Latest Americanplays Podcast Episodes
BONNET by John Patrick Shanley
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - August 27, 2023 17:30 - 19 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsIn 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 To...
SECOND SIGHT by David Ives
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - August 20, 2023 16:30 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsIn 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, w...
MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY by Rehana Lew Mirza
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - August 13, 2023 16:30 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsIt’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...
TYPHOID MARY by Mike Lew
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - August 13, 2023 16:30 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsIt’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...
I DON'T KNOW by James McLindon
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - August 06, 2023 16:30 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsAn 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 Bro...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. ABERNATHY by Lloyd Suh
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - July 30, 2023 15:30 - 22 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsIn 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 ...
THE ARMY DANCE by Cary Gitter
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - July 23, 2023 17:30 - 30 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsIt'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, ...
ECHO AND NARCISSUS by Amanda Quaid
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - July 16, 2023 15:15 - 25 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsHear 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...
JFK TAXI by Aurin Squire
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - July 09, 2023 16:00 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsA 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 ...
EVENING AT ANAHEIM by James Stevenson (Summer 2022 Re-Release)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - September 04, 2022 11:00 - 37 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsFrom 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 nomine...
TENNESSEE by John Patrick Shanley (Summer 2022 Re-Release)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - August 28, 2022 11:00 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsIn 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 Chalame...
BANSHEE by John Patrick Shanley (Summer 2022 Re-Release)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - August 21, 2022 11:00 - 25 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsAnything 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 ...
BITE THE HAND by Ara Watson (Summer Re-Release 2022)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - August 14, 2022 11:00 - 31 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsIn 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 Do...
YOU BELONG TO ME by Daniel Reitz (Summer 2022 Re-Release)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - August 07, 2022 11:15 - 17 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsThis 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 f...
AT THE WATER'S EDGE, WET by Jonathan Bernstein (Summer 2022 Re-Release)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - July 31, 2022 11:10 - 20 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsThe 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 SHO...
RELATIVE STRANGERS by Sheri Wilner (Summer 2022 Re-Release)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - July 24, 2022 11:15 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsThis 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 f...
OPEN ARMS by Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros (Summer 2022 Re-Release)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - July 17, 2022 10:45 - 20 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsIn 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 ...
CELL by Cassandra Medley (Summer 2022 Re-Release)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - July 10, 2022 10:45 - 52 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsTony winner Tonya Pinkins (Jelly’s Last Jam, “Fear the Walking Dead,” PoA’s Poof!), Tony nominee Condola Rashad (Saint Joan, “Billions”), and Melanie Nicholls-King ("The Wire," "Little Fires Everywhere”) star in Cassandra Medley’s CELL. When a jaded supervisor at an immigrant detention center fi...
GUN SHOW by David Auburn (Summer 2022 Re-Release)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - July 03, 2022 10:00 - 31 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsFrom David Auburn (Pulitzer and Tony winner for PROOF) comes a riveting, witty world-premiere commission for Playing on Air: GUN SHOW. In the aftershock of a national tragedy, a congenial double-date morphs into a battle of the sexes. As tempers blaze, two couples must reconsider the possibility...
The MAN IN RED by Arian Moayed
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - December 19, 2021 12:30 - 52 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsIn this holiday dazzler written, directed and produced by Arian Moayed, Santa keeps a closer eye on the naughty and nice lists than we think, especially during "unprecedented times." But maybe Mrs. Claus, the hardworking team at the North Pole, and one melancholy little girl might keep the man i...
JARED AND IVANKA’S PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE AT MAURICE J. FELDMAN JEWISH DAY SCHOOL by Jonathan Spector
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - December 12, 2021 15:05 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsIn the cool, otherworldly confines of a Zoom room, a controversial president's ethereal daughter and hands-on son-in-law surf the choppy waters of chiseled memories, personal responsibility...and elementary school. JARED AND IVANKA’S PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE AT MAURICE J. FELDMAN JEWISH DAY S...
JACOB AND AMAL by Dipika Guha
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - December 05, 2021 09:00 - 21 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsOn the precipice of making a world changing medical breakthrough, Amal visits an old lover and they contend with the uncertain future through the light of a shared, tumultuous past. JACOB AND AMAL, our second Wordsmith Duo play this season supported by the Axe-Houghton Foundation, was written ...
THE HUMAN EXPERIMENT by Mfoniso Udofia
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - November 28, 2021 09:00 - 31 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsAmal would like to spend the night hiding from, well, everything. But when her bestie has other ideas - ideas that include a world renowned research university, high heels, and lowered expectations - she agrees to a not-so-scientific exercise that could take her, well, anywhere. All right. Just ...
THANKSGIVING FOR ONE by Hamish Linklater (Re-Release)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - November 21, 2021 18:32 - 30 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsAfter his hit NUDITY RIDER, OBIE winner Hamish Linklater returns for another helping of irresistible comedy: the world-premiere commission THANKSGIVING FOR ONE. Marjorie Mumms (Jean Smart) would rather not be eating her holiday turkey alone at the Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. She can’t get a decen...
LOCKED AND LOADED. CAN I HELP YOU? by David Ives
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - November 14, 2021 09:00 - 30 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsThe proud owner of a gun shop in a small American city has a peculiar visitor one day - a celebrity of sorts who wants to buy a weapon but can't say exactly why. LOCKED AND LOADED. CAN I HELP YOU?, a world premiere from celebrated playwright David Ives (Venus in Fur, The Heir Apparent, White C...
THE WAYFARER'S CODE by Brittany K. Allen
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - November 07, 2021 08:00 - 31 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsAirstreams, Winnebagos, Chevys, the blood brothers of RV circuit, take us from the shackles of modernity to the freedom of the road! Two couples who might not otherwise cross paths befriend each other in a Texas RV Park, and declare their mutual independence. THE WAYFARER’S CODE, another world...
TECH DEMONS by Sarah Gancher
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - October 31, 2021 16:19 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsAn aspiring writer (Isaac Oliver) who dreams of learning the secrets of the human heart summons an ancient demon (Vera Beren). Good thing he’s got tech support (Jay O. Sanders). TECH DEMONS, a world premiere James Stevenson Commission by Sarah Gancher, is directed by Marc Bruni (Broadway’s Bea...
THE BURIAL SOCIETY by Susan Sandler (Re-Release)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - October 10, 2021 08:00 - 16 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsHusband-wife team Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller play former Yiddish theater stars who steal the show at a memorial service in the THE BURIAL SOCIETY, a comic play by Susan Sandler. Also featuring George Morfogen* (“Oz”) and David Margulies (Ghostbusters). Directed by Playing on Air Producing Arti...
WAKING UP by Cori Thomas
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - October 03, 2021 08:00 - 18 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsPlaying on Air presents Waking Up, an insightful short by Cori Thomas. It juxtaposes the experiences of an American urbanite’s and an African villager’s struggle with breast cancer. Although the details from diagnosis to ultimate triumph are vastly different, their stories underscore the univers...
A DEPARTURE by Andy Reynolds (Re-Release)
Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays - September 26, 2021 09:30 - 28 minutes ★★★★★ - 143 ratingsWhen a conservative father and his young gay son (stage legend Len Cariou and ”Ugly Betty’s” Michael Urie) reconnect in the most unlikely of places - an airport terminal - they find that love can transcend a family's baggage. This witty, heartfelt short by Andy Reynolds is directed by Broadway’s...
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