YOU BELONG TO ME by Daniel Reitz (Summer 2022 Re-Release)

This week's summer re-release features Daniel Reitz's (NAPOLEON IN EXILE) affecting one-act YOU BELONG TO ME, featuring Amy Ryan (Oscar nominated for Gone, Baby, Gone, "The Office," "Only Murders in the Building," and a five-time Playing On Air MVP) and Michael Stuhlbarg (a recent Emmy nominee for "Dopesick," "The Staircase," "Boardwalk Empire," A Serious Man, and four-time Playing On Air veteran), as former lovers--who've gone very separate ways in the intervening years--having a chance meeting on the subway. Stay tuned after the performance for a spirited conversation between Reitz and the play’s director, Playing on Air founder and consulting director Claudia Catania.

Download on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Podbay, Player FM, subscribe to our RSS feed, search ‘Playing on Air’ in your favorite podcasting app – or stream below! [ 17 Minutes 58 Seconds]

AT THE WATER'S EDGE, WET by Jonathan Bernstein (Summer 2022 Re-Release)

The curtain is up. The show is in progress. But for two stage managers calling the cues behind the scenes, the night's most dazzling romance isn't playing out onstage. Written and directed by Jonathan Bernstein (PoA's RULES OF COMEDY & A VERY VERY SHORT PLAY) , AT THE WATER’S EDGE, WET stars Callie Thorne (“Necessary Roughness,” “Rescue Me,” “The Wire”) and Tony nominee Jeremy Shamos (Broadway's Clybourne Park, "Better Call Saul," PoA's HEDGEHOG YEARS).  Stay tuned after the performance for an in-studio conversation with the artists, moderated by founder and consulting director Claudia Catania.

Download on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, search ‘Playing on Air’ in your favorite podcasting app – or stream below! [20 Minutes 13 Seconds]

RELATIVE STRANGERS by Sheri Wilner (Summer 2022 Re-Release)

This week's summer re-release features RELATIVE STRANGERS, a bubbly comedic short from playwright Sheri Wilner (The Miracle of Chanukah, Cake Off, Kingdom City) about a young woman who, during a flight to South Carolina, decides the woman next to her just might be the mother she never had. She finds an ally in a wacky stewardess who, unlike the reluctant mother figure, thinks these two passengers are a match made in heaven.

Directed by founder, consulting director, and host Claudia Catania, RELATIVE STRANGERS features Tony Award recipient Julie Halston (You Can't Take It With You, Anything Goes, "Sex and the City"), actor, playwright, and composer Michael Keck (Fences, Voices in the Rain, Hollywood Scheherazade), Tony and Emmy Award winner Debra Monk (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, "The Gilded Age," "New Amsterdam"), and Merritt Wever ("Unbelievable," "Run," "Nurse Jackie").

Download on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Podbay, Player FM, subscribe to our RSS feed, search ‘Playing on Air’ in your favorite podcasting app – or stream below!

OPEN ARMS by Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros (Summer 2022 Re-Release)

In Open Arms by Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros, an impending 50th birthday party sets off calamity over coffee and Kindles. Open Arms is directed by Tony Award winner John Rando and features Julie White (The Little Dog Laughed - TONY, Airline Highway - TONY nomination), and Bill Irwin (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - TONY). Stay tuned after the performance for a conversation between our Artistic Director, Claudia Catania, the playwright, director, and cast.

Download on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Podbay, Player FM, subscribe to our RSS feed, search ‘Playing on Air’ in your favorite podcasting app – or stream below! [20 Minutes 51 Seconds]

CELL by Cassandra Medley (Summer 2022 Re-Release)

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 battle over home and homeland security. As Gwen races to save a detained child, CELL paints a searing picture of the secrets we keep in order to survive.

This powerful piece by Cassandra Medley, directed by Victor Lirio, “deftly explores the dirty antidemocratic secret of institutionalized racism” (New York Times). After the play, Medley joins Pulitzer Prize-winning immigration journalist Julia Preston, Broadway producer Cheryl Wiesenfeld, and host Claudia Catania to move beyond headlines and explore the real lives that inspired CELL. 

Cell was supported in part by Cheryl Wiesenfeld Productions.

Download on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Podbay, Player FM, subscribe to our RSS feed, search ‘Playing on Air’ in your favorite podcasting app – or stream below! [52 Minutes 53 Seconds]

Gun Show by David Auburn (Summer 2022 Re-Release)

From David Auburn, Pulitzer and Tony winner for PROOF, comes a riveting, witty world-premiere commission for Playing on Air: GUN SHOW. In the aftershock of a national tragedy, a congenial double-date morphs into a battle of the sexes. As tempers blaze, two couples must reconsider the possibility of safety in a divided nation. Along with Emmy winners Bobby Cannavale (“Will & Grace,” “Boardwalk Empire”) and Martha Plimpton (triple Tony nominee, “The Real O’Neals,” “The Good Wife”), the star cast features Eisa Davis, David Furr, and Lucy DeVito. Gun Show was directed by Wendy Goldberg and performed in front of a live audience at Playwrights Horizons in New York City. After the play, host Claudia Catania talks shop with the entire creative team.

Gun Show was commissioned by Playing on Air with the support of The Gilchrist Foundation and Phyllis and Joel Ehrlich.

Download on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Podbay, Player FM, subscribe to our RSS feed, search ‘Playing on Air’ in your favorite podcasting app – or stream below! [31 Minutes 56 Seconds]

THE MAN IN RED by Arian Moayed

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).

Download on iTunes, Podbay, Player FM, subscribe to our RSS feed, search ‘Playing on Air’ in your favorite podcasting app – or stream below!

JARED AND IVANKA’S PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE AT MAURICE J. FELDMAN JEWISH DAY SCHOOL by Jonathan Spector

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.

Download on iTunes, Podbay, Player FM, subscribe to our RSS feed, search ‘Playing on Air’ in your favorite podcasting app – or stream below.

JACOB AND AMAL by Dipika Guha

On the precipice of making a world changing medical breakthrough, Amal visits an old lover and they 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), Keith Randolph Smith (Jitney, American Psycho, Fences), and Finn Kilgore, and features music by composer Dan Moses Schreier (A Soldier’s Play, Carmen Jones, American Psycho). Graphic design is by Harrison Gale.

Download on iTunes, Podbay, Player FM, subscribe to our RSS feed, search ‘Playing on Air’ in your favorite podcasting app – or stream below!

THE HUMAN EXPERIMENT by Mfoniso Udofia

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.

Download on iTunes, Podbay, Player FM, subscribe to our RSS feed, search ‘Playing on Air’ in your favorite podcasting app – or stream below!