Paul Sheldon

[laughs]

I think one of my clients, Paul Sheldon, might be in some kind of trouble.

Everybody sure likes those Misery books.

Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Oh, yeah, don't do that.

I noticed in your case there's a new Paul Sheldon book, and-

[laughs] I noticed it when I opened it.

That's a great contrast

Paul Sheldon, a highly successful romance novelist, crashes his car in a blinding snowstorm in rural Colorado

And he wakes up in a nightmare

He wakes up with shattered legs in the guest room of a former nurse named Annie Wilkes

It really is a trap for a filmmaker.

You have Paul Sheldon, a famous romance novelist who crashes his car in a blizzard and is rescued by Annie Wilkes.

His self-proclaimed number one fan.

The scariest number one fan ever.

She holds him hostage and forces him to write a new book bringing her favorite character back to life.

Just a chilling premise.

But the book is heavily reliant on Paul's introspective psychological trauma.

He is trapped in bed, hopped up on pain medication, so all the action is his internal panic.

The premise of Misery is iconic.

Paul Sheldon is a famous author best known for a series of Victorian romance novels featuring a character named Misery Chastain.

Right.

He's in a horrific car crash in the middle of a blizzard in remote Colorado.

And right now it's the only one to win an Oscar thanks to the incredible performance by Kathy Bates.

So for a quick rundown of this one, we have romance author Paul Sheldon, played by James Caan, and Annie Wilkes, played by Kathy Bates, a seemingly kind nurse who finds Paul after a car accident in which he has broken his legs and dislocated his shoulders.

She brings him to her home under the guise that she is a good Samaritan.

She's going to nurse him back to health.

For show information and tickets, go to the Penguins On Stage website or shehalemculturalcenter.org. For the Greater Salem Area Theaters, at Kaiser Homegrown Theater, Misery by William Goldman and based on the Stephen King novel plays October 9th through 25th.

Successful romance novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued from a car crash by his number one fan, Annie Wilkes.

He wakes up captive in Annie's secluded home where she forces him to rewrite his new novel featuring her favorite character, Misery Chastain.

Director Jeff Minden and actors Robert Barrett and Pamela Bilderbeck join us later in today's program to tell us all about this gripping story.

Please help us keep the lights on and the transmitter humming by making a one-time donation or becoming a monthly sustaining donor, whatever fits your budget, at kmuz.org. And thanks a million for supporting KMUZ-FM and KMUZ Theatre Talk.

Stephen King has written a lot of really, I guess I would say for me, creepy stories.

And his story of a successful romance novelist, Paul Sheldon, was turned into a real thriller of a play called Misery.

It's playing at Kaiser Homegrown Theater, October 9th through 25th.

Depending on the edition, this is roughly a 13-and-a-half hour recording, and it presents a phenomenal challenge for any voice actor because the narrative is, for all intents and purposes, just two people trapped in a farmhouse in the dead of winter.

You have Paul Sheldon, the famous romance author who has been in this catastrophic car crash, and Annie Wilkes, his, quote, unquote, "number one fan."

Right.

She pulls him from the wreckage, brings him to her remote home, and then just absolutely refuses to let him leave until he writes a new novel explicitly for her.