Oct 25 2009
The Boor
The SBTA offers its repertory of radio productions for free download.
Not “old-time radio,” these are broadcast presentations of some of the world’s most gifted classic and contemporary playwrights: Anton Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw, Luigi Pirandello, Susan Glaspell, George Kelly, Noel Coward, Harold Pinter, Vaclav Havel, Eric Bentley, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Frank Gilroy, Jason Miller, Benjamin Bettenbender, Laura Cahill, Murray Schisgal and many others.
Each week a different radio comedy/drama will be podcast here.
Tune in! You may discover gems you never knew existed!
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Production 14:
The Boor, by Anton Chekhov (Comedy)
Starring Leslie Gangl-Howe, Michael Manson and Larry Williams
[Playing Time: 27:40]
(Should a widow pay her husband’s debt or fall in love?)
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), playwright, is also considered to be one of the greatest short-story writers in world literature. He was born the son of a grocer and grandson of a serf in
Russia. He began writing short stories during his days as a medical student at the University of Moscow. His first career was as a writer of humorous material; he began contributing to minor magazines in 1880. His reputation grew when he published his first story collection Motley Stories; in 1888, his next collection In the Twilight won the Pushkin Prize. Chekhov practiced as a doctor throughout most of his literary career: “Medicine is my lawful wife,” he once said, “and literature is my mistress.”
His early dramas Ivanov and The Wood Demon were fairly unsuccessful. After the disastrous reception of The Seagull in 1896 Chekhov renounced the theatre; but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by Constantin Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Uncle Vanya and premiered Chekhov’s last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, establishing these works as dramatic masterpieces. During his final years, he was forced to live in exile from the intellectuals of Moscow. In 1904, he died of tuberculosis in a German health resort. Since his death, Chekhov’s plays have become famous worldwide and he has come to be considered the greatest Russian storyteller and dramatist of modern times.
