L. A. Theatre Works: The Third Man by Graham Greene on Saturday 29 March 2008

Next Saturday, March 29 from 10 pm - midnight on 89.3 KPCC, L.A. Theatre Works‘ The Play’s the Thing Saturday, March 29 from 10 pm - midnight on 89.3 KPCC, L.A. Theatre Works‘ The Play’s the Thing will air The Third Man by Graham Greene, starring Kelsey Grammer,  John Mahoney, Rosalind Ayres and John Vickery.  Somewhere in shadowy post-war Vienna, where everyone has something to sell on the black market, lurks the third man, who witnessed the murder of Harry Lime.  The police don’t care to investigate, but novelist Holly Martins is haunted by the death of his friend - and entranced by the mysterious Anna.  The broadcast includes an interview with TIME magazine film critic Richard Schickel.

Thanks to a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the first broadcast each month of The Play’s The Thing is a science-themed play. Next month (Saturday, April 5), the series continues with Cassandra Medley’s appropriately titled drama, “Relativity.”  Each play in the Relativity series is available for podcasting at www.kpcc.org for three months following the broadcast.

L.A. Theatre Works’ radio theater series, The Play’s the Thing, airs locally every Saturday night from 10 pm to midnight on 89.3 FM KPCC Southern California Public Radio, and is streamed on the KPCC website (www.kpcc.org) for one week following each broadcast.  The series can also be heard on 89.7 WGBH in Boston; 91.5 FM WBEZ in Chicago; 94.9 KUOW in Seattle; 93.5 FM KRTS “Marfa Public Radio” in Texas; 90.5 FM KUT in Austin; 88.9 FM KUNM in Albuquerque; 94.1 KPFA in Northern California; 91.1 FM KRCB in Sonoma County; 89.1 KUOR in Redlands; as well as on many other public radio stations nationwide and XM Satellite Radio.  Selected programs from LATW are also heard internationally over BBC World Service, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Telefis Eirann (Ireland), Radio Hong Kong, and Radio New Zealand.  The L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre Collection is available in bookstores, libraries, through their catalog, digitally on itunes, overdrive.com, audible.com, and on the L.A. Theatre Works website at www.latw.org.

On XM Satellite Radio, The Play’s the Thing now airs on Sonic Theater three times a week.  Each broadcast premieres on Friday evening at 8 pm eastern/5 pm pacific and repeats the following Monday in the same time slot.  On Wednesday, XM offers an encore performance of a previously-broadcast program.

To get a full schedule,  go to the L.A. Theatre Works website at www.latw.org and follow the link through the “Radio Theatre Series” heading and then “Episode Guide” or go directly to www.scpr.org for KPCC.

Additional support for the series is provided by AudioFile Magazine.  Listeners can visit their website at www.audiofilemagazine.com to view 65 reviews of LATW plays and hear sound clips from them.  The Beverly Hilton hotel is the official hotel for The Play’s the Thing.

L. A. Theatre Works: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Awards $250,000 TO L.A. Theatre Works

“The Play’s The Thing for Higher Education” will digitize and distribute database of recorded plays to institutions of higher learning.

LOS ANGELES, CA - The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $250,000 to L.A. Theatre Works to support The Play’s the Thing for Higher Education. This new initiative will provide higher education institutions with an extensively curated and deeply indexed digital database of recorded plays, a rich resource for scholarly research and classroom teaching that will engage students’ imaginations and critical thinking skills across the disciplinary spectrum.

Uses in higher education

“Our collection of plays covers so many themes and topics that one play could be relevant to a host of courses in higher education,” notes LATW Producing Director Susan Loewenberg. “Theater enhances academic instruction by illuminating issues in a way that brings them to life.”

Through a partnership with Alexander Street Press (ASP), a premier publisher of scholarly databases in the arts and humanities, LATW will archive, catalog, index, market and distribute “digital ready” titles of nearly 300 plays to higher learning institutions, ensuring extensive and integrated academic use. LATW will also include new in-studio audio recordings of plays chosen specifically for their applications to scholarly research, as well as an additional 10-15 titles a year recorded through The Play’s the Thing audio recording series at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. “Audio Drama: The L.A. Theatre Works Collection” will be archived at U.C.L.A.’s Digital Library along with supplementary material including interviews, panel discussions, symposia and study guides.

