This fall, Playing on Air is honored to present a new season of seven world premiere short audio plays, plus a Thanksgiving special, from emerging and acclaimed artists.

On Sundays beginning October 31, new episodes from dynamic playwrights will be available online and via podcast. The season includes three new works created by artists who received the James Stevenson Commission for Short Comedic Plays. These works by playwrights Brittany Allen, Sarah Gancher, and Jonathan Spector are sponsored by Josephine Merck, who honors her late husband Jim’s legacy with her support of the commissions.

In addition, listeners will hear new Wordsmith Duo plays sponsored by the Axe-Houghton Foundation. This season’s duo features plays by Dipika Guha and Mfoniso Udofia. For the Thanksgiving holiday, we’re reprising The Thanksgiving Play, a holiday favorite by Hamish Linklater starring Linklater and Jean Smart. And to conclude our fall season, we bring you, in association with Arian Moayed, our first musical, The Man in Red. Moayed’s cast includes Brian Cox, Jane Houdyshell, Javier Muñoz, Phylicia Rashad, and Lily Santiago.

Each play features exceptional artists from stage, television, and film, including longtime friends of Playing on Air David Ives, Hamish Linklater, Jay O. Sanders, Frankie Faison, and Walter Bobbie, and welcomes new voices to our ensemble including Hank Azaria, Jonathan Groff, Robin de Jesús, Adepero Oduye, Isaac Oliver, and Rita Wolf.

For the second year in its history, Playing on Air recorded some of its fall season remotely. “Recording remotely continues to be an amazing opportunity to work with artists no matter their locale,” remarks Claudia Catania, Founder and Producing Artistic Director. “My hope, in these tremulous times, is that our fall season will deliver laughter, refuge, and food for thought.”

October 31: What do you do when that demon summoning kit isn’t working? Call tech support!

In TECH DEMONS, a riotous play great for Halloween - or any night! - Jay O. Sanders (The Girl from North Country, "Sneaky Pete") plays the man in black and Isaac Oliver ("High Maintenance," "GLOW") plays the guy who's in over his head. The world premiere James Stevenson Commission by Sarah Gancher, is directed by Marc Bruni (Broadway’s Beautiful: The Carole King Story, Trevor, The Music Man) and features Vera Beren (Gypsy 83, Stella Maris) with music by composer Dan Moses Schreier (A Soldier’s Play, Carmen Jones, American Psycho). Graphic design is by Harrison Gale.

November 7: Airstreams, 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 in THE WAYFARER’S CODE, a world premiere James Stevenson Commission by playwright Brittany Allen.

Frankie Faison (“The Wire,” Fences, “Luke Cage”) is joined in this Thelma and Louise-redolent sparkler by Caitlin O'Connell (The Crucible, The Heiress, The Killing of Sister George), Robin de Jesús (The Boys in the Band, In the Heights, La Cage aux Folles), and Calvin Leon Smith (“The Underground Railroad,” A Christmas Carol, “The Deuce”). THE WAYFARER’S CODE is directed by Marchánt Davis (Ain’t No’ Mo’, The Great Society, A Journal for Jordan) and features music by composer Tom Kochan (Almost, Maine, The Elephant Man, Pretty to the Bone). Graphic design is by Harrison Gale.

November 14: The 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 Christmas) is directed by Walter Bobbie (Chicago, Venus in Fur, White Christmas)) and features Hank Azaria (“The Simpsons,” Monty Python’s Spamalot, “Brockmire”) and Jonathan Groff (Hamilton, Spring Awakening, “Mindhunter”), music by Dan Moses Schreier (A Soldier’s Play, Carmen Jones, American Psycho), and a special guest musical appearance by Adam Kantor (The Band’s Visit, Next to Normal, Fiddler on the Roof, Rent). Graphic design is by Harrison Gale.

November 21: OBIE winner Hamish Linklater ("Midnight Mass," Seminar) returns with a commission for another helping of irresistible comedy. Jean Smart ("Hacks," "Mare of Easttown") is Marjorie Mumms, a woman who would rather not be eating her holiday turkey alone at the Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. She can’t get a decent gin and tonic, her daughter is spending Thanksgiving in another state, and her crazed waiter has cast her in a festive audio play. It might just be time to flip the table – and the script.

THANKSGIVING FOR ONE is directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Lackawanna Blues, “David Makes Man,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”), features Linklater as that frenzied waiter, and music by composer Tom Kochan (Almost, Maine, The Elephant Man, Pretty to the Bone). Graphic design is by Harrison Gale.

November 28: Amal 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 this once.

THE HUMAN EXPERIMENT, a Wordsmith Duo play supported by the Axe-Houghton Foundation, was written by playwright Mfoniso Udofia (Sojourners, “13 Reasons Why,” “Little America”) and directed by Logan Vaughn. It features actors Adepero Oduye (“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” Pariah), Alex Ubokudom (Seeds of Abraham, Macbeth, Adult Ed), and Kalyne Coleman (What to Send Up When It Goes Down, Black Odyssey, Julius Caesar). Original music by composer Jimmy Keys (Skeleton Crew, Night Visions, Revelations). Graphic design is by Harrison Gale.

December 5: On the precipice of making a world changing medical breakthrough, Amal visits an old lover - where they both 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 by Dipika Guha (Blown Youth, “Sneaky Pete,” “Black Monday”) and directed by Jo Bonney (Cost of Living, Father Comes Home from the War, Anna in the Tropics). It stars Rita Wolf (What Happened? The Michaels Abroad, Homeboy/Kabul) and Keith Randolph Smith (Jitney, American Psycho, Fences), and features music by composer Dan Moses Schreier (A Soldier’s Play, Carmen Jones, American Psycho). Graphic design is by Harrison Gale.

December 12: In 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 SCHOOL, our third James Stevenson Commission for Short Comedic Plays, was written by playwright and screenwriter Jonathan Spector (Eureka Day, This Much I Know, The Flats) and directed by Daniel Aukin. It stars Paul Sparks (“Physical,” “Sweetbitter,” “House of Cards”), Cindy Cheung (“13 Reasons Why,” “New Amsterdam”), Tracee Chimo Pallero (“People of Earth,” “Difficult People,” “Genius”), and Thomas Jay Ryan (West Side Story, The Crucible, The Little Foxes, Henry Fool). Graphic design is by Harrison Gale.

December 19: In this holiday dazzler written, directed and produced by Arian Moayed (“Succession,” Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, The Humans), 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 in the red suit from singing the blues.

THE MAN IN RED, our first musical, features music by Butch Phelps (Heavy Pour, Play Sounds) and performances by Brian Cox (“Succession,” Broadway’s The Great Society), Jayne Houdyshell (“Only Murders in the Building,” The Humans, Little Women), Phylicia Rashad (A Raisin in the Sun, “David Makes Man,” “The Cosby Show”), Brandon Dirden (All the Way, The Piano Lesson), Javier Muñoz (Hamilton, In the Heights), Lily Santiago (“La Brea,” Measure for Measure, A Doll’s House, Part 2), Cecilia Suárez, Sue Jean Kim (Office Hour, “The Blacklist,” Cop Show), Brendan Donaldson (The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill, vol. 1, Prophecy), Rodney Gardiner (The Persians, The Last Year in the Life of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King), and Lauren Sharpe (Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill, Boardwalk Empire).

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