New Slate of Theater Originals Now Available Exclusively on Audible
Audible today announced a new slate of Audible Original theater titles, debuting exclusively on Audible on March 3, 2022. These titles continue to deliver the theater experience to a wider audience, through audio.
Approval Junkie, And So We Walked, and The Fever were each first performed live at the Minetta Lane Theatre, Audible’s home for live entertainment in New York City. These three unique titles are now coming to audio and feature powerful female stories of personal self-acceptance, sense of identity, and enchanting performances. Additionally, Daddies and The Podcaster were both developed out of Audible’s Emerging Playwright’s Fund, a program that invests in and nurtures self-identifying emerging playwrights, some of the most inventive, delightful, and provocative storytellers, and were recorded straight to audio. Exploring family dynamics and relationships, Daddies, is a look into life’s complications while The Podcaster is a meta look at podcasting, diving into ideas of authorship and sensationalism. Finally, Bernarda’s Daughters explores family, concepts of public and private grief, and family secrets. Bernarda’s Daughters is a co-production from Audible and The New Group.
“Since Audible Theater’s inception, Audible has been able to successfully bring theater to millions of listeners by providing access to shows for people who might not have access to New York or other live theater hubs, in person,” said Kate Navin, Head of Audible Theater. “We are devoted to bringing theater to everyone regardless of location, through quality audio entertainment. It’s also such a joy to showcase the incredible flexibility and reach of audio to the enormously talented creatives who call theater their home and give them space to create in audio. We’re excited for this spring revival of the Audible Theater catalogue.”
ABOUT THE NEW TITLES:
Approval Junkie Cast: Faith Salie
Faith Salie's Approval Junkie, developed in collaboration with Amanda Watkins, finally made its New York premiere after original rehearsals were postponed in March 2020. Emmy-winning comedian Salie, a regular guest on NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! and host of Science Goes to the Movies on PBS, returned to her home city to present a brand-new one-woman memoir. Approval Junkie brings her laugh-out-loud, often tender recollections of the turbulent emotional waters of adolescence and adulthood to listeners. It is a no-holds-barred look into Salie's very relatable journey to self-acceptance, learning that the only person she ever truly needs to impress is herself.
And So We Walked Cast: DeLanna Studi
And So We Walked is a frank, heartwarming and inspiring story about a contemporary Cherokee woman and her father who embark on an incredible 900-mile journey along the Trail of Tears to truly understand her own identity and the conflicts of her nation. The play recounts the six-week journey, which retraced the path her great-great grandparents took in the 1830s during the forced relocation of 17,000 Cherokee from their homelands. And So We Walked is a powerful, multi-faceted dramatic memoir that draws on extraordinary interviews, historical research, and the artist’s personal experience to convey the complexities and conflicts with which the Cherokee wrestle.
The Fever Cast: Lili Taylor
What’s the cost of comfort? In The Fever, playwright, actor, and cultural icon Wallace Shawn (My Dinner with André, The Designated Mourner) captures the crisis of conscience of a privileged American traveler visiting a war-torn country. Faced with the disparity between her rarified world and the real world, she can’t help but wonder if she’s part of the solution, or part of the problem. Three-time Emmy Award nominee Lili Taylor (Six Feet Under, American Crime) stars in this profoundly engaging and provocative journey, directed by The New Group’s Founding Artistic Director Scott Elliott
Daddies Cast: Hale Appleman, Jennifer Kidwell, Tonilyn A. Sideco, Sydney Harcourt, Kenneth Bolden, Mary Poole, Mark Linn-Baker, Barbara Chisholm, Piper Goodeve, Gabe Vaughan, Karina Kruse
Joseph is having a comically rough year. His job sucks, his relationship ended, he’s plagued by prank phone calls, and he nearly lost his father to the virus. When his best friend asks him to donate his sperm so that she can start a family, Joseph just can’t understand why anyone would bring a child into this calamitous world. The only bright spot is an intriguing new online relationship with an attractive internet “daddy” that has him rethinking his isolation—until a series of revelations have him facing even bigger decisions about his future.
