Performance audiobooks

The Grapes of Wrath

By: John Steinbeck

Narrated by: Emily Bergl, Mike Buie, Daniel Chacon, Maurice ...

Length: 1 hour 58 minutes

Abridged: No

A heart-wrenching full-cast adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by John Steinbeck, starring Jeffrey Donovan and Shirley Knight. Set during the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath tells the powerful story of the Joad family’s trek from the dust bowl of Oklahoma to the promise of a new life in California. But what they find... Read more

More News from Lake Wobegon: Humor

By: Garrison Keillor

Length: 1 hour 10 minutes

Abridged: No

A thematic collection of Lake Wobegon monologues, Humor includes "Skinny Dip," "Homecoming," "The Freedom of the Press," and "Vicks." Read more

Orson's Shadow

By: Austin Pendleton

Narrated by: Caroline Goodall, Glenne Headly, Martin Jarvis,...

Length: 1 hour 55 minutes

Abridged: No

Sir Laurence Olivier. Orson Welles. Vivien Leigh. Joan Plowright. Kenneth Tynan. When these champions of the theatre get together to rehearse Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, mere mortals best step aside. With lightning wit and scathing insight into the true nature of genius, Austin Pendleton’s play opens the private worlds of these very public people,... Read more

Earth and Sky

By: Douglas Post

Narrated by: Ana-Alicia, Ed Begley Jr., Annette Bening, Jana...

Length: 1 hour 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Head in the clouds, Sara McKeon lives in the rarefied world of library work and poetry readings. She seems completely unsuited to investigating the sudden brutal murder of her lover. A haunting mystery infused with humor, poetry, and urban grit.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Ana-Alicia,Ed Begley Jr., Annette Bening, Jana... Read more

Dugout III: Warboy (and the Backboard Blues )

By: Terry Allen

Narrated by: Jo Harvey Allen, Terry Allen, Richard Bowden & ...

Length: 1 hour 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Drawing upon his childhood memories of West Texas, artist, musician and writer Terry Allen has created this magical, multi-layered evening in the tradition of Southern story-telling. As Allen explains, “Dugout is a love story; an investigation into how memory is invented.”

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Jo Harvey Allen,... Read more

Dinner With Friends

By: Donald Margulies

Narrated by: Matthew Arkin, Lisa Emery, Kevin Kilner & Deird...

Length: 1 hour 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for drama, Dinner with Friends examines the lives of two couples and the repercussions of divorce on their friendships. With wit, compassion and consummate skill, playwright Donald Margulies weighs the cost of breaking up — and of staying together.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Matthew... Read more

Dinah Was

By: Oliver Goldstick

Narrated by: Paul Eiding, Yvette Freeman, Adriane Lenox, Bud...

Length: 1 hour 52 minutes

Abridged: No

In a white fur coat, “The Queen of the Blues” sits on her luggage outside a Las Vegas hotel. It is 1959; the legendary star cannot enter the hotel without a white escort. So Dinah Washington, in her inimitable style, takes a long pull from her flask and starts kicking up a fuss. Yvette Freeman reprises her Obie award-winning performance in this... Read more

Brighton Beach Memoirs

By: Neil Simon

Narrated by: Max Casella, Peter Michael Goetz, Valerie Harpe...

Length: 1 hour 54 minutes

Abridged: No

In Neil Simon’s darkly funny memoir of his family in 1930’s Brooklyn, fourteen-year-old Eugene is preoccupied by his passion for the Yankees and his lust for his beautiful cousin, Nora. Eugene’s comic growing pains contrast with the darker issues troubling his family: poverty, illness and the growing Nazi threat to relatives in Europe. Simon... Read more

On the Waterfront

By: Budd Schulberg

Narrated by: Maurice Chasse, Richard Cox, Kevin Daniels, Bru...

Length: 1 hour 51 minutes

Abridged: No

Terry Malloy, the “seemingly soulless street survivor,” unwittingly lures a rebellious longshoreman to his death in Budd Schulberg’s searing drama about the New York waterfront, the racketeering unions controlling it, and the kid who “could’a been a contender.” Recorded before a live audience at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, in... Read more

Tape

By: Stephen Belber

Narrated by: William Mapother, Alison West & Josh Stamberg

Length: 1 hour 3 minutes

Abridged: No

When Jon attends the premier of his movie in the Lansing Film Festival, he faces the most important weekend of his young life-but not in ways he expected. His old pal, Vince, has been stewing for a decade and their high school friend, Amy, is now the assistant district attorney in Lansing. Edgy humor gives way to fiery confrontation that... Read more

Spinning Into Butter

By: Rebecca Gilman

Narrated by: Jordan Baker, Daniel Chacon, Michael Cotter, Pa...

Length: 1 hour 37 minutes

Abridged: No

What happens when conflicting emotions inhabit the same space? When a new vocabulary is devised to disguise the same old thoughts? In this barbed satire of political correctness, Rebecca Gilman’s provocative characters spin a web of their own, revealing the latent racism that may lurk beneath the porcelain veneer of a liberated conscience.

