May's selection of free audio theater from L.A. Theatre Works

Jill Weinlein - Chief Los Angeles Theatre Critic

With venues still dark during the pandemic, world-class theater from L.A. Theatre Works is providing entertainment just a click away in the comfort of your home.

The world's leading producer of audio theater, L.A. Theatre Works offers audiences around the globe free an access link to state-of-the-art recordings of both contemporary and classic plays. Each performance is by leading actors of stage and screen.

LATW productions are aired weekly internationally and in the U.S. by radio stations, and now beginning every Saturday, audiences can stream that week’s broadcast online for free, along with broadcasts from previous weeks.

Currently streaming: The Graduate, with Matthew Rhys and Kathleen Turner. Available starting May 2: Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw, starring Roger Rees, Eric Stoltz and Victoria Tennant; starting May 9: Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare, starringAlan Alda, Chuma Hunter-Gault and Swoosie Kurtz; May 16: Act One by James Lapine, from the autobiography by Moss Hart, starring Jane Kaczmarek, Mark Jude Sullivan and Jon Tenney; May 23: Table Manners by Alan Ayckbourn, starring Rosalind Ayres, Martin Jarvis and Jane Leeves; and May 30: The Goodbye Girl by Neil Simon, starring Matthew Floyd Miller and Amy Pietz.

To stream current and recently broadcast plays from the L.A. Theatre Works weekly radio series, go to https://latw.org/broadcasts#recent.

Listeners can hear additional titles by subscribing, also free, to L.A. Theatre Works podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify and NPR One. Some of the titles available in May include Mizlansky/Zilinsky, a hilarious comedy by Jon Robin Baitz about two Hollywood con men trying to hatch one last grand scheme, starring Nathan Lane, Richard Masur, Rob Morrow and Harry Shearer; and Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine, a darkly comic rags-to-riches-to-rags tale by Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage that stars Charlayne Woodard. Subscribe at https://latw.org/podcasts.

Free access is always available to over 30 science-themed plays from the company’s “Relativity Series.” Titles include award-winning plays such as Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, starring Kate Burton and Gergory Itzin; and Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler starring Miriam Margolyes, Matthew Arkin and Maxwell Caulfield. With lead 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. 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 supports non-profit organizations across the country, by supplying a choice of targeted recordings. Samplings include: Theater Development Fund (TDF): Art, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Motherf**cker with the Hat, The Mountaintop and Glengarry Glen Ross; Museum of the Holocaust: Kindertransport and Judgment at Nuremberg; Bloomsburg University Performing Arts Center: Photograph 51 and Red; Arena Stage: The Originalist; Beverly Hills Temple of the Arts: Denial and The Assembled Parties; Kravis Performing Arts Center: Lost in Yonkers and Judgment at Nuremberg; National Center for Science Education: The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial; and the Feminist Majority Foundation: Seven and Photograph 51.

In addition to all the free offerings, LATW has a catalog of over 500 recorded plays available for purchase. Newly released and now on sale: The Hard Problem, a hilariously mind-bending comedy by multi-Tony® award-winner Tom Stoppard that explores the origins of human consciousness: starring Games of Thrones’ Hannah Murray, with Eddie Cahill, Rosie Fellner, Desirée Mee Jung, Julian Morris, Moira Quirk and Alex Wyndham. For more information, go to https://latw.org/title/hard-problem.