According to a recent article on Inside Higher Ed.com, “A career-directed education has become the goal of many, if not most, young people eager to get ahead. A purely materialistic motivation for getting an education is now the norm, not the exception. There is economic pressure on liberal arts colleges to add career-directed courses and programs to attract students.”

Says Loewenberg, “Because it mines content across so many fields and disciplines, The Play’sThe Thing for Higher Education is a way to attract career-oriented students to utilize our recordings to enhance and deepen their understanding of issues and ideas which they may confront in attaining their professional goals.”

“These works have enormous potential as both teaching and research tools for students and scholars in virtually every field,” agrees Alexander Street Press Vice-President of Sales and Marketing Eileen Lawrence. “Students of history will be able to listen to plays that bring the Civil Rights movement to life, professors of medicine will use plays to teach about medical ethics. Attitudes about women, the role of class in American culture, the impact of political movements - what better way to learn about any of those things, than by listening to and discussing these works?”

The complexity of LATW’s extensive Audio Theatre Collection not only presents unique opportunities for scholarly research and classroom application across disciplines, it provides multiple entry points for searching and understanding the broad spectrum of its content. One of the most exciting aspects of this project is LATW’s expansion of ASP’s database capabilities by providing an additional layer of rich, in-depth search functions. LATW has devised a process by which a diverse group of scholars will team with dramaturges to index the material on a much deeper level, actually identifying individual scenes’ relevance to disciplines and their sub-categories. In addition to the availability of LATW’s plays for streaming and download on a student’s individual computer, faculty will have an unprecedented resource from which to create new and innovative curriculum: a high-quality collection of audio plays with search capabilities that will allow them to both deeply and specifically explore dramatic content via search results that provide scenes from every play in the collection connected to their particular query.

Helene Williams, faculty at the University of Washington Information School and former English Bibliographer for the Humanities, Widener Library, and Humanities E-Resources Coordinator, Harvard College Library, serves as a project manager for the initiative.

Funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation award will be allocated to support the project manager, dramaturges and scholars, research materials and new recordings aimed at the scholarly community.

For over 20 years, L.A. Theatre Works has been the leading radio theater and audio theater publishing company in the United States, committed to using innovative technologies to preserve and promote significant works of dramatic literature and bringing recorded theater into the homes of millions. LATW’s nationally-syndicated radio theater program, The Play’s the Thing, airs weekly on public and satellite radio; its Alive and Aloud program provides selected recordings from the Audio Theatre Collection, along with study guides, to 2,000 secondary schools across the country for use in the classroom; and the Library Access Project makes LATW’s Audio Theatre Collection accessible to hundreds of underserved libraries nationwide. Since 2005, LATW has toured its radio show nationally, playing performing arts venues at colleges, universities and civic centers in over 125 cities.

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Syndicated: Radio Drama Revival - Episode 62: Dick Dynamo Gets in the Ring!

Alright, friends of Radio Drama Revival, it’s time to zap into the future again, in a bizarre alternative world let’s pray to god doesn’t exist.  Dick Dynamo is on the hunt for the killer of a trusted friend and his search takes him to the bowels of criminal animal fighting rings . . . and ends up with Dick himself sacrificing life, liberty, and several pints of blood to enact vengeance on the killer.

Details:

Radio Drama Revival

Episode Episode 62: Dick Dynamo Gets in the Ring!

Original broadcast date: 21 March 2008

This Syndicated program is sponsored by Radio Drama Revival!

Radio Drama Revival! is a weekly radio show/podcast dedicated to stories told through sound, showcasing the diversity and vitality of modern audio theater. Operated by Frederick Greenhalgh of FinalRune Productions, the show features audio theater stories and discussion with contemporary dramatists from across the United States. Radio Drama Revival! airs live on WMPG FM 90.9 and 104.1 in Portland, Maine, streams on the web at http://www.wmpg.org/ , and podcasts from http://www.radiodramarevival.com/ .

