Playing On Air: Short Audio Plays

Content advisory: this episode contains themes that may not be appropriate for younger listeners.    Sigrid has a new little bundle of joy, and she's worried that he might be... evil. Today, she's tagging out: this baby is her neighbor Darla's problem now. Just in time for Mother's Day, Gracie Gardner's HATE BABY, the winner of Playing on Air's 2018 James Stevenson Prize for Comedic Short Plays, d...

Content advisory: this episode contains explicit language and sexual references. When a cocky, jaded tennis star (David Harbour) loses a pivotal match to an inexperienced Romanian player (Steven Boyer), the two men lock into an unlikely battle for dominance on and off the court. Over the course of three encounters on the Grand Slam circuit,  AN UPSET  by David Auburn (Tony & Pulitzer winner for  P...

Unwanted house guests. A murder of  crows . Is something brewing in the raw, early morning?    In  TWO   CROWS  APART, Ciarán Hinds (Mance Rayder in "Game of Thrones , " Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ,  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ) and Geraldine Hughes ( Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Jerusalem,  Playing on Air's  The Mandela Effect ) paint a virtuosic, unfiltered portrait of marriage. A...

What do you do when your former therapist starts talking to a cat that isn't there? When Nate meets his longtime psychiatrist in the park, he realizes that she may be losing it. With tenderness and humor, Cusi Cram's THE HELPERS asks if we can reconnect with the life-altering figures who were never exactly our friends to begin with. THE HELPERS stars Tony & Emmy winner Jane Alexander ( Warm Spring...

How do you eulogize a woman who everybody hated?    In Peter Sagal's  MILTON BRADLEY , Rabbi Schoenberg (Michael Stuhlbarg), faced with this dilemma, turns to a metaphor: the game of Life (the board game, that is).    Featuring Stuhlbarg ( Call Me By Your Name ,  The Shape of Water ) and Bob Balaban ( Gosford Park , Christopher Guest & Wes Anderson ensemble regular),  MILTON BRADLEY  is a darkly f...

BEYOND GLORY   "allows the voices of servicemen to be heard without the filter of the conventions of drama or the prerogatives of deadline-driven journalism" (NY Times). Since 2004, Tony-nominated actor Stephen Lang ( The Speed of Darkness ,  Avatar)  has traveled the nation - and the world - performing  BEYOND GLORY , a gripping look into the lives of Medal of Honor-decorated veterans, both on an...

"I just don't like you very much... Just. Middle of the road not liking you, I think."   In Chiara Atik's 52nd to Bowery to Cobble Hill, in Brooklyn , Halle is taking a late-night cab ride through Manhattan with her bubbly acquaintance Alison. Halle didn't mean to blurt out how she really feels about their "friendship," but now they're stuck in traffic on Broadway and 4th, dealing with it. Directe...

Loureen is at the end of her rope. And now, she's just turned her husband into a pile of ashes. As Lynn Nottage's funny and wrenching POOF! opens, Loureen (Audra McDonald) has inadvertently made her abusive husband (Keith Randolph Smith) disappear. Enter her friend and neighbor Florence (Tonya Pinkins) to help her pick up the pieces and begin to imagine a life post-Samuel. Directed by Seret Scott,...

CARRY THE ZERO "gets the awkwardness of teenage hookup culture squeamishly right" ( NY Times ).  Mark and Nicole just had sex for the first time, and now they're facing the long, embarrassing drive back to Nicole's house. Directed by John Giampietro, Christopher Sullivan's short play stars David Gelles ( Graceland  at LCT3, NBC's "Deception") and Arielle Goldman ("The Knick," "The Marvelous Ms. Ma...

With a storm raging outside, a horror screenwriter (Jesse Eisenberg) and his wife (Heidi Schreck) are cozying up for a romantic weekend in the middle of nowhere. The weather outside is frightful -- and so is the mysterious couple that just arrived on their doorstep.    Directed by John Rando and starring Eisenberg ( The Social Network , Playing on Air's  A Little Part of All of Us ), Schreck ( Wha...

Caroline can't find anything funny -- not her awkward love life, not her jaded standup coach Guy, and definitely not the punchlines she's been reading in  101 Dirty Jokes.  Originally produced at the Humana Festival at the Actors Theater of Louisville, Patricia Cotter's  RULES OF COMEDY  is a playful, wry look at the lives of comedians when they dare to go offstage and off script. Directed by Jona...

In James McLindon's  DRUNK CHRISTMAS , a teenage runaway and a swerving mom crash into each other on Christmas Eve; the night ahead is anything but silent. An unorthodox holiday parable,  DRUNK CHRISTMAS  stars Tony winner Elizabeth Ashley ( Ocean's 8 , The Carpetbaggers ) and Susannah Perkins ( Network ,  The Wolves ). After the play, director Michael Wilson ( The Trip to Bountiful ,  The Best Ma...

