Introduction
The honor would be entirely mine if you would attend my little party tonight.
A century ago a mysterious character named Jay Gatsby held extravagant parties at his Long Island estate. Gatsby’s parties remain memorable and iconic over time — who still wouldn’t want to be invited to one?
Consider yourself invited.
A Night at Gatsby’s is a drama-prose-audio-video adaptation that preserves the novel’s voice while breaking the fourth wall and immersing audiences in an unforgettable Gatsby party to relive his story over one night from the initial rumors and lies about Gatsby, through his reunion with Daisy and confrontation with Tom, and ending with his lonely farewell.
Playbook. The A Night at Gatsby’s playbook contains the one-act play and an accompanying novelette that adds the relevant surrounding narration for all the play’s dialogue, and serves as a classroom teaching tool, student study guide and traditional stage playscript.
Audiobook. The A Night at Gatsby’s audiobook is a dramatic reading of the novelette by a professional actor to preserve the narrative’s poetry and infuse the characters’ dialogue with life.
Video. The A Night at Gatsby’s video is ideal narrative content for the Apple/Meta/Samsung and other mixed reality headsets/glasses, with 180° 3D video, hand tracking and spatial audio directly supporting viewer agency through character and object interaction. It can also be streamed 2D interactive to a smartphone, tablet or computer and 2D non-interactive to a television.
So put on a virtual cloche hat or straw boater and join Nick, Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and Jordan in reliving Gatsby’s American Dream: “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!”
A Note To Educators
Beyond The Great Gatsby’s large general audience, it is required reading in over half of America’s 31,000 high schools (primarily in 11th grade) and 4,300 colleges and universities (primarily in freshman year). 2.5 million students aged 16-24 read the novel annually and 175 million may do so during the rest of this century. Additionally, the thousands of high schools that use the Common Core curriculum standard for reading excerpts instead of complete novels will find A Night at Gatsby’s a more coherent study for their students than a couple of Gatsby chapters.
Reactions to A Night at Gatsby’s at the 2021 National Council for Teachers of English annual convention included: “My students would love this,” “This is fantastic,” “Love the idea. Super cool,” “An impressive resource,” “A great way to teach upper-level AP Lit skills,” and perhaps most importantly “Contacting my department about purchasing.”
The NCTE and its 47 state affiliates provide direct marketing access to the 50,000 high school and college Gatsby instructors, and through them to their 2.5 million yearly students. Faculty always look for ways to engage students and A Night at Gatsby’s is ideal for in-class dramatic readings, study guides and school plays.
As both entertainment and learning aid for this media-savvy market, A Night at Gatsby’s captures Gatsby’s romantic myth of self-creation that speaks deeply to new adults. The enduring popular and education market for the adaptation should generate substantial revenues, royalties and commissions for years to come.
About The Adapter
Richard Vigilante is a retired university administrator and professor with 30 years of experience in developing and directing online degree programs at Columbia, NYU and the U.S. Jesuit universities. In some kind of right-brain/left-brain synthesis, he has managed to infuse his childhood dream of being an animator into most aspects of a professional life in statistics and IT, employing graphics, video and, yes, animation — over traditional quantitative tools — to create, manage and teach. While his field is informatics, he has a careerlong interest in the intersection of education, technology and entertainment.
