Spoon River Anthology - Adaptations

Adaptations

• In 1943, the book was published in Italy (translated by Fernanda Pivano)
• In 1956, the German composer Wolfgang Jacobi set a selection of four poems as a song cycle for baritone and accordion entitled "Die Toten von Spoon River".
• On June 2, 1957, the CBS Radio Network broadcast a radio adaptation of Spoon River Anthology, "Epitaphs", as part of its CBS Radio Workshop series. The adaptation was directed and narrated by William Conrad, with a cast including Virginia Gregg, Jeanette Nolan, Parley Baer, Richard Crenna, John Dehner and John McIntire.
• In 1963, Charles Aidman adapted Spoon River Anthology into a theater production that is still widely performed today.
• In 1971, the Italian songwriter Fabrizio De André released Non al denaro non all'amore né al cielo, a concept album inspired by Spoon River Anthology.
• In 1985, the British Composer Andrew Downes set a selection of five poems as a song cycle entitled "Songs from Spoon River."
• In 1987, the Spanish writer Jon Juaristi wrote a poem entitled Spoon River, Euskadi (included in his book Suma de varia intención) to denounce the crimes of the Basque terrorist group ETA.
• In 1993, the American composer Mark Schultz set a selection of ten poems, in pairs, as a work for two horns (who also narrate) and piano entitled "Voices from Spoon River."
• In 2000, alt-country singer Richard Buckner adapted parts of the Spoon River Anthology for his album The Hill.
• in 2005, American composer Karl W. Schindler wrote a multimedia cantata entitled Ghost Voices: Songs From a Cemetery, adapting many of the poems from Spoon River Anthology into the 32-minute work.
• in 2005, the Utah State University's Creative Learning Environment Lab created an serious game entitled Voices of Spoon River, in which the player explores an environment and solved puzzles based on the Spoon River Anthology.
• In 2006, the American photographer William Willinghton published the book Spoon River, ciao (Dreams Creek, 2006) with pictures of real landscapes described by Edgar Lee Masters (as Spoon River and the little cemetery on the hill where "all, all, are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill"). William Willinghton's images are accompanied by texts by Italian writer and translator Fernanda Pivano.
• Songwriter Michael Peter Smith's song "Spoon River" is loosely based on Spoon River Anthology.
• In 2011 "Spoon River Anthology" was adapted into a theatre production with music, called The Spoon River Project. It was performed at the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.