An... Read more

A Few More Pretty Good Jokes

By: Garrison Keillor

Length: 1 hour 9 minutes

Abridged: No

The Joke Show is the most popular annual broadcast from A Prairie Home Companion. A Few More Pretty Good Jokes features all the jokes from the most recent shows which aired in April 2000 and 2002 (both were done in New York). These recordings are a welcome supplement to the highly successful previous Joke Book, Tape, and CD. Read more

The Guys

By: Anne Nelson

Narrated by: Swoosie Kurtz & Bill Irwin

Length: 1 hour 25 minutes

Abridged: No

First performed in a hit off-off-Broadway production, and soon to be a film starring Sigourney Weaver and Anthony LaPaglia, The Guys is a timeless drama about the surprising truths people can discover in ordinary lives, and the connections we make with others and ourselves in times of tragedy.

Paralyzed by grief and unable to put his thoughts... Read more

Cakewalk

By: Peter Feibleman & Carly Simon

Narrated by: Samantha Bennett, Bruce Davison, Claudette Nevi...

Length: 2 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

Broadway legend Elaine Stritch stars as literary legend Lillian Hellman in this beguiling account of Hellman’s tumultuous relationship across several decades with a man 25 years her junior, played by Oscar-nominee Bruce Davison. Featuring music by Carly Simon.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Samantha Bennett, Bruce Davison,... Read more

Guy Noir: Radio Private Eye

By: Garrison Keillor

Length: 1 hour 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Grammy® Award nominee!It's a dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but high above the mean streets, a light burns on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, where Guy Noir—hard boiled, world-weary, yet surprisingly articulate—is trying to find the answers to life's questions. In his big swivel chair under the bare bulb beside... Read more

Yiddish Radio Project

By: author

Length: 2 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

The Yiddish Radio Project is based on a series of stories featured on NPR's All Things Considered in the spring of 2002. The series highlights the golden age of Yiddish-American broadcasting in the 1930s to '50s. In its heyday Yiddish radio was heard from coast to coast, with a dozen stations in New York alone. All that survives from that... Read more

A Lesson Before Dying

By: Romulus Linney

Narrated by: Rick Foucheux, Keith Glover, Jamahl Marsh, Lind...

Length: 1 hour 23 minutes

Abridged: No

Based on Ernest J. Gaines’ National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel, A Lesson Before Dying is set in a small Louisiana Cajun community in the late 1940’s. Jefferson, a young illiterate black man, is falsely convicted of murder and is sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, the plantation schoolteacher, agrees to talk with the condemned man.... Read more

Barefoot in the Park

By: Neil Simon

Narrated by: Norman Aronovic, Laura Linney, J. Fred Shiffman...

Length: 1 hour 42 minutes

Abridged: No

A brand-new lawyer and his bride have returned from their honeymoon and are moving into a new apartment. Once there, they find the place is bare of furniture, the paint job is wrong, the skylight leaks and wacky neighbors keep popping up! A classic!

Includes an interview with Marc Masterson, the Artistic Director of South Coast Repertory in Costa... Read more

Tyler on Prime Time

By: Steve Atinsky

Narrated by: Max Casella

Length: 3 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Tyler Stewart knows he’s going to be a television star. He’s funny, and his uncle Pete is a writer for the most popular show on TV. Best of all, Tyler’s parents have just sent him to visit Pete in Hollywood. Talk about luck—no more of his mom’s worrying and his dad’s instructions, for the rest of his summer vacation. Everyone in show business... Read more

The Best and the Second Best of Car Talk

By: Ray Magliozzi & Tom Magliozzi

Length: 2 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

It's a laugh-out-loud collection of wisecracks, automotive first aid, and roadside philosophy. Tom and Ray have gathered the most outrageous and humorous segments from their weekly call-in radio show, including "Eggs Prestone," "Bad Hair Days," "Clinton Sends Vowels to Bosnia," "Gail, the Tollgate Fugitive," and the Tappet Brothers personal... Read more

Radio Mambo: Culture Clash Invades Miami

By: Culture Clash

Narrated by: Culture Clash, Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas & H...

Length: 1 hour 24 minutes

Abridged: No

The acclaimed comedy trio known as Culture Clash spent three months interviewing about 70 Miami residents for this mix of vignettes about urban renewal, crimes, hurricanes and immigration, as well as where to get a plate of arroz con pollo served by a six foot drag queen.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Culture Clash: ... Read more

Shadowlands

By: William Nicholson

Narrated by: Arthur Hanket, Harriet Harris, Nicholas Hormann...

Length: 1 hour 43 minutes

Abridged: No

William Nicholson’s Tony nominated stage adaptation of his award-winning BBC Teleplay relates the story of shy Oxford don and children’s author C.S. Lewis and American poet Joy Gresham. Shadowlands shows how love, and the risk of loss, transformed this great man’s relationships, even with God.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance... Read more

The Return of the King

By: J.R.R. Tolkien

Length: 3 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

The original American full dramatization as broadcast on National Public Radio. War rages in the west—a titanic battle of will and strategy between the great wizard Gandalf and Sauron, the dark lord. Meanwhile, eastward in Mordor, Frodo and Sam approach the end of their improbable quest, bearing the One Ring ever closer to the Cracks of... Read more

The Two Towers

By: J.R.R. Tolkien

Length: 3 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

The original American full dramatization as broadcast on National Public Radio. The Fellowship is broken; the quest to destroy the Ring seems already shrouded in disaster. But as the evil lord Sauron readies his armies for war, Frodo and Sam continue their lonely journey toward Mordor, guided only by Gollum—a deceitful and tortured creature,... Read more