The 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!

The stage musical tends to be a cozy, familiar, comforting form. Not in the hands of STEPHEN SONDHEIM (1930- ). Into the Woods put every classic Grimm faerie tale into a food processor and spit them all out bloodied and abused. Sweeney Todd brought the English language’s most fiendish serial killer to colorful, dancing, singing life. And Assassins is a musical circus review of would-be presidential hitmen. Take that, Ziegfeld and Webber!

The 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!

Stage magic has traditionally relied upon the audience submitting to the magician’s illusive version of reality. PENN & TELLER somehow succeed in breaking the illusion at the same time that they cultivate a deeper one, explaining the physics and statistics of the tricks even as they seem to overcome those earthly limitations. How does Teller make the rose bleed? How does Penn shoot a nail gun at his head and not die? And how has Teller refrained from speaking onstage for more than 25 years now?

The 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!

With The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes, RAY BRADBURY (1920-) confirmed forever the ineffable link between the fantasy crowd and the tattoo crowd. With Fahrenheit 451, he unsettled us all with the repugnant vision of firemen whose job is to set things on fire — the fact that said things were books just made it all the more horrific. His storytelling genius was cultivated in Weird Tales; it’s gone on to profoundly affect humankind for generations thereafter.

WIN FREE TICKETS TO WEIRD THEATRE THIS WEEKEND! Weird Tales is proud to be a media sponsor of the new play “Without Whom,” inspired by the life of Ray Bradbury and his late wife Marguerite. Written by Toronto playwright R.J. Downes and onstage now at the Toronto Fringe Festival, “Without Whom” draws upon elements of the Bradburys’ lives to ask the question: “What if we could make death wait — even if only for a little while?” The play runs through Sat., July 12 ( and again next month at the Hamilton Fringe Festival) — and we’ve got two pairs of tickets to give away for the show this Saturday at 5:15 pm! If you’re in the Toronto area and want to see the show, just email events at weirdtales dot net with the subject line “Weird Theatre Tickets” and give us your name and address. On Wednesday we’ll randomly select two winners from all the entrants and notify you by email!

How do you write about a legend? Especially a legend who is still alive? R.J. Downes, a Toronto-based playwright, decided to take on Ray Bradbury, one of the most celebrated fantastic-fiction writers of all time, and his bonne vivante wife, Marguerite. The resulting drama, “Without Whom,” currently running at the Toronto Fringe Festival, is a fictionalized version of their relationship, with names fudged and facts tinkered with. In real life, Marguerite financially supported Ray’s early writing career, and the two remained married for 56 years, until she passed away in 2003. Downes, a prolific dramatist, helped produce the script for the Fringe, and plays a supporting role onstage as well. Weird Tales correspondent Robert Isenberg had the chance to hear the playwright’s thoughts the weekend of the show’s premiere. read more »

The 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!

In Our Town, THORNTON WILDER (1897–1975) lulled audiences into a false sense of apple-pie warm-and-fuzzies before veering off into a third act of death, ghosts, time travel and lamentations. In The Bridge of San Luis Rey, he drew the ley lines of interconnectedness through, between, and beyond the victims of a single moment of violent tragedy. And in The Skin of Our Teeth, he stretched one family across the space-time continuum from the Ice Age to 1940s Atlantic City to an apocalyptic war. The first two works shaped whole genres; the third is merely the greatest play of the century.