingly outspoken and indifferent to the opinion of her interlocutory, amiable and yet peremptory, arbitrary, and high-tempered to the last bearable degree, and withal a very typical managing matron of the upper class, treated as a naughty child until she grew into a scolding mother, and finally settling down with plenty of practical ability and worldly experience, limited in the oddest way with domestic and class limitations, conceiving the universe exactly as if it were a large house in Wilton Crescent, though handling her corner of it very effectively on that assumption, and being quite enlightened and liberal as to the books in the library, the pictures on the walls, the music in the portfolios, and the articles in the papers."
Sarah Undershaft: "slender, bored, and mundane."
Barbara Undershaft: "robuster, jollier, much more energetic."
Charles Lomax: "a young man about town, is like many other young men about town. He is affected with a frivolous sense of humor which plunges him at the most inopportune moments into paroxysms of imperfectly suppressed laughter."
Adolphus Cusins: "a spectacled student, slight, thin haired, and sweet voiced, with a more complex form of Lomax's complaint. His sense of humor is intellectual and subtle, and is complicated by an appalling temper. The lifelong struggle of a benevolent temperament and a high conscience against impulses of inhuman ridicule and fierce impatience has set up a chronic strain which has visibly wrecked his constitution. He is a most implacable, determined, tenacious, intolerant person who by mere force of character presents himself as--and indeed actually is--considerate, gentle, explanatory, even mild and apologetic, capable possibly of murder, but not of cruelty or coarseness."
Morrison: the Undershafts' nervous butler.
Andrew Undershaft: "on the surface, a stoutish, easygoing elderly man, with kindly patient manners, and an engaging simplicity of character. But he has a watchful, deliberate, waiting, listening face, and formidable reserves of power, both bodily and mental, in his capacious chest and long head. His gentleness is partly that of a strong man who has learnt by experience that his natural grip hurts ordinary people unless he handles them very carefully, and partly the mellowness of age and success."
Rummy Mitchens: "a commonplace old bundle of poverty and hard-worn humanity. She looks sixty and probably is forty-five."
Snobby Price: "a workman out of employment, is young, agile, a talker, a poser, sharp enough to be capable of anything in reason except honesty or altruistic considerations of any kind."
Jenny Hill: "a pale, overwrought, pretty Salvation lass of 18."
Peter Shirley: "a half hardened, half worn-out elderly man, weak with hunger."
Bill Walker: "a rough customer of about 25."
Mrs. Baines: "a Salvation Army Commissioner. She is an earnest looking woman of about 40, with a caressing, urgent voice, and an appealing manner."
Bilton: the foreman at Undershaft's munitions factory.
======================================================Magic Window:
BC Admin
======================================================= - BEFORE recording: Please check the Recording Notes: http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6427#6430
Set your recording software to:
Channels: 1 (Mono)
Bit Rate: 128 kbps
Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz
Submit one file per act.
Please leave 2-3 seconds of silence between each of your character's lines, for editing purposes. - Make sure you add this to the beginning of your recording:
[Role], read by [your name].
If you are reading stage directions, please include for each file:
At the beginning: Act [#] of Major Barbara , by George Bernard Shaw . This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Librivox dot org.
At the end: End of Act [#]. At the end of the play, add End of Major Barbara , by George Bernard Shaw .
Please remember to check this thread frequently for updates! - AFTER recording:
Save files as 128 kbps MP3 majorbarbara_role_#.mp3 (all lower-case), where # is the act number.
ID3 V2 tags: Not needed for individual parts.
Transfer of files (completed recordings)
Please always post in this forum thread when you've sent a file.
Also, post the length of the recording (file duration: mm:ss) together with the link.- Upload your file with the LibriVox Uploader:
http://upload.librivox.org
(If you have trouble reading the image above, please message an admin) - You'll need to select the MC, which for this project is: ek - gloriana
- When your upload is complete, you will receive a link - please post it in this thread.
- If this doesn't work, or you have questions, please check our How To Send Your Recording wiki page.
- Upload your file with the LibriVox Uploader:
