MRT Luna Theater Offers Free Screenings of Kerouac Films

Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) and The Luna Theater, in collaboration with The Estate of Jack Kerouac, will present free screenings of two Jack Kerouac films, Big Sur and One Fast Move or I'm Gone, March 5 and 7 at The Luna at Mill No. 5, 250 Jackson Street, in downtown Lowell.

Admission is free, first-come, first-served seating. For further information, visit www.mrt.org/haunted-life/special-events.

The films herald the world premiere of the stage adaptation of Jack Kerouac's "lost" novel, The Haunted Life, by Sean Daniels, directed by christopher oscar peña and Daniels, from March 20 to April 14 at the Nancy L. Donahue Theatre at Liberty Hall.

Big Sur (2013; 81 minutes) plays at 7:35 p.m. on Tuesday, March 5. Based on the Jack Kerouac novel about his road trips to visit a quixotic group of friends on the California coast, Big Sur features Josh Lucas, Anthony Edwards, Balthazar Getty, and Jean-Marc Barr as Kerouac.

The documentary One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur (2008; 98 minutes) plays at 6:05 p.m. on Thursday, March 7, and features interviews with Carolyn Cassady, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Sam Shepherd, and S.E. Hinton as well as host of musicians, including Tom Waits and Patti Smith.

For information about the play adaptation of The Haunted Life by Sean Daniels, based on the book by Jack Kerouac, visit mrt.org. The cast includes Vichet Chum, Joel Colodner, Tina Fabrique, Caroline Neff, and Raviv Ullman.

The pinnacle of MRT's 40th Anniversary Season, The Haunted Life celebrates the life of Lowell's own Jack Kerouac, a literary iconoclast and the father of the Beat Generation. In 1945 Kerouac lost his unfinished novella, an autobiographical coming-of-age story set in his hometown of Lowell. The manuscript did not resurface until 58 years later in an auction catalogue at Sotheby's Auctions. In 2014 Todd F. Tietchen, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, edited the publication of The Haunted Life, which includes the unfinished manuscript, period sketches, notes, reflections, and correspondence.