Timothée Chalamet and Caitlin FitzGerald recording John Patrick Shanley's Tennessee.
About Us
We are an audio theatre podcast, dedicated to producing and sharing great short plays.
Mission
To make theater more accessible for all–regardless of time, funds, or location.
Bobby Cannavale and Peter Gallagher recording 2 Dads by David Auburn.
Our Story
In 2010, veteran theater producer Claudia Catania was seeing a lot of developmental readings. For many of them, the design was minimal: no set, no costumes, no fancy lighting. The entire script was manifested through the actors’ voices alone.
Claudia asked: Who could this play reach? Why just the 50 listeners in the room? Why not a thousand? Why not a million?
From these questions, Claudia began Playing on Air, a new way for people around the country to hear America’s best theater practitioners.
Playing on Air launched in 2012 as a radio program broadcast across 24 states and Washington, D.C. Listeners enjoyed hour-long miniseries during road trips and morning commutes. Although we are now primarily a podcast, all our radio shows are still available for licensing on PRX, and we plan to be on the airwaves again soon.
As a podcast, Playing on Air offers listeners even more flexibility without compromising on talent and storytelling. We represent the best of modern theater: accessible, on-demand, polished, and innovative. Our episodes are available wherever you find podcasts.
We hope you enjoy.
Blake DeLong and Louisa Krause recording Winter Games by Rachel Bonds.
Our Love of Short Plays
Short plays are one of a playwright’s favorite forms: punchy, challenging and dramatically lean. Yet outside of some theater festivals, they’re rarely professionally performed. Our podcast affords great playwrights an opportunity to display their short-form skills while enabling listeners to fit great plays into their daily lives.
“Playing on Air is a delightful and supremely useful outlet for the much neglected art form called The One-Act Play!”
Our Podcast
Our catalog contains 150 short plays and counting, all available for free via our podcast.
Our plays exist where dialogue and imagination meet. We rely on the strength of the writing, the precision of the acting, and the intelligence of the direction to create vivid scenes in the listener’s mind.
“I love Playing on Air because it makes the listener my collaborator, supplying faces, settings and atmosphere beyond anything designers or I might supply.”
We work with the best and brightest of American theatre to bring our audio plays to life.
Previous collaborators include Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights Lynn Nottage, David Lindsay-Abaire, and John Patrick Shanley; Tony-winning actors Audra McDonald, John Lithgow, and Jonathan Groff; and Tony-winning directors Daniel Aukin, Rachel Chavkin, and Rebecca Taichman.
“Playing on Air allows actors to have the thrilling experience of acting without having to look in a mirror first.”
Most of our plays hover around the 20-minute mark. Every episode includes a conversation with the artists that covers such topics as the actors’ process, the playwright’s method, and the meaning of the particular work.
Find a comfy seat. The show begins whenever you want it to.
Audra McDonald and Tonya Pinkins, directed by Seret Scott, recording Lynn Nottage's Poof!