Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays

A woman (Carol Kane) is drawn into a neighborhood church by the sound of music beautifully sung. A marriage is taking place within. Do beautiful music and ceremony make a marriage?

Reverie, a world premiere written and directed by Oscar, Tony, and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley (Doubt, Brooklyn Laundry, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea), showcases the talents of Carol Kane (The Princess Bride, "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt") and Scarlett Strallen (Cole Porter's The New Yorkers, She Loves Me).

Stay tuned after the performance for a conversation between the playwright, actors, and Playing on Air's founder, Claudia Catania.

Please be sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn or visit us at www.playingonair.org, where you'll find our complete collection of audio plays.

1976

Kansas or Oz, that is the question.

Here's a new spin on a great tale spun.

To go, or say no? And in which direction?

Kansas? or Oz? Tell me. Anyone?

Kansas Anymore, a world premiere from esteemed playwright David Ives (Here We Are, Venus in Fur), features screen legend Lois Smith (Twister, "ER") and TV star Catherine Curtin ("Orange Is the New Black", "Stranger Things"). Ives also directs.

Stay tuned after the performance for a conversation between the playwright, actors, and Playing on Air's founder, Claudia Catania.

Please be sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn or visit us at www.playingonair.org, where you'll find our complete collection of audio plays.

Parents, Don and Charlotte, summon their adult children, Susanna and Brian, to a meeting at Le Pain Quotidien scheduled smack in the middle of their workday. What's up? Patricia Cotter's comedy ensues.

Did I Miss Anything Important? is a world-premiere James Stevenson commission from accomplished playwright Patricia Cotter (Mulan, Jr., The Daughters). The cast includes stalwarts David Rasche, Maryanne Plunkett, Zach Appelman, Lesley Fray, and Lakisha May. Marchánt Davis (Reality, Ain't No Mo') directs.

Music by Tom Kochan

Stay tuned after the performance for a conversation between the playwright, actors, and Playing on Air's founder, Claudia Catania.

Please be sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn or visit us at www.playingonair.org, where you'll find our complete collection of audio plays.

In BONNET, the incredibly talented John Patrick Shanley's marital (and sometimes martial) comedy of manners, Dan (John Turturro) has a few questions for his wife Ava (Debra Messing) when she appears at the breakfast table with a meaningful new accessory. BONNET, written and directed by the Tony Award, Academy Award, and Pulitzer Prize-winning Shanley himself, was recorded live at Playing on Air's 10th anniversary benefit celebration at 54 Below and features a feisty score by composer Tom Kochan—plus a bit of adult language! Stay tuned after the play for a rollicking conversation with Shanley, Messing, and Turturro.

In SECOND SIGHT, a world premiere written and directed by renowned playwright David Ives, a retired historian's (Danny Burstein) minor surgery brings up major questions that his affable surgeon (Steven Boyer), bemused wife (Susie Essman) and brother (Lee Wilkof) can't seem to answer. Or is he, with the help of an otherworldly stranger (Brittany K. Allen), just seeing things clearly for the first time? SECOND SIGHT is directed by Ives and features music by Dan Moses Schreier, musical direction and piano by Alan Johnson, and special guest vocals by Chloe Holgate, Hai-Ting Chinn, Gregory Purnhagen, and Barbara Rearick. Stay tuned after the play for an insightful conversation with Ives, the actors, Founder and Consulting Director Claudia Catania, and Executive Director Yvie Jones.

It's 1907 and a typhoid fever outbreak among New York City's elite families has led zealous sanitation engineer George Soper (Matt Park) to the home of the haughty Mr. Winthrop (Michael Chernus) and a face-off with Winthrop's proud, though not very hygienic cook, "Typhoid Mary" Mallon (Catherine Curtin).

Playwright Rehana Lew Mirza's history-inspired comedy, a 2021 Wordsmith Duo Commission supported by the Axe-Houghton Foundation, is directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel and features music by composer Tom Kochan. Stay tuned after the play for a lively conversation with Playing on Air Executive Director Yvie Jones and all the featured artists.

It's 1915 and another typhoid fever outbreak, this one in a bustling hospital run by an officious Supervisor (Cindy Cheung), has once again led dogged sanitation engineer George Soper (Matt Park) to the hospital's newest cook, "Typhoid Mary" Mallon (Catherine Curtin). It's been years since Soper reluctantly released her from a forced quarantine on an inhospitable island. Can Mary finally wash her hands of him for good?

Playwright Mike Lew's history-inspired comedy TYPHOID MARY, a 2021 Wordsmith Duo Commission supported by the Axe-Houghton Foundation, is directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel and features music by composer Tom Kochan. Stay tuned after the play for a lively conversation with Executive Director Yvie Jones and all the featured artists.

An old school drill sergeant under fire from his very modern and diverse new recruits desperately longs for simpler times.

Directed by John Giampietro, James McLindon's short satire I DON'T KNOW features stage and screen favorite Jay O. Sanders as the Drill Sergeant and an ensemble cast of Broadway, off-Broadway, and TV regulars as his new recruits: Bobby Moreno, Sue Jean Kim, Jeff Biehl, and Brittany K. Allen.

After the play, Producing Artistic Director Claudia Catania moderates a conversation with the creative team.

In Lloyd Suh's HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. ABERNATHY, a shared story, formerly repressed, begins to bridge the racial and generational distance between a white American centenarian of the Greatest Generation (Len Cariou) and his Asian American great-grandson (Ken Leung).

Stay tuned after the play for a poignant conversation between the playwright and Founder and Consulting Director Claudia Catania.

It's the summer of 1955, and a new U.S. Army private stationed far away from his New Jersey hometown may have met his match, a very modern Southern belle, at a USO-style dance.

Emily Bergl directs a pitch perfect cast—Eli Gelb, Erin Wilhelmi, and Vance Barton—in Cary Gitter's THE ARMY DANCE, which also boasts a nifty-fifties-style score by composer Tom Kochan. After the play, host Claudia Catania and executive director Yvie Jones moderate a lively and poignant conversation with the playwright, director, and actors.