Playwrights Horizons to Present New Season of SOUNDSTAGE Fiction Podcast - Listen to the Season 2 Intro Now

Playwrights Horizons will present the second season of Soundstage, its celebrated anthological scripted fiction podcast. With plays written specifically for the audio format, not translated or recorded live from the stage, Soundstage has, since its debut season in 2020, established itself as a singular, adventurous presence in both the podcasting and theater worlds. Acclaimed actors and award-winning directors, sound designers, and composers realize rich and groundbreaking audio experiences in episodes 15-40 minutes in length. Episodes are available for free to listeners on all major podcasting platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher. In addition to Soundstage, Playwrights Horizons today announces The Detour Series, a collaboration between the theater and The Parsnip Ship, a play development company, launching September 1.

Listen to the season 2 intro below!

Season Two of Soundstage launches August 2 with Program B: Rapid Immersion by Sheila Callaghan (Shameless, Casual), directed and designed by Alex Barron (Playwrights: nightnight for Soundstage; The New Yorker Radio Hour), and continues with Last Words of Uncle Dirt by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig (Snow in Midsummer, The World of Extreme Happiness) directed and composed by Michael Roth (The Web Opera, Beckett's Imagination Dead Imagine) (August 9); two audio plays from David Greenspan (Playwrights: She Stoops to Comedy, Go Back to Where You Are), (There's) No Time for Comedy and Loops, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll (Playwrights: Antlia Pneumatica, Iowa) (August 16); Julia Izumi's His Chest Is Only Skeleton (Upcoming at Playwrights: Regretfully, So the Birds Are), directed by Sarah Hughes (A Woman Among Women, some higher glimmer...) (August 23); The Marriage of Earth and Sky, by Agnes Borinsky (Upcoming at Playwrights: The Trees; A Song of Songs) directed by Brooke O'Harra (Drum of the Waves of Horikawa, You, My Mother) (August 30); Freedom Freedom Freedom Et Cetera, by Dave Harris (Playwrights: Tambo & Bones; Exception to the Rule) directed by Taylor Reynolds (Playwrights: Tambo & Bones; Man Cave) (September 6).

Development for Soundstage began prior to the pandemic, but the program's launch was accelerated (it premiered in April 2020) to serve and expand the Playwrights Horizons audience in the era of social distancing. IndieWire named the first-ever episode, Heather Christian's Prime: A Practical Breviary, "the best podcast episode of the year so far," and Helen Shaw of New York Magazine called it "exquisite." Last year, between seasons One and Two, Soundstage presented the six-part audio play The MS Phoenix Rising, which Elisabeth Vincentelli, writing for The New Yorker, deemed "among the funniest [productions] to emerge from the pandemic."

Playwrights Horizons Artistic Director Adam Greenfield says,"Playwrights Horizons' Soundstage program asserts our driving, deeply held belief that playwrights are the great storytellers of our time. As we seek to expand ways to experience theater as a live event, I'm astonished by the innovation and daring that playwrights have brought to audio: a medium that, in its inherent limitations offers infinite possibilities. Each episode in our line-up is a singular world, realizing each writer's voice with striking clarity. Together as a series, they underline the potency of the written word, and prove the power of the theatrical imagination."

The Detour Series, a collaboration between Playwrights Horizons and The Parsnip Ship, launches with two commissioned site-specific audio journeys that explore Hell's Kitchen, Playwrights Horizons' neighborhood: West Side Quest, written by Opalanietet, and The Mayor of Hell's Kitchen Presents: A Time Traveling Journey Through NYC's Wild West, written by Christin Eve Cato. Both pieces are directed by Kathleen Capdesuñer. The journeys begin at Playwrights Horizons and guide listeners to several specific neighborhood locations that coincide with the audio storytelling. Each piece will be available for three weeks (from August 29 through September 18). Free and fully accessible from each participant's mobile device, this partnership is part of Playwrights Horizons' Lighthouse Series, an eclectic program created to support artists across disciplines. More details, including the full roster of participating artists, will be announced at a later date.

Soundstage Season 2 Schedule & Descriptions

Program B: Rapid Immersion

By Sheila Callaghan

Directed by Alex Barron

August 2

Welcome to the program. We are here to challenge and ultimately elevate you. It won't be easy, but if you trust the process, it will transform you - probably for the better.

Sheila Callaghan's work has been produced at Yale Rep, Clubbed Thumb, Woolly Mammoth, New Georges, Rattestick, and CTG, among others. She's a recipient of the Princess Grace Award, a Susan Smith Blackburn Award, and the prestigious Whiting Award. She's a founding member of 13P and The Kilroys. Her writing for Hulu's Casual and Showtime's Shameless has garnered Golden Globe and WGA Award nominations. This fall, her independent press Tripwire Harlot will launch its Sledgehammer series, geared toward amplifying underrepresented voices.

