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!

Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title.

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Production 17:
Gifts of the Magi, by O.Henry ~ adapted by John Quimby. (Drama)
Starring John Quimby, Bob Allen, Petrea Bouchard, Paula Kay, Dean Opperman and Mark DeAnda ~ AND ~
A Christmas Memory, by Truman Capote ~ adapted by Louise Latham. (Drama)
Starring Louise Latham and William Smithers
[Playing Time: 39:45]

(Stories of love and of childhood memory for the holiday season)

O. Henry, pseudonym of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), was an American writer of short stories, best known for his ironic plot twists and surprise endings. Born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, O. Henry did not write professionally until he reached his mid-30s. In 1894 he founded a short-lived weekly humor magazine, The Rolling Stone. In 1896 O. Henry was charged with embezzling funds from the First National Bank of Austin, Texas, where he had worked from 1891 to 1894. He served three years of a five-year sentence at the federal penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio, where he first began to write short stories and use the pseudonym O. Henry. During the last ten years of his life, O. Henry became one of the most popular writers in America, publishing over 500 short stories in dozens of widely read periodicals. “Gifts of the Magi” (our current podcast) is one of his best-known works.

Truman Capote, (1924-1984) was an American writer whose short stories, novels, plays and non-fiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and In Cold Blood (1965), which he labeled a “non-fiction novel”. At least 20 films and television dramas have been produced from Capote novels, stories and screenplays. When he was four, his parents divorced, and he was sent to Monroeville, AL, where he was raised by his mother’s relatives. He formed a fast bond with his mother’s distant relative, Nanny Rumbley Faulk, whom Truman called ‘Sook’. As a lonely child, Capote taught himself to read and write before he entered the first grade in school. At 17, Capote ended his formal education and began a two-year job at The New Yorker magazine. Between 1943 and 1946, he wrote a continual flow of short fiction. Capote remained a lifelong friend of his Monroeville neighbor Harper Lee, and he based the character of Idabel in Other Voices, Other Rooms on her. After the success of In Cold Blood, Capote’s publisher re-released his earlier works, including a 20th anniversary edition of Other Voices, Other Rooms and a holiday gift book edition of his 1956 story “A Christmas Memory” (our current podcast). In the late 1970s, Capote was in and out of rehab clinics, and news of his various breakdowns frequently reached the public. Capote died in Los Angeles, CA at the home of his old friend Joanne Carson, ex-wife of late-night TV host Johnny Carson, on whose program Capote had been a frequent guest. According to the coroner’s report the cause of death was “liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication.”

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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title

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Production 16:
A Song At Twilight (Act II), by Noel Coward (Comedy-Drama)
Starring George Backman, Sylvia Short, Gretchen Evans and Jason Campbell
[Playing Time: 49:12]

(How will Carlotta use the revealing letters? )

Noel Coward (1899-1973), English playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, director, novelist, painter, had no more than a few years’ elementary school education, but by early adulthood was recognized on both sides of the Atlantic as the personification of wit and sophistication. After he enjoyed some moderate success with The Young Idea in 1923, the controversy surrounding his play The Vortex (1924), which contains many veiled references to drug abuse and homosexuality, made him an overnight sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. There followed three more hits: Hay Fever, Fallen Angels and Easy Virtue. Much of Coward’s best work came in the late 1920s and early 1930s: the operetta Bitter Sweet; Cavalcade; Private Lives; Design for Living; and Tonight at 8:30, a cycle of ten short plays, one of which, Still Life, was expanded into the 1945 film “Brief Encounter.”
He was also a prolific writer of popular songs, including “I’ll See You Again,” “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” “The Stately Homes of England,” and “(Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage) Mrs.Worthington.”
The ascendence in England in the 1950s of harsh, realistic drama such as John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger saw a sharp decline in Coward’s popularity, but the 1960s witnessed his revival. A Song At Twilight (our current podcast) – one of Coward’s last works – may be thought to be his response to mounting criticism that throughout his career he had avoided addressing his own sexual nature. Coward was knighted in 1970, and died in Jamaica in March 1973 of heart failure..

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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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title>

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Production 15:
A Song At Twilight (Act I), by Noel Coward (Comedy-Drama)
Starring George Backman, Sylvia Short, Gretchen Evans and Jason Campbell
[Playing Time:46:05]

(A world-famous author’s former lover appears after 20 years. Why?)

Noel Coward (1899-1973), English playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, director, novelist, painter, had no more than a few years’ elementary school education, but by early adulthood was recognized on both sides of the Atlantic as the personification of wit and sophistication. After he enjoyed some moderate success with The Young Idea in 1923, the controversy surrounding his playThe Vortex (1924), which contains many veiled references to drug abuse and homosexuality, made him an overnight sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. There followed three more hits: Hay Fever, Fallen Angels and Easy Virtue. Much of Coward’s best work came in the late 1920s and early 1930s: the operetta Bitter Sweet; Cavalcade; Private Lives; Design for Living; and Tonight at 8:30, a cycle of ten short plays, one of which, Still Life, was expanded into the 1945 film “Brief Encounter.”
He was also a prolific writer of popular songs, including “I’ll See You Again,” “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” “The Stately Homes of England,” and “(Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage) Mrs.Worthington.”
The ascendence in England in the 1950s of harsh, realistic drama such as John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger saw a sharp decline in Coward’s popularity, but the 1960s witnessed his revival. A Song At Twilight (our current podcast) – one of Coward’s last works – may be thought to be his response to mounting criticism that throughout his career he had avoided addressing his own sexual nature. Coward was knighted in 1970, and died in Jamaica in March 1973 of heart failure.

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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title.

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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.

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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 (1936 – 2011) was 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.
Havel died on 18 December 2011, aged 75, at his country home in Hradecek.Former U.S. Secretary of State Madelaine Albright, a native of Czechoslovakia, said, “He was one of the great figures of the 20th Century”, while Czech expatriate novelist Milan Kundra said, “Václav Havel’s most important work is his own life.”

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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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, please click on button to left of play title.)

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Production 11:
The Table, by Ida Fink (Drama)
Starring William Smithers, George Backman, Sylvia Short, Stan Glenn and Louise Latham
[Playing Time: 50:51]

(They lived through Poland 1941- but will it matter?)

Ida Fink was born in Zbaraz, Poland (now in the Ukraine) in 1921. She spent 1941-42 in the ghetto there during the Nazi occupation, and escaped using forged identity papers. She has lived in Israel since 1957. A Scrap of Time and Other Stories (which includes “The Table”) was published in Polish in 1983. Two years later it received the first Anne Frank Prize for Literature. The English translation, by Madeline Levine and Francine Prose, appeared in 1987 and was awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize. Ms. Finks’s short stories discuss the terrible choices, or lack thereof, that Jews faced during the Nazi period as well as the hardships that survivors faced following the war. Her other works include The Journey (1990) and Traces (1996).

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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title.)

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Production 10:
The Way to Miami, by Donald Steele (Comedy-Drama)
Starring William Smithers and Gretchen Evans
[Playing Time: 29:26]

(A woman has a right to change her mind — even on moving day??)

Donald Steele is a member of the Dramatists Guild and a Fellow of the MacDowell Colony. He is a graduate of Hope College and the University of Iowa. His work has been performed in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. His full length play Graceland was initially produced at the American Stage festival. He has written many one-act plays including his one-woman piece Miracle at the Del Mar Boulevard Beauty Salon. In 1998 The Way to Miami (our current podcast) was a winner in the 23rd Annual Off-Off Broadway Festival. Other plays: Mother’s Day, Life Support, Going to the Chapel, The Boys They Left Behind. 

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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button at left of play title.)

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Production 9:
First Love, by Murray Schisgal (Comedy)
Starring Nancy Kawalek and Don Stewart
[Playing Time: 19:33]

(Can a homeless genius find true happiness?)

Murray Schisgal (1926- ) is an American playwright and screenwriter.  Native New Yorker, the son of Russian-born immigrants, Schisgal won his first recognition for the 1963
off-Broadway double-bill The Typists and The Tiger, which won him the Drama Desk Award. His 1965 Broadway debut, Luv, earned him Tony Award nominations for Best Play and Best Author of a Play. Other credits include Jimmy Shine, Georgia Avenue,  and All Over Town, which garnered him a Drama Desk nomination.  Schisgal also penned “The Love Song of Barney Kempinski,” the first presentation of ABC Stage  and with Larry Gelbart co-wrote the screenplay for Tootsie, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Golden Globe, and BAFTA, and for which he won awards from the Writers Guild of America, New York Film Critics Circle, National Society of Film Critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

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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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title.)

Production 8:
Trifles, by Susan Glaspell (Drama)
Starring Louise Latham, Edie Talt, Larry Williams, David Newton and Braden McKinley
[Playing Time: 24:59]

(An eerie crime in an isolated farmhouse. Who uncovers the “why”?)

Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) was born in Davenport, Iowa and worked as a journalist for the Des Moines Daily News. When her stories began appearing in magazines she gave up the newspaper business. In 1915 she met stage director George Cook; together they founded the Provincetown Players on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a troupe that included Eugene O’Neill and Edna St. Vincent Millay. It was largely thanks to Glaspell’s intervention that O’Neill’s first plays were performed, and she played a major role in stimulating and encouraging his writing in the following years. Much of her writing is strongly feminist, dealing with the roles that women play, or are forced to play, in society and the relationships between men and women. She wrote more than 50 short stories, nine novels, one biography and eleven plays including Alison’s House for which she recieved the Pulitzer Prize in 1931.Trifles (our current podcast), inspired by a murder she covered while working as a reporter, was produced in 1916 for the Provincetown Playhouse. A year later she rewrote it as the short story “A Jury of Her Peers.”

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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title.)

Production 7:
Larry Parks’ Day in Court, by Eric Bentley (Drama)
Starring: Dan Gunther, William Smithers, Don Stewart, Braden McKinley, Stan Glenn, Richard Hoag, Tony Miratti, Ross Borden, John Strawn, David Newton and David Brainard.
[Playing Time: 59:05]

(In this country, who is a patriot ? Who is a traitor? This is a portrayal of the actual [edited] transcript of film star Larry Parks’ appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.)

Eric Bentley, playwright, critic, editor, translator and cabaret singer, was born in England in 1916 and became an American citizen in 1948. Drama critic for The New Republic from 1952-1956, he authored such works as The Playwright As Thinker, Bernard Shaw, What Is Theatre? and The Life of the Drama. He’s also known for his translations of the plays of Bertholt Brecht (whose work he championed) and Luigi Pirandello, and for his editions of collected plays such as The Classic Theatre. His own plays include Lord Alfred’s Lover and Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? (from which our current podcast is taken.) In 1998 he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

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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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title.

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Production 6:
Home, by Laura Cahill (Drama)
Starring Bonnie Bartlett and Nancy Kawalek
[Playing Time: 23:14]

(Thomas Wolfe told us, “You Can’t Go Home Again.” A divorced daughter has to try.)

Laura Cahill has written the one-act plays Jersey Girls in the Park and Home (our current podcast) and the full length plays Mercy and Hysterical Blindness. She adapted the last for an HBO Film starring Uma Thurman and Juliette Lewis, for which she received a “Best First Screenplay Award” from Independent Spirit Awards. Her plays have been produced or workshopped at the Vineyard Theater, New Harmony Project, PS NBC, Naked Angels and Ensemble Studio Theatre. She has said, “I’m always fascinated with what [people] really mean to say and what comes out of their mouth.”

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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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title.)

Production 5:
The Siren Song of Stephen Jay Gould, by Benjamin Bettenbender (Comedy-Drama)
Starring William Smithers and Gretchen Evans
[Playing Time: 32:25]

(Deciding life is pointless after reading Gould’s “Full House,” a man jumps off a bridge. His planning leaves something to be desired.)

Benjamin Bettenbender is the author of eight full-length plays and several one-acts. He has had productions in the US and abroad, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and Wellington, New Zealand. Mr. Bettenbender was a longtime member of the Circle Rep Playwrights Lab, and is currently a member of the Cape Cod Theater Project. He is a graduate of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and lives in New Jersey with his wife, Felice, and their two daughters.

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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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title.)

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Production 4:
Lou Gherig Did Not Die of Cancer, by Jason Miller (Comedy-Drama)
Starring Danielle Aubuchon, Nancy Kawalek and Tony Miratti
[Playing Time: 47:29]

(Do nice guys finish last — in Little League??)

Jason Miller (1939-2001) was an American actor/playwright who was launched into stardom in 1973 when he received the Pulitzer Prize for his play That Championship Season. That same year he was offered the role of the troubled priest in William Friedkin’s horror film “The Exorcist”; for that performance (see accompanying photo) he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Other plays: Nobody Hears a Broken Drum (1970), Barrymore’s Ghost (2000), and our current podcast, included in Three One-Act Plays. He was the father of actor Jason Patric by first wife Linda Gleason, daughter of Jackie Gleason. At age 62, Miller died of a heart attack in his home town, Scranton, PA. Close friend actor Paul Sorvino was commissioned by the city to create a bust of Miller to honor him.

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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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title.

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Production 3:
Village Wooing, by George Bernard Shaw (Comedy-Drama)
Starring George Backman and Gretchen Evans
[Playing Time: 50:18]

(Titanic [!?] battle of the sexes. The winner..? Naturally!)

