Open Culture » Theater

Julius Caesar Gets Clipped 2054 Years Ago Today

Dan Colman — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:19:11 +0000

March 15th. It translates to the Ides of March on the Roman Calendar. And it’s the date when Julius Caesar was famously assassinated in 44 B.C. To mark the occasion (today is the Ides of March), we bring you a dramatic, six-minute clip of the assassination scene from the film version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz in 1953. The scene features Louis Calhern as Caesar, John Gielgud as Cassius and James Mason as Brutus. The film also stars Marlon Brando as Mark Antony, but we only get a fleeting glimpse of him in this scene as the plotters contrive to separate him from Caesar.

Note: You can download a free audio version of Shakespeare’s play thanks to Librivox, or get a free etext here. And if you have an iPhone, feel free to download a free app that includes all of Shakespeare plays.

Mike, one of our faithful readers, gets all of the cred for this one! Many thanks.

Julius Caesar Gets Clipped 2054 Years Ago Today is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Twilight Zone Radio: Download Free Episodes

Dan Colman — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:12:17 +0000

The Twilight Zone aired between 1959 and 1964, and it became one of America’s iconic television shows. Although the program ended long ago, the show lives on today … on the radio. Airing on 200 stations across the US, Twilight Zone Radio dramatizes Rod Serling’s classic scripts for today’s radio audiences. And it does it with help of actor Stacy Keach, the show’s host, and celebrities (Jason Alexander, Ed Begley Jr., etc.) playing lead roles in the dramas. You can catch the show on the radio (find your local radio station here). Or, right now, you can download three free episodes of past shows. Each runs about 40 minutes, and, if you find yourself hungering for more, you can always purchase individual episodes from the Twilight Zone Radio archive for $1.95.

On a related note, be sure to see our previous post: Orson Welles Vintage Radio

Twilight Zone Radio: Download Free Episodes is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Great Theatre for Free

Dan Colman — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 01:08:31 +0000

A quick public service announcement:

Beginning Saturday, March 13, L.A. Theatre Works Radio Theatre Series will air Fallen Angels by Noel Coward, starring Annette Bening, Harriet Harris, Judith Ivey, Joe Mantegna, John Rubinstein, and Kristoffer Tabori. The broadcast can be heard locally in Southern California on Saturday from 10 pm to midnight on 89.3 KPCC, and can also be streamed on demand at http://www.latw.org/.

LA Theatre Works stages numerous audio plays each year, featuring leading actors and actresses. You can access their other recent productions here: iTunes – Web Site

Great Theatre for Free is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Orson Welles Vintage Radio

Dan Colman — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:41:55 +0000

Back in the late 1930s, Orson Welles launched The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a radio program dedicated to bringing dramatic, theatrical productions to the American airwaves. The show had a fairly short run. It lasted from 1938 to 1941. But it made its mark. During these few years, The Mercury Theatre aired The War of the Worlds, an episode narrated by Welles that led many Americans to believe their country was under Martian attack. The legendary production was based on H.G. Wells’ early sci-fi novel, and you can listen to it here. Welles’ radio show also adapted a series of other major novels, including Dracula, Treasure Island, and The Count of Monte Cristo. And then there’s Dickens. In 1938 and 1939, The Mercury Theatre produced two versions of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In the 1938 version (get mp3), Welles played the role of Scrooge. The 1939 version (mp3) features Lionel Barrymore (yup, the granduncle of Drew Barrymore) playing the same role. Perfect listening for the holiday season. You can listen to these shows and others at this web site dedicated to The Mercury Theatre on the Air.

PS Orson Welles’ film, The Stranger (1946) with Edward G. Robinson, appears in our collection of Free Movies Online.

Orson Welles Vintage Radio is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Download The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Dan Colman — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:58:13 +0000

Here’s an American classic. The Crucible, the great play by Arthur Miller, premiered in 1953, and it famously used the 1690s Salem Witch Trials to offer a commentary on McCarthyite America. Thanks to LA Theatre Works, you can now listen to the play online. The production stars Stacy Keach, Richard Dreyfuss, Ed Begley, Jr., Joe Spano, and Michael York, among others. And it’s directed by Martin Jenkins. You can access it in two mp3s: Hour 1 here and Hour 2 here.

via @learnoutloud

Download The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Ian McKellen in King Lear

Dan Colman — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:27:36 +0000

Thanks to PBS, you can watch online Ian McKellen starring in King Lear, one of Shakesepeare’s finest tragedies. McKellen performed the play first in England (2007), then on a worldwide tour, before filming the production for public television. You can watch it all right here, and if you want to follow the original text, you can get it from MIT’s Shakespeare web site, which houses Shakespeare’s complete works online.

Related Content:

What Did Shakespeare Really Look Like?

Goethe and Shakespeare on Google

Shakespeare and the Uses of Political Power

via Metafilter

Ian McKellen in King Lear is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Dramatizing the Middle East

Dan Colman — Wed, 06 May 2009 06:03:07 +0000

When Israel entered Gaza earlier this year, Caryl Churchill, whom Tony Kushner calls “one of the most important and influential playwrights living,” wrote a nine minute play entitle “Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza.” In February, it had a brief run at London’s Royal Court Theatre and elicited very different reactions. Some celebrated the play, calling it “dense, beautiful, elusive and intentionally indeterminate” but also appropriately “disturbing” and “provocative;” others labeled it a blood libel and essentially anti-semitic. Although controversial, the Guardian felt that it was important for people to see the play and form their own views. So they commissioned a performance and had it distributed online. You can watch it above, draw you own conclusions, and, if you want, read more about the project over at the Guardian.

This piece of video was sent to us by rkclibrary over Twitter. Thanks for thinking of us.

Dramatizing the Middle East is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Remembering Harold Pinter

Dan Colman — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:10:00 +0000

Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning playwright, died in London on Wednesday. As The New York Times obit mentions, when Pinter won the Nobel in 2005, his declining health prevented him from attending the awards ceremony in Stockholm. Instead, he gave his acceptance lecture -- “Art, Truth & Politics” — via a recorded video, which we’re posting below. (You can also watch it on the Nobel web site here or alternatively read the transcript.) The speech runs a good 45 minutes.

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Harold Pinter’s “The Dumb Waiter” Animated

Dan Colman — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:57:44 +0000

and condensed…

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Harold Pinter’s “The Dumb Waiter” Animated is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Pulitzer Prize-Winning Play Ready to Download and Sync

Dan Colman — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 06:18:00 +0000

When you think Broadway, you don’t necessarily think first about plays that make science its point of focus. Or at least

you didn’t before Copenhagen hit the stage in 1998 and dramatically told the story of Niels Bohr’s shadowy meeting with Werner Heisenberg back in 1941. Since then, science plays have been going strong. Just take this for example: L.A. Theatre Works recently launched its Relativity Series, a “monthly broadcast featuring plays that explore the impact of science on individuals and society.” You can download the series as a podcast (iTunes – Feed – Web Site), and it so happens that the series kicks off with a Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning play called Proof, starring Anne Heche.

Written by David Auburn in 2001, Proof is not as academic as it sounds. The New York Times called it “An exhilarating and assured new play . . . accessible and compelling as a detective story.” And Hollywood turned the play into a film in 2005, with Gwyneth Paltrow playing the lead. So you shouldn’t have any reservations about immersing yourself in this dramatic work. Download it, sync it, and get ready to listen to a tale of love and death, intellectual adventure and paranoia, and a sprinkling of sex, drugs and rock and roll.

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Pulitzer Prize-Winning Play Ready to Download and Sync is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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