Alex Barron is an audio producer based in New York. He is part of the audio team at The New York Times, and was previously on staff at WNYC, where he was a producer on The New Yorker Radio Hour. Prior to his career in audio, he worked as a literary manager and dramaturg for many theater companies, including Manhattan Theater Club, MCC Theater and The Sundance Institute. He won a Sarah Lawrence College International Audio Fiction Award for his work on Lucas Hnath's nightnight for Soundstage.

Last Words of Uncle Dirt

By Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig

Directed and Composed by Michael Roth

August 9

An abandoned limestone statue chronicles centuries of adventures through and beyond the Chinese diaspora.

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig is an internationally produced playwright whose work has been seen on the stages of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Hampstead Theatre, the Royal National Theatre, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Manhattan Theater Club, The Goodman Theatre and Classic Stage. Her play collection The China Trilogy: Three Parables of Global Capital was just published by Methuen Drama. She teaches at Bennington College.

Michael Roth is a composer whose work, called "music Ives might have composed had he encountered rock-and-roll and beat poetry," includes chamber music, film scores, The Web Opera (official selection, 34 film festivals), his setting of Beckett's Imagination Dead Imagine (premiered in LA & Prague), and music/sound for theatre: over 250 productions including collaborations with Al Pacino, Tom Hanks, Tom Stoppard, Christopher Plummer, Anne Bogart, Des McAnuff, Culture Clash, many with Randy Newman and, happily, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig.

(There's) No Time for Comedy and Loops

By David Greenspan

Directed by Ken Rus Schmoll

August 16

Two audio plays-an old radio comedy of anxiety in the modern world, and a soliloquy of lost love-sprung from the mind of this singular and iconic playwright.

David Greenspan has appeared at Playwrights Horizons in his plays She Stoops to Comedy and Go Back to Where You Are. He continues to appear in his own plays, perform solo renditions of dramatic and non-dramatic texts and act in the work of contemporary playwrights. His adaptation of The Bridge of San Luis Rey was directed by Ken Rus Schmoll - as will his upcoming solo rendition of Gertrude Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts.

Ken Rus Schmoll directed the world premiere of David Greenspan's adaptation of The Bridge of San Luis Rey at Two River Theater and is working with Mr. Greenspan again on his upcoming solo rendition of Gertrude Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts. At Playwrights Horizons he directed Jenny Schwartz and Todd Almond's Iowa and Anne Washburn's Antlia Pneumatica.

His Chest Is Only Skeleton

By Julia Izumi

Directed by Sarah Hughes

August 23

A little meditation on what it is to carry what we can and can't control, and the crossroads of being and belonging.

Julia Izumi's work has been developed and presented at MTC, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, Bushwick Starr, WP Theater, The COOP, Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Seattle Rep, ArtsWest, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and the NPN/Kennedy Center MFA Playwrights' Workshop. Inaugural OPC Dr. Kerry English Award winner. Current New Dramatists Resident. Current commissions: True Love Productions, MTC/Sloan, Playwrights Horizons, Seattle Rep. MFA: Brown University

Sarah Hughes is a director and producer who makes live performances of all kinds: new plays, devised work, VR/AR projects, audio pieces. Recent directing includes A Walrus in the Body of a Crocodile by MJ Kaufman. As a producer she has developed work with Target Margin, Sibyl Kempson, MoMA, Half Straddle, Tribeca Film Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, and The New York Times. Sarah was a longtime company member of Elevator Repair Service, and is an Affiliated Artist of Target Margin Theater and New Georges. Upcoming projects include GALATEA by MJ Kaufman (August 2022), #Graced by Vanessa Garcia (Spring 2023) and A Woman Among Women by Julia May Jonas (Fall 2023).

The Marriage of Earth and Sky

Agnes Borinsky

Directed by Brooke O'Harra

August 30

The farmer wants the shepherd. The shepherd wants God. The playwright isn't quite sure what she wants. A play about grief and desire and the mess that is the theater.

Agnes Borinsky is a writer and artist who has collaborated on all sorts of projects in basements, backyards, gardens, circus tents, classrooms, bars, and theaters. Selected plays include A Song of Songs (Bushwick Starr & El Puente), Ding Dong It's the Ocean (Rady&Bloom), Brief Chronicle, Books 6-8 (i am a slow tide), and Of Government (Clubbed Thumb). She lives in Los Angeles.

Brooke O'Harra (director and artist), once co-founded NYC-based company The Theater of a Two-headed Calf, and developed and directed all fourteen of their productions including the OBIE Award winning Drum of the Waves of Horikawa (2007 HERE Arts Center) and the opera project You, My Mother (2012 at La Mama ETC, 2013 in the River to River Festival). Brooke also conceived, directed and performed in the Dyke Division's live serial Room for Cream (Four seasons). Brooke is currently working on a large-scale performance project Be Holding with poet Ross Gay, composer Tyshawn Sorey, and the new ensemble Yarn/Wire to premiere in 2023 in Philadelphia.

Freedom Freedom Freedom Et Cetera

By Dave Harris

Directed by Taylor Reynