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, Václav 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!
(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title.)
Production 13:
Protest, by Václav Havel (Drama)
Starring William Smithers and Richard Hoag
[Playing Time: 45:31]
(In a country where Big Brother is always watching, why would a successful media big-shot seek out an ex-con dissident?)
Václav Havel (born 1936) is a Czech playwright, writer and politician. He was the tenth and last President
of Czechoslovakia (1989-1992) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993-2003). He has written more than twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally. His first publicly performed full-length play, The Garden Party (1963), won him international acclaim and was soon followed by The Memorandum and The Increased Difficulty of Concentration. After 1968 his plays were banned in his own country and Havel was unable to leave Czechoslovakia to see any foreign performances.
In 1977, his involvement with the human rights manifesto Charter 77 brought him international fame and led to his imprisonment. Similar political activity resulted in multiple prison stays – the longest being four years – and also subjected him to constant government surveillance and harassment. (Compare the character Vanek in our current podcast.) The 1989 “Velvet Revolution,” the bloodless end to Communism in Czechoslovakia, launched Havel into that country’s presidency, a role in which he led it and later the Czech Republic to multi-party democracy. He has received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal and the Ambassador of Conscience Award.
