Showing results by narrator "Edward Asner" in All Categories

Eight highly diverse works from one of America’s most prolific and versatile authors. This collection includes an exclusive dramatization of Oates’ best-selling novel American Appetites; two comedic plays, The Perfectionist and The Truth Teller; four short plays (Gulf War, Black, The Key, and Tone Clusters); as well as her libretto for Black Water: An American Opera, composed by John Duffy.

On November 24, 1947, the most powerful men in American film met in New York’s plush Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to decide how to address the Communist witch-hunt being carried out by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Twenty-four hours later, they emerged having created the Hollywood Blacklist. The Waldorf Conference dramatically speculates on what went on in that room.

Hilarity abounds in this portrait of three couples successively occupying a suite at the Plaza Hotel. A suburban couple takes a suite while their house is being painted, a Hollywood producer calls a childhood sweetheart for a little sexual diversion, and a mother and father fight about the best way to get their daughter, the bride, out of the bathroom and back to the wedding.

Grange, Florida, is famous for its miracles--the weeping fiberglass Madonna, the Road-Stain Jesus, the stigmata man. And now it has JoLayne Lucks, unlikely winner of the state lottery. Unfortunately, JoLayne's winning ticket isn't the only one. The other belongs to Bodean Gazzer and his raunchy...

The Key and Tone Clusters are two one-act plays by 2009 Man Booker Nominee Joyce Carol Oates. The Key is a hilariously perverse encounter between a vacationing suburban housewife, recently separated from her husband, and a prosperous businessman. Tone Cluster is a chilling comedy that takes the form of an interview between a middle-aged, middle-class American couple and the media.

At the age of 48, film critic David Denby returned to his alma mater, Columbia University, to re-experience the core humanities courses he had taken as a freshman 30 years before. Facing the question of what he really knows, Denby re-examines the besieged Western classics, ranging from Homer, Sappho, and Sophocles to Dante, Nietzsche, and Woolf. What relevance do the writers and thinkers of the past have to our current life? The answer surprised Denby and will surprise and enlighten his listeners.

The original version of LATW’s groundbreaking docudrama about the Pentagon Papers, the infamous classified documents about US involvement in the Vietnam War, and how The Washington Post fought the government to publish them. Includes a 1991 panel discussion with journalists Ben Bradlee, Peter Braestrup, Robert Maynard, Carla Robbins, Robert Scheer, and George Wilson.

It's not every day a federal judge comes knocking at one's door, especially with a curious request—to review the final appeal of a murderer on Death Row. California lawyer Greg Monarch has every intention of saying no to the request—until he discovers the prisoner is his former lover. Six months from execution, Sarah Trant has turned to the one man she hopes can save her. Greg failed once before trying to rescue Sarah from her private demons. This time, however, the demons may not be just in her head.

If the Watergate scandal was a national nightmare, then maybe the Clinton scandal was a national wet dream, and who better to narrate it than the screenwriter Joe Eszterhas? In American Rhapsody, Eszterhas, whose credits include Basic Instinct and Showgirls, takes us through the events that threatened to topple a president. From scandalmongers Matt Drudge and Ken Starr, to his final, unimpeachable witness, Willard - none other than President Clinton's talking penis - Eszterhas gives us the goods.

What do fast-talking New York octogenarians Abe and Mabel do when their lifelong grocery store, Pepperstein Produce, is driven out of business by Wonder Food? They embark on the ultimate road trip with a 19-year-old stoner, Wisdom, to Los Angeles to become actors.

From the imagination of radio pioneer Norman Corwin comes one of the strangest trials in the history of jurisprudence. A molecule refuses to be assigned to any particular substance and insists on choosing for itself.

Forty-Two Stories is a comedy about life in a high-rise condominium. A motley assortment of staff members struggles with survival in the face of urban pandemonium - and with the fact that one of them may be breaking into the units and stealing women's underwear.

What if, all of a sudden, everyone started performing good deeds every day? This inspiring collection presents many true stories of people who've committed, received, and observed voluntary acts of kindness. Hearing their stories reveals how these simple, small acts of goodness can have a profound positive effect in the world. As explained in the text, "every hand we extend, every act of kindness we commit, sends a ripple out into the world that is magnified by every life it encounters."

Fast-forward to 2076, the nation's Tri-Centennial, when guns are outlawed and displayed in the city zoo. Find out what happens when the last seven existing guns, including Billy the Kid's Colt.45 and Andrew Jackson's Dueling Pistol, escape to see what they were really made for and why they can never be free. Starring Yeardley Smith, Edward Asner, and Tyne Daly!

Stacy Keach stars in this shocking tale of a Polk Street dentist and his wife in 1899 San Francisco. Frank Norris’ powerful insights into the depths of the human soul make this a story of compelling narrative force. This seminal novel about murder, obsession and the destructive effects of greed features an all-star cast including Stacy Keach, Edward Asner, Ed Begley Jr., Bud Cort, Hector Elizondo, Teri Garr, Katherine Helmond, Helen Hunt, Amy Irving, Carol Kane, Marsha Mason, Richard Masur, Judge Reinhold, and more.

Adapted directly from the actual transcripts, Unquestioned Integrity examines the notorious Senate Confirmation hearings, when law professor Anita Hill charged Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas with sexual harassment.

In the folklore of Eastern European Jewry, a dybbuk is a wandering soul that comes to rest in the body of a living person. In this case, the dybbuk is an impoverished student that possesses a young bride on her wedding day. She is taken to a great Chassidic rabbi for exorcism. But before he can expel the spirit, the sage must discover who the dybbuk was in life, why he has possessed the maiden, and most importantly, how to balance the scales of cosmic justice.

Commerce and heroism clash when a titan of American business orchestrates a U.S. invasion of Mexico. This long-lost 1927 Broadway melodrama combines the crackling dialogue and riveting storytelling of The Front Page with Wag the Dog cynicism.

Adapted from the diaries of Richard Wagner, Beethoven’s music soars in the background as a poor young composer named Richard Wagner struggles toward Vienna to meet the composer he idealizes.

Director David Fishelson transforms Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot into spellbinding drama that illuminates both titanic novels. In The Brothers Karamazov, the passionate brothers spring to life, led by their roué of a father ¿ who entertains himself by drinking, womanizing, and pitting his three sons against each other. The men have plenty to fight over, including the alluring Grushenka.