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish dramatist, novelist, socialist spokesman, art, theater, music and literary critic, was a major figure in 20th century theater. A few of his more than 50 plays: Arms and the Man, Candida, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Major Barbara, and Pygmalion (on which the musical and the film “My Fair Lady” were based, the latter netting him an Oscar). In 1925, Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize “for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty.“ Shaw accepted the honor, but donated the prize money to fund an English translation of the plays of August Strindberg, a Swede who had never been recognized by his own country’s Nobel committee.

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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title.)

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Production 2:
I Can’t Remember Anything, by Arthur Miller (Comedy-Drama)
Starring Mitchell Ryan and Salome Jens
[Playing Time: 33:53]

(The widow of a man’s best friend drops in every day. There are consequences)

Arthur Miller (1915-2005), recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, has come to be considered one of the greatest dramatists in the history of the American Theatre, and his plays, a fusion of naturalistic and expressionistic techniques, continue to be widely produced. In 1944, his first play, The Man Who Had All the Luck, opened to horrible reviews. In 1945, Miller published a novel, FOCUS, and two years later had his first play on Broadway, All My Sons. This play, his Death of a Salesman, View From the Bridge, The Crucible, After the Fall, and Incident at Vichy – among others – have become classics of dramatic literature. His screenplay “The Misfits” starred his then-wife Marilyn Monroe. He is notable too for having refused to “name names” before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. (On this subject, be sure to hear the SBTA production of Larry Parks’ Day in Court, by Eric Bentley.) At age 89, Miller died at his home in Roxbury, CT of congestive heart failure.

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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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button to left of play title.)

Production 1:
A Way With Words, by Frank Gilroy (Comedy-Drama)
Starring William Smithers, Don Stewart and Nancy Kawalek
[Playing Time: 28:22]

(Missed cues and little white lies change the lives of three people)

Frank Gilroy has won both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play for The Subject Was Roses. He adapted that play and another, The Only Game In Town, for film, and wrote screenplays for “Desperate Characters” and “The Gallant Hours.” Who’ll Save the Plowboy?, in which SBTA’s producer/director William Smithers played a leading role, received the Obie Award for Best Drama. Gilroy’s son Tony is a screen writer (the “Bourne” series starring Matt Damon) and screenwriter/director of the George Clooney film “Michael Clayton.”

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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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button at left of play title.)

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Production 25:
Chee-Chee, by Luigi Pirandello (Comedy)
Starring George Backman, Leslie Gangl-Howe and Michael Manson
[Playing Time: 38:38]

(Before Bernie Madoff, there was .. Chee-Chee!)

Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) was born on the island of Sicily. He entered the University of Rome in 1887, later transferring to Bonn University where he completed a doctoral thesis on his native Sicilian dialect. Up until World War I, he published several novels and numerous short stories. At 27, in line with current custom, he entered an arranged marriage with a woman he had never met. After the loss of their fortunes and the birth of their third child, Antonietta became deranged, but Pirandello cared for her at home until his later success enabled him to instutionalize her. The extended distress of those years led their daughter to attempt suicide. Living in this atmosphere may have provided many of his works with their themes of madness, isolation and an ambiguous relationship between reality and illusion. In 1916 he began to focus on the theater, writing nine plays in one year, including Better Think Twice About It!, Liola, and Right You Are If You Think You Are! His two masterpieces, Six Characters in Search of an Author and Henry IV, appeared in 1921. In 1924 he received the Legion of Honor in Paris, and in 1925 opened his own Art Theatre in Rome, supported by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, whose leadership and Fascist Party Pirandello supported. In 1934 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but contributed the medal to be melted down for armaments to be used in Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia. His personal life took a turn for the better when he met the actress Marta Abba, for whom he wrote most of his later plays. Pirandello continued to write until the time of his death, which, despite his explicit instructions for cremation and a spare burial, resulted in a state funeral, his church and his country ignoring both his wishes. His influence has extended to writers such as Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco.

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!

(Please Note: To use our new audio player, click on button at left of play title)

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Production 24:
Just Between Us! (Six Solo Performance Pieces)

No Fat Pigs Allowed!, by Alvin Catacutan (Performed by Alvin Catacutan)
Rash, by Eric Bogosian (Performed by Don Stewart)
Red Diaper Baby, by Josh Kornbluth (Performed by Tony Miratti)
Blood and Brains, by Roger Guenveur Smith (Performed by Ted Wynn)
Twirler, by “Jane Martin” (Performed by Sofia Lauers)
Do You Know Me? by George W. S. Trow (Performed by William Smithers)

[Playing Time: 58:36]

Alvin Catacutan is a Filipino actor, author, singer, martial artist and stuntman. He has been seen in the TV Movies of the Week “Inside the Osmonds,” “The Crooked E” and “Framed.”

