Free L.A. Theater Works Recordings in September
Jill Weinlein
Since theaters and venues everywhere are still dark, world-class theater from L.A. Theatre Works (LATW) remains just a click away. L.A. Theatre Works stands apart in its approach to making great theater widely accessible and affordable, bringing plays into the homes and classrooms of millions of theater lovers, teachers and students each year.
Audiences around the globe have free access to state-of-the-art recordings of both contemporary and classic plays, performed by leading actors of stage and screen. Beginning every Saturday, audiences can stream that week’s broadcast online for free, along with broadcasts from previous weeks. LATW productions are aired by radio stations across the U.S. and internationally.
Currently streaming at https://latw.org/broadcasts#recent: A Fair Country by Jon Robin Baitz, starring Judith Ivey, David Dukes, Kurt Deutsch, Matt McGrath and Kurtwood Smith.
Available beginning Sept. 5 is the audio of A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller, starring Ed O’Neill, Harry Hamlin, Mary McDonnell and Amy Pietz; the following Saturday, Sept. 1, is: Breaking the Code by Hugh Whitemore, based on the book Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, starring Simon Templeman, Sheelagh Cullen, W. Morgan Sheppard, André Sogliuzzo;
There will be two, one-hour shows on Sept. 19 that include The Gin Game by D.L. Coburn, starring Katherine Helmond and Harris Yulin; and The Value of Names by Jeffrey Sweet, starring Héctor Elizondo, Garry Marshall and Sally Murphy;
To finish the month of September, on Saturday, Sept. 26 listen to Camping with Henry and Tom by Mark St. Germain, starring Alan Alda and Charles Durning.
Listeners can hear additional titles at no charge by subscribing to L.A. Theatre Works podcasts. Some of the titles available in September include Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? by Eric Bentley, a searing docudrama about the 1950s House Un-American Activities Committee hearings featuring an all-star cast including Edward Asner, Bonnie Bedelia, Richard Dreyfuss, Héctor Elizondo, Harry Hamlin, James Earl Jones, Michael York and Harris Yulin; and Lydia Diamond’s provocative Stick Fly, about a wealthy African American clan vacationing on Martha's Vineyard, starring Justine Bateman, Dulé Hill, Tinashe Kajese and Terrell Tilford. Subscribe at https://latw.org/podcasts, or listen at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or NPR One.
For audience members who are fascinated with science, there is free access to over 30 science-themed plays from the company’s “Relativity Series,” thanks to funding provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, bridging science and the arts in the modern world, the plays in this series present science as a thoroughly human endeavor, bringing to life the people and stories behind the research and invention that shape and change our world.
Titles include award-winning plays such as the docudrama Behind the Sheet, written by Charly Evon Simpson and starring Dominique Morisseau, Josh Stamberg and Karen Malina White, about a doctor in 1840s Alabama who performs medical experiments on enslaved women that lead to modern gynecology; and Boy, Anna Ziegler’s powerful statement about sexual identity and the mystery of what makes us who we are, starring Sarah Drew, John Getz, Travis Johns, Amy Pietz and Bobby Steggert.
To stream plays from the Relativity Series, go to https://latw.org/relativity-series. The Relativity Series is also available as a podcast at https://latw.org/podcasts.
L.A. Theatre Works also has a catalog offering hundreds of additional titles for purchase at the low rate of $4.99 per digital download. Go to www.latw.org/catalog.
LATW’s syndicated radio theater series broadcasts weekly on public radio stations across the U.S.; daily in China on the Radio Beijing Network; and weekly on KCRW Berlin 104,1 FM, Berlin's English language public radio station. The L.A. Theatre Works catalog of over 500 recorded plays is the largest archive of its kind in the world. The Philadelphia Inquirer calls L.A. Theatre Works “a national theatrical treasure.”