Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays

Hear that? In ECHO AND NARCISSUS, playwright Amanda Quaid's newfangled take on an infamous myth from Ovid's Metamorphoses, a young woman falls in love with a narcissist after a vengeful wife condemns her to a unique fate.

The sprightly production is directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt, stars Sarah Manton, Christian Conn, and Mia Katigbak, and features a kinetic score by composer Tom Kochan. After the play, Playing on Air (playingonair.org) founder and consulting director Claudia Catania and executive director Yvie Jones dive into conversation with the playwright, director, and actors.

A jet-lagged Gen Z couple (Toney Goins and Kerry Warren) decides to take an old school taxicab home to Brooklyn instead of an Uber, and their kooky cabbie (Louis Mustillo) introduces them to a very different (under)side of New York City.

Playwright Aurin Squire's otherworldly urban comedy is a James Stevenson Commission for Short Comedic Plays, generously supported by Josie Merck, and boasts an animated score by composer Tom Kochan.

Stay tuned after the play for a spirited conversation, starting at 25:11, with Claudia Catania, Playing on Air's founder and consulting director, executive director Yvie Jones, director Marchánt Davis, and our talented trio of actors.

Editing: Joanna Lynne Staub Sound Design: John Kilgore of John Kilgore Sound & Recording [Running Time: 41 minutes and 29 seconds]

From brilliant New Yorker cartoonist, illustrator, and children's book author James Stevenson comes this darkly hilarious reimagining of iconic animated characters - now "over the hill" and waiting out their golden years at a seedy retirement community in Los Angeles.

Directed by Tony nominee Dana Ivey (The Last Night of Ballyhoo, "Boardwalk Empire"), EVENING AT ANAHEIM features Richard Kind (The Producers, "Spin City", "American Dad!"), Karen Ziemba (Tony winner for Contact), Emily Bergl ("Gilmore Girls," Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Brandon Uranowitz (Falsettos), Carson Elrod (Peter and the Starcatcher), Peter Maloney (Requiem for a Dream), and Tom Alan Robbins (The Lion King). Stay tuned after the play for a high spirited conversation with the cast, director, and Playing on Air founder and consulting director Claudia Catania.

EVENING AT ANAHEIM was co-presented with Playwrights Horizons and recorded live in New York City.

In Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner John Patrick Shanley's TENNESSEE, a wannabe musician seeking an escape plan and a glimpse at his future approaches a dissatisfied woman who's blessed, and possibly cursed, with the power of foresight. The audio play stars Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet (our audio production of MISADVENTURE, Dune, Beautiful Boy, Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird, and Shanley's Prodigal Son on Broadway) and Caitlin FitzGerald ("Succession," "Masters of Sex," It's Complicated). Stay tuned after the play for a spirited behind-the-scenes conversation with playwright/director John Patrick Shanley (BANSHEE, LAST NIGHT IN THE GARDEN I SAW YOU, Doubt, Outside Mullingar), Caitlin FitzGerald, Timothée Chalamet, and founder and consulting director Claudia Catania. TENNESSEE was recorded and co-presented in front of a live audience at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at New York Public Radio.

Anything can happen when you leave your window open on a warm night. Tony, Oscar and Pulitzer Prize winner John Patrick Shanley (Doubt, Moonstruck, Outside Mullingar) wrote and directed this week's summer re-release about a curious banshee, a fantastical Irish spirit, who pays an ailing teacher a visit and makes him an otherworldly proposal.

The mystical comedy features Geraldine Hughes (THE MANDELA EFFECT, TWO CROWS APART, Jerusalem, Gran Torino) and Aidan Quinn ("Elementary," Michael Collins, Desperately Seeking Susan).

Stay tuned after the performance for a conversation between the playwright, actors, and founder and consulting director Claudia Catania that includes a few delightfully surprising responses.

In this week's summer re-release, we're doing a bit of time travel. It's a balmy night in the post-WWII Ozarks, and a young woman is leaving behind her life as a "lady of the evening" for an offer of marriage. Then a client shows up with some jaw-dropping news. Oscar-winner Chris Cooper (A Doll's House, Part 2, Adaptation, American Beauty), Emmy-winner Margo Martindale ("The Good Wife", "The Americans," "Justified") and Broadway's Liv Rooth (SURE THING, To Kill a Mockingbird, Venus in Fur) star in BITE THE HAND, Ara Watson's (A Different Moon) potent classic, directed by Tony Award-winner Doug Hughes (SOMETHING I'LL TELL YOU TUESDAY, Doubt). Stay tuned after the performance for an animated conversation with Watson and the cast moderated by Playing On Air founder and consulting director Claudia Catania.

This week's summer re-release features Daniel Reitz's (NAPOLEON IN EXILE) affecting one-act YOU BELONG TO ME, featuring Amy Ryan (Oscar nominated for Gone, Baby, Gone, "The Office," "Only Murders in the Building," and a five-time Playing On Air MVP) and Michael Stuhlbarg (a recent Emmy nominee for "Dopesick," "The Staircase," "Boardwalk Empire," A Serious Man, and four-time Playing On Air veteran), as former lovers--who've gone very separate ways in the intervening 18 years--having a chance meeting on a New York City subway car.

Stay tuned after the performance for a spirited conversation between Reitz and the play's director, Playing on Air founder and consulting director Claudia Catania.

The curtain is up. The show is in progress. But for a production stage manager and a sound and light board operator calling the cues behind the scenes, the night's most dazzling romance isn't playing out onstage. Written and directed by Jonathan Bernstein (RULES OF COMEDY and A VERY VERY SHORT PLAY), AT THE WATER'S EDGE, WET stars Callie Thorne ("Necessary Roughness," "Rescue Me," "The Wire") and Tony nominee Jeremy Shamos (Broadway's Clybourne Park, "Better Call Saul," HEDGEHOG YEARS). Stay tuned after the performance for an in-studio conversation with the artists, moderated by founder and consulting director Claudia Catania.

This week's summer re-release features RELATIVE STRANGERS, a bubbly comedic short from playwright Sheri Wilner (The Miracle of Chanukah, Cake Off, Kingdom City) about a young woman who, during a flight to South Carolina, decides the woman next to her just might be the mother she never had. She finds an ally in a wacky stewardess who, unlike the reluctant mother figure, thinks these two passengers are a match made in heaven. Directed by founder, consulting director, and host Claudia Catania, RELATIVE STRANGERS features Tony and Emmy Award winner Debra Monk (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, "The Gilded Age," "New Amsterdam"), Merritt Wever ("Unbelievable," "Run," "Nurse Jackie"), Tony Award recipient Julie Halston (You Can't Take It With You, Anything Goes, "Sex and the City"), and actor, playwright, and composer Michael Keck (Fences, Voices in the Rain, Hollywood Scheherazade).

In Open Arms by Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros, an impending 50th birthday party sets off calamity over coffee and Kindles.

Open Arms is directed by Tony Award winner John Rando and features Julie White (The Little Dog Laughed, Airline Highway, POTUS: Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive), and Bill Irwin (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Waiting for Godot, King Lear). Stay tuned after the performance for a conversation between our Founder and Consulting Director, Claudia Catania, the playwright, director, and cast.