Director’s Note from Fred Barzyk
Fred Barzyk recalls an embarrassing moment from this first year of being a director at WGBH, in 1960.
Read MoreFred Barzyk’s Video Archive
From Fred Barzyk For the last decade, I have been gathering my shows and transferring them to digital format. These videos will be released as a highlight reel of my archive to be housed at WGBH and Marquette University. This highlight reel is directed toward researchers in the year 2100. It is my attempt to…
Read More“The Negro and The American Promise” (1963)
Featuring interviews with Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin, this program made headlines in spring 1963.
Read MoreFred Barzyk’s Snapshots: Scene 6 – The Waiting Room
I love actors. I love how they are willing to give of themselves, to be vulnerable to critics, to wrap themselves in personas not their own, and how they love what they do.
Read MoreFred Barzyk’s Snapshots: Scene 5 – Opera, Film, and a Dream
I always dreamed of doing an original TV musical. Raposo and Lehrer were willing to work on the musical for no money. What we needed was a play.
Read MoreVonnegut and Barzyk: Between Time and Tibuktu
“Between Time and Timbuktu or Prometheus-5: A Space Fantasy by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.” was an idea hatched by David Loxton who was working for NET Playhouse. This is how the 1974 TV show happened.
Read MoreFred Barzyk’s Snapshots: Scene 1
This is the first in a series of reminiscences by Fred Barzyk, longtime WGBH producer and director.
Read MoreFred Barzyk’s Snapshots: Scene 2
I was asked to produce and direct a program for college kids during the summer of 1967. The show featured a young Englishman who was lecturing at Tufts University. His name was David Silver and he looked a lot like Mick Jagger.
Read MoreFred Barzyk’s Snapshots: Scene 3
This is the second in a series of reminiscences by Fred Barzyk, longtime WGBH producer and director.
Read MoreThe Making of “The Lathe of Heaven”
Fred Barzyk: It is still amazing to me how many people of a certain age remember watching this TV movie. I mean it was 1979 when it aired!
Read MoreBarzyk’s new film, The Waiting Room, now online
Fred Barzyk’s TV drama, The Waiting Room, explores the lives of seven characters who find themselves at the end of their dramatic lives.
Read MoreFred Barzyk Aims to Kickstart Drama
From Current: Director Fred Barzyk began his career at Boston’s WGBH, experimenting with television and the emerging form of video. Now, the director is preparing to produce the final short film of his drama trilogy on death.
Read MoreA Boy from Milwaukee
From Fred Barzyk: My Mom had this vision for me. She thought it would be wonderful if I could be in show business… I announced that I would become a piano player! Only problem was we didn’t have a piano.
Read MoreThe making of “The Journey”
From Fred Barzyk: Don’t you love all those little extras you get on your DVD movies? You know, the directors cut, production credits, and especially “The Making of…..”. Well, we did one too for our little drama “The Journey.”
Read MoreFred Barzyk premieres new drama
Fred wrote, directed, and produced “The Journey” to see if it was possible to make a full length television drama at a public access station with an all volunteer cast and crew.
Read MoreWatch Fred Barzyk’s drama, The Journey
From Fred Barzyk: The little drama you are about to see was my attempt to take 20 volunteers, some in their 60’s and 70’s, and mold them into a movie crew. So, here it is. The Journey.
Read MoreLeft alone in the Museum of Modern Art
From Fred Barzyk: Peter Hoving and I travelled to New York for a shoot. We were shocked to be free and alone in a gallery with some of the worlds most noted modern masterpieces.
Read MoreJean Shepherd tells his first WGBH story
From Fred Barzyk: I first heard Jean on the radio in Boston. It was 1961. I was babysitting my young son and, while idly scanning radio stations, I heard this person, this intense personal voice, talking to me.
Read MoreA stranger in a strange land
From Fred Barzyk: Bill insisted I try to get into the scholarship program. You studied for your graduate degree at Boston University and worked three days a week at the Educational Television station. Free tuition and you got $600 to live a year in Boston!
Read MorePaik and the Video Synthesizer
From Fred Barzyk: I remember Nam June Paik telling me to stand back since TV sets sometime exploded when he did this. I backed off. The TV did not explode but gave forth a dazzling array of colors, buzzed and slowly died, never to live again.
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