ANTIC Special Episode Bits and Bytes
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This is ANTIC, the Atari 8-bit podcast. I\\u2019m Kevin Savetz.
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I love old computers. If you\\u2019ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you knew that already. I also love musical theater. So when I found out about Bits & Bytes, a 1983 musical about computers \\u2014 well, that\\u2019s right in my wheelhouse.\\xa0
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Bits & Bytes was an educational touring production, created by South Coast Repertory Theater, a professional theatre company located in Costa Mesa, California. It was a 45-minute musical show, aimed at school kids, that was performed at elementary schools across Southern California from January through June of 1983. More than 60,000 children saw the show.
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The story is about Happy, a naive girl who goes into a computer store for the first time, wondering if a computer can \\u201csolve all her problems and make her truly happy.\\u201d Morton B. Norton, a pushy, overzealous computer salesman, tries to sell her a computer, with the help of wacky sidekicks, Bits and Bytes. Through speech and song, the team teaches Happy about computers \\u2014 what they can and can\\u2019t do. A computer could help her be more organized, get her homework done, and play games. But Happy learns that a computer cannot really think, and is not a substitute for real, human friends.\\xa0
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The goal of the play was to \\u201cshow the realistic capabilities of computers as distinguished from commercial hypes and science fiction fantasy.\\u201d Another goal was to emphasize the \\u201ctalents unique to human beings \\u2014 what makes us different from computers.\\u201d\\xa0
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South Coast Repertory Theater\\u2019s educational touring productions took short original plays into area primary schools. The topic of computers was chosen for the 1983 production because surveyed teachers, parents, and principals overwhelmingly chose \\u201ccomputer literacy\\u201d as a topic they wanted to see covered. (Previous educational touring shows included Tomato Surprise, about nutrition; The Fitness Game, about physical fitness; and The Energy Show, about conserving energy.)
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The play was written by Michael Bigelow Dixon and Jerry Patch, with music by Diane King. It was directed by John-David Keller, with set design by Dwight Richard Odle. The assistant director/choreographer was Diane dePriest.
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An ensemble of five played all the roles, with one doubling as stage manager.\\xa0 The cast was Robert Crow, Sam Hamann, James Le Gros, Laura Leyva, and Deborah Nisimura.\\xa0
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Bits & Bytes won the 1983 Pioneer Drama Service award for best new play. It ran for 246 performances, breaking the booking record for South Coast Repertory.
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The January 29, 1983 issue of the Los Angeles Times said:
\\u201c...in some respects the current show is the most impressive so far. Now that computer technology has entered the home and workplace\\u2014as well as the shopping mall\\u2014it\\u2019s noteworthy that a play can tell us how much more computers can do than launch missiles and
gobble up space villains. \\u2026 Diane King composed such a fine score\\u2014which includes evocations of different eras in pop music\\u2014that it almost has commercial possibilities of its own.
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\\u201cLaura Leyva plays Happy, the girl who, for a very long time, is led to believe\\u2014along with the rest of us\\u2014that the computer will solve all our problems. That\\u2019s a dangerous and depressingly facile notion whose emphasis, early on, far outweighs the authors\\u2019 concluding moral that \\u2018computers can only deal with facts, not feelings.\\u2019
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\\u201cBut Bits & Bytes humorously shows its audience of kids how advanced and widespread the computer revolution has become and that they stand well ahead of their parents at its ramparts.\\u201d
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Texas Instruments donated a computer to the production: a TI 99/4A with monitor, peripheral expansion box, speech synthesizer, disk drives, and software. The computer was used as part of the set.
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I interviewed three people who helped create Bits & Bytes: first, Michael Bigelow Dixon, who is co-author of the play. Next we\\u2019ll hear from Diane King, the composer. Finally we\\u2019ll hear from Laura Leyva, the actress who played the roll of Happy.
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The interview with Michael Bigelow Dixon took place on March 9, 2018, with Diane King on March 6, and with Laura Leyva on March 16.
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Look at the show notes, where you\\u2019ll find several photographs of the Bits & Bytes cast, reviews of the play, and articles about it. If you\\u2019d like to read the play or the score, that\\u2019s trickier. They are not online due to copyright. I borrowed copies via interlibrary loan.
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If you saw this play, I would love to hear your memories of it. You can always email me at antic@ataripodcast.com.
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Special thanks to Tania Thompson at South Coast Repertory for providing background information about this production, to Laura Leyva for providing photographs, to Michael Bigelow Dixon for providing articles from his archive, and to Diane King for digitizing her recordings from tape and allowing me to use them for this episode.
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