The Podcaster Cast: Stacey Yen, Corey Stoll, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Erin Markey, Ato Blankson-Wood, Peter Kim, Michael Braun
Who controls our stories? Christopher Chen’s extraordinary new play takes an unpredictable trip into the ways storytelling can reshape what we believe about ourselves and others. We meet Sylvia Chang, host of a popular radio series that features interviews with pioneering artists. When Sylvia goes missing, her listeners are left to wonder—is this also an art piece? The journey continues and the mysteries multiply in this mind-bending audio play that investigates the very nature of reality.
Bernarda’s Daughters Cast: Mayaa Boateng, Amara Brady, Malika Samuel, Lorraine Toussaint, Jasmin Walker, Zenzi Williams
It’s a sweltering summer in Flatbush. In a neighborhood overrun by wrecking crews and new construction, the five Abellard sisters take refuge in their family home. In spite of their jovial, teasing conversations, the sisters are mourning the death of their father and the changing neighborhood. Each of them is also confronting personal losses of their youth and their dreams for the future. Inspired by the classic play House of Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca, but bracingly contemporary, Bernarda’s Daughters confronts issues of class, race, gentrification, and where a woman’s place is in a rapidly changing world. Drenched in sparkling, witty dialog, Bernarda’s Daughters is a thrilling, engrossing exploration of a family at a crossroads. A co-production from Audible and The New Group.
About Audible Theater Audible Theater makes outstanding performances and powerful storytelling available to millions of people all over the world. As part of this initiative, Audible has produced Girls & Boys with Carey Mulligan, The Half-Life of Marie Curie with Kate Mulgrew, Harry Clarke starring Billy Crudup, Billy Crystal’s Have A Nice Day with Annette Bening and Kevin Kline, the revival of Aasif Mandvi’s Sakina’s Restaurant, and many others at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York City. In May 2018, Audible announced that the Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village will serve as its creative home for live performances in New York. Audible hosts and produces a wide variety of live performances at the Minetta Lane including dramatic plays, comedic shows, engaging panel discussions, and more, with Audible members receiving exclusive access to discounted tickets and related audio content.
Audible was co-producer for the Broadway transfer of the Tony Award-nominated Latin History for Morons written by and starring John Leguizamo and for the Tony Award-nominated Sea Wall / A Life starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge. The initiative also saw the release of John Lithgow’s Stories By Heart, Judith Light’s All The Ways To Say I Love You, Sharon Washington’s Feeding The Dragon, and more. Since June 2017, Audible has commissioned 40 theater playwrights to receive support from its $5 million Emerging Playwrights Fund dedicated to developing innovative English-language works from around the globe. The $5 million fund enables the creation of original plays driven by language and voice, keeping with Audible’s core commitment to elevating listening experiences through powerful performances and extraordinary vocal storytelling.
About Audible’s Emerging Playwright’s Fund In 2017, Audible launched a theater initiative, intended to radically increase access to exceptional plays and performances. A core pillar of the initiative is the Emerging Playwrights Fund, a program that identifies, nurtures, and invests in self-identified emerging playwrights, some of our most inventive, delightful, and provocative storytellers. Through the fund, Audible aims to connect extraordinary performers with remarkable original work, amplifying new voices and harnessing the power and potential of audio to reach millions of listeners. Since its launch, Audible has released 16 commissions on audible.com and produced two (Proof of Love by Chisa Hutchinson, The Half-Life of Marie Curie by Lauren Gunderson) at the Minetta Lane Theatre in NYC. Audible Theater’s first commission, Evil Eye by Madhuri Shekar, won the 2020 Audie Award for Best Original and was adapted into a major motion picture (Amazon Studios/Blumhouse).
About The New Group The New Group, led by founding Artistic Director Scott Elliott and Executive Director Adam Bernstein, is an award-winning, artist-driven company with a commitment to developing and producing powerful, contemporary theater. While constantly evolving, we strive to maintain an ensemble approach to all our work and an articulated style of emotional immediacy in our acting and productions. In this way, we seek a theater that is adventurous, stimulating and most importantly “now”, a true forum for the present culture.
