Playing on Air

Your place for audio plays.

A woman in a black-and-white polka dot button-down stands in front of a music stand. There are two microphones with pop filters hanging upside-down in front of the woman. There's also a second person in a red shirt whose back is to the camera.
Playing on Air is back with new episodes on December 22nd.

“Sometimes hilarious, often affecting and always refined productions. . . Browsing through the selection feels like diving to a treasure chest and picking out whatever jewel suits your fancy for that day.”

— Maya Phillips, New York Times

As a longtime friend and valued listener of Playing on Air, you might have noticed a rather long hiatus since our last release.

We're back! Our fervent mission to bring top theater talent to everyone everywhere via audio shorts is undiminished and newly oxygenated!

Claudia agreed to return to curate and produce this winter 2024-2025 season while we refreshed, and identified a new and wildly creative team. We’ll be proudly announcing Playing on Air's new Artistic Director and others at the start of the new year! Stay tuned for that.

It is hard to make something new. It is hard to make something creative and launch it out onto the airwaves. But when a pastor in New Hampshire asks us for permission to read a PoA play he heard in lieu of a sermon, we have reached someone. When a kid in El Paso, Texas, asks us how to get a script of a play he heard on the radio to help him come out to his parents, we have uplifted someone. When the actor Chris Cooper tells us if he hadn't heard radio plays as a child in Missouri, he would never have known a person could be an actor, we are motivated.

Playing on Air understands the importance of traveling light. We've never had a penny's debt; we have no land, no brick, no mortar. We meet via Zoom and countless coffee shops. Our files are in the cloud; our stage in a recording studio. But as lightly and as sustainably as we travel, and no matter how frugally, we have costs. We need funds to produce, to record, to staff, and to reach our audience. We don't want to be that tree in the forest that nobody hears. 

Which is to say: we need your help. We need your help to bring powerful, nourishing, entertaining, thought-provoking stories to a potentially vast audience. For free. 

Our fiscal year ends on December 31; if you are able, please consider giving a donation before then.

A 2025 season is already germinating, and you won't be disappointed.

Respectfully, gratefully, 

Lillian Laserson, Board Chair

Harold Sogard, Treasurer

Glenn Shaevitz

Ken Urban

Claudia Catania

Mailing a check? Please send to:

Playing on Air

106 Underhill Road

Hillsdale, New York 12529

Dear listeners . . .