Details for Radio Drama Revival!:

Thursdays 1:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Broadcasting on WMPG FM 90.9 and 104.1 in Portland, Maine

Streaming on http://www.wmpg.org/

Podcasting on http://www.radiodramarevival.com/

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Sunday at Seven: The Mercury Theatre on the Air - “Treasure Island”

Sunday at Seven presents The Mercury Theatre on the Air and its adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”. This performance originally aired on CBS on July 18, 1938. Mercury Theatre would produce its iconic “The War of the Worlds” later in 1938.

Orson Welles, John Houseman, and an “impressive array of talents”

Welles and Houseman launched Mercury Theatre on the Air with the collective talents of Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Herrmann, George Coulouris and many others. The show ran without a sponsor until Campbell’s Soup picked it up and renamed it The Campbell Playhouse.

Be prepared to be thrilled by “Treasure Island”:

Sunday at Seven

Sunday at Seven is Lit Between the Ear’s program for listening to vintage radio drama and contemporary audio theatre. Posted once each week, literally Sunday evenings at 7:00 pm, our goal is to present a variety of genre and format.

The Mercury Theatre on the Air website

Kim Scarborough has catalogued a large number of Mercury Theatre and Campbell Playhouse shows on the site. The Mercury Theatre on the Air website may be reached at:

http://www.mercurytheatre.info/

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded in 1996 to build an Internet library for the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. The Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in its collection and may be accessed at:

http://www.archive.org/

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L. A. Theatre Works: Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw on Saturday 22 March 2008

Celebrating Women’s History Month, on Saturday, March 22 from 10 pm - midnight on 89.3 KPCC, L.A. Theatre Works’ The Play’s the Thing will air Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw, starring Roger Rees, Kate Burton, Hamish Linklater and Kirsten Potter.  The classic Shavian comedy that could have been written today.  Barbara is a Major in the Salvation Army, but she’s also the daughter of Andrew Undershaft, a multi-millionaire arms manufacturer.  He doesn’t care who or what his weapons have destroyed, but he does care who will inherit his business.  A family power struggle ensues, with Barbara and her father battling over the answer to the question:  Does salvation come through faith or finance?

The Play’s the Thing

L.A. Theatre Works’ radio theater series, The Play’s the Thing, airs locally every Saturday night from 10 pm to midnight on 89.3 FM KPCC Southern California Public Radio, and is streamed on the KPCC website (www.kpcc.org) for one week following each broadcast.  The series can also be heard on 89.7 WGBH in Boston; 91.5 FM WBEZ in Chicago; 94.9 KUOW in Seattle; 93.5 FM KRTS “Marfa Public Radio” in Texas; 90.5 FM KUT in Austin; 88.9 FM KUNM in Albuquerque; 94.1 KPFA in Northern California; 91.1 FM KRCB in Sonoma County; 89.1 KUOR in Redlands; as well as on many other public radio stations nationwide and XM Satellite Radio.

Selected programs from LATW are also heard internationally over BBC World Service, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Telefis Eirann (Ireland), Radio Hong Kong, and Radio New Zealand.  The L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre Collection is available in bookstores, libraries, through their catalog, digitally on itunes, overdrive.com, audible.com, and on the L.A. Theatre Works website at www.latw.org.

On XM Satellite Radio, The Play’s the Thing now airs on Sonic Theater three times a week.  Each broadcast premieres on Friday evening at 8 pm eastern/5 pm pacific and repeats the following Monday in the same time slot.  On Wednesday, XM offers an encore performance of a previously-broadcast program.

To get a full schedule,  go to the L.A. Theatre Works website at www.latw.org and follow the link through the “Radio Theatre Series” heading and then “Episode Guide” or go directly to www.scpr.org for KPCC.

Additional Support

Additional support for the series is provided by AudioFile Magazine.  Listeners can visit their website at www.audiofilemagazine.com to view 65 reviews of LATW plays and hear sound clips from them.  The Beverly Hilton hotel is the official hotel for The Play’s the Thing.

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