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Eric Bogosian (born 1953) is an American actor, playwright, monologist, and novelist. His one-man shows are a minimalist blend of dark comedy, geopolitical commentary, and social realism. When performing on stage, Bogosian generally appears as a series of characters.

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Josh Kornbluth (born 1959) is an American comedic autobiographical monologist. Kornbluth’s live and filmed works are almost entirely solo monologues based closely on events and people in his life, his upbringing, and his career. Despite the serious messages and somewhat dry themes his works are all lighthearted and highly humorous.

Roger Guenveur Smith (born 1959) is an American writer, director, and actor. Smith received an Obie Award for his solo performance in A Huey P. Newton Story on stage. In film, Smith has collaborated with Spike Lee and has appeared in several motion pictures, including School Daze, Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, Get On the Bus, He Got Game and Summer of Sam.

“Jane Martin” first came to the attention of American theatrical audiences with a collection of monologues that premiered in 1981 at the Actors’ Theatre of Louisville. There is some question as to the identity of this mysterious writer. “Jane Martin” is widely believed to be a pseudonym. She has never made any public appearances or given an interview; no photographs have ever been published. Her Keely and Du (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize) won the 1994 American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award.

George W. S. Trow (1943-2006) was an American essayist, novelist, playwright, and media critic. He worked for The New Yorker magazine for almost 30 years, and wrote numerous essays and several books. He is best known for his long essay on television and its effect on American culture, “Within the Context of No Context”, first published in The New Yorker and later released as a book. This was one of only four times that The New Yorkerhas given an entire issue to one piece of writing.

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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!

(Please note: To use our new audio player, click on button at left of play title.)

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Production 23:
The Flattering Word, by George Kelly (Comedy-Drama)
Starring George Backman, Leslie Ann Story, Edie Talt, Frank Hotchkiss, Julie Holst and Loraine Hull Smithers
[Playing Time: 34:13]

(A famous actor visits a childhood friend, charms the neighbors and faces intolerance.)

George Kelly (1887-1974) was an American playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor, best known for his satiric comedies. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was the brother of Olympic champion sculler John B. Kelly, Sr. and the uncle of actress and later princess Grace Kelly. He began his career in vaudeville as an actor and sketch writer. Throughout his career, Kelly remained a realistic playwright: novelist Edward Maisel described him as “a simple moralist using the theatre for simple moral purposes.” Kelly’s plays are often dominated by characters of monstrous egotism, and he casts a harsh light on their shortcomings. He avoided sentimentality and depictions of romance. Arthur Willis noted “Kelly appears to be anti-love, anti-romantic love, certainly, and distrustful of the tender emotions.” His best-known plays include The Torchbearers, The Show-Off, Craig’s Wife and The Fatal Weakness.

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!

(Please note: To use our new audio player, click on button at left of play title.)

.

.

Production 22:
A Kind of Alaska, by Harold Pinter (Drama)
Starring Alison Coutts-Jordan, Danielle Aubuchon and William Smithers
[Playing Time: 37:07]

(A woman awakes to a world she does not know.)

Harold Pinter (1930-2008) was an English playwright who achieved international success as one of the most complex post-World War II dramatists. Pinter’s plays are noted for their use of silence to increase tension, understatement, and cryptic small talk. Equally recognizable are the themes: nameless menace, erotic fantasy, obsession and jealousy, family hatred and mental disturbance. After years as an actor in provincial repertory theatre under the pseudonym David Baron, Pinter began to write for the stage. The Room (1957), originally written for Bristol University’s drama department, was finished in four days. His first full-length play, The Birthday Party, was produced in 1958 in the West End and closed after disastrous reviews, but Harold Hobson wrote, “Mr. Pinter, on the evidence of this work, possesses the most original, disturbing and arresting talent in theatrical London.” In more than 30 plays – written between 1957 and 2000 and including masterworks like The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming and Betrayal – Mr. Pinter captured the anxiety and ambiguity of life in the second half of the 20th century with terse, hypnotic dialogue filled with gaping pauses and the prospect of imminent violence. In 2005, Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Along with another Nobel winner, Samuel Beckett, his friend and mentor, Mr. Pinter became one of the few modern playwrights whose names instantly evoke a sensibility. The adjective Pinteresque has become part of the cultural vocabulary as a byword for strong and unspecified menace. He was also publicly outspoken in his views on repression and censorship, at home and abroad. Pinter died of esophogeal cancer on Christmas Eve, 2008.