In PLAYING GOD , a divine comedy from SNL 's Alan Zweibel (Playing on Air's HAPPY ), a self-involved OB-GYN ( Scott Adsit of "30 Rock") creates chaos for his pregnant patient ( Emily Bergl ). Over the objections of a heavenly assistant ( Susie Essman of "Curb Your Enthusiasm"), God himself ( Bill Buell ) challenges the doctor to an outrageous squash match for his faith. Following the play, directo...

Fathers and sons might forgive, but they never forget. Hear two of Broadway's greatest comedians tackle family drama. A sarcastic alcoholic man in recovery (Steven Boyer) tries to prove himself to his father (Bill Irwin), searching for his own way to say I LOVE YOU . Directed by David Auburn ( Proof , Playing on Air's  Gun Show  &  An Upset ) and written by Lynn Rosen (co-founder of The Pool, Resi...

From the beloved narrator of the Harry Potter audiobooks and the playwright of Venus in Fur comes a wickedly clever whodunit. In THE MYSTERY AT TWICKNAM VICARAGE, Scotland Yard's Inspector Dexter (Jim Dale) arrives at a country parsonage to investigate the murder of Jeremy Thumpington-Fffienes (David Furr). As Jeremy's wife (Kelly Hutchinson), two lovers (Scarlett Strallen and Arnie Burton), and a...

Are the Berenstain Bears, Nelson Mandela's death, and Darth Vader's most famous line evidence of a parallel universe? During lunch with a friend, an actress works herself into a cosmic tizzy about the unsettling  MANDELA EFFECT , the collective misremembering of names, news stories, and cultural artifacts. Written and directed by Max Baker ( Revolutionary Road,  Broadway's  1984, Pirates of the Ca...

In Leland Frankel's modern comedy WOKE, an aspiring Pakistani-American rapper named Sunny crashes into Rebecca, a misguided activist, and the cop pursuing her across Queens. As Rebecca and Sunny are forced to reckon with race, privilege, and art, WOKE questions whose job it is to change the world - and who gets to.    Recorded live at Playwrights Horizons and directed by Mimi O'Donnell (Labyrinth...

"If I gave you my heart, that would be the knife." With one hop of the fence, a star-crossed lover (Emmy nominee Rupert Friend) storms back into the life of the married woman (Golden Globe winner Michelle Williams) he deserted. Hovering on the brink, will they bite into the forbidden fruit - or dare each other to walk away for good? Starring Michelle Williams ( Manchester by the Sea ,  My Week wit...

Cora and Dave  love  Abby and Tim. Really. They're the kind of fabulous, beautiful people you love to be seen at dinner with. The friends you wake up at night panic-envying. The couple you secretly hope may have a terrible, terrible secret.  Mercilessly relatable, CORA AND DAVE ARE GETTING OLDER by Julia Cho ( Office Hour  at the Public , Aubergine  at Playwrights Horizons) pulls back the curtain...

Two recovering addicts (Rosie Perez, John Leguizamo) have their Saturday night card game interrupted by  a love-struck parole officer (Bobby Cannavale) with major boundary issues.   Written and directed by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire ( Rabbit Hole, Good People),  the madcap comedy  CRAZY EIGHTS  features Emmy winner Bobby Cannavale ( Blue Jasmine , "Boardwalk Empire," PoA's  Gun Sho...

In Cary Gitter's romantic comedy  HOW MY GRANDPARENTS FELL IN LOVE,  it's 1933, and a young Jewish immigrant returns to his Polish hometown in search of a wife. He sets his sights on Chava, a savvy, sarcastic shopgirl in a local hat store.  The New York Times calls the play "a gorgeous high note...a Jewish screwball romance set in Poland in 1933. Unlikely, yes, but also uproarious and beautifully...

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 ), EVENING AT ANAHEIM features Richard Kind ( The Producers , "Sp...

When 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  Michael Wilson . After the play, host Claudia Catania joins the playwright, director, and cast f...

Starring Tony winner Tonya Pinkins (Jelly's Last Jam ,  Caroline or Change ) , Tony nominee Condola Rashad ( Saint Joan ,   Ruined , "Billions"), and   Melanie Nicholls-King ("The Wire," "Rookie Blue"), CELL tells the riveting story of three African American women working at an immigrant detention center. When a jaded guard arranges jobs for her sister and her niece Gwen, the family erupts into a...

Watch your step. Look at those hardwood floors. Don't lose your mind. While touring a prospective buyer through a mansion for sale, a wary real-estate agent is ensnared by the house's haunting past.  Denis O'Hare ("American Horror Story", Tony winner for  Take Me Out ), and Kristine Nielsen (Tony nominee for  Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike ) star in thriller  Wildwood Park  by Doug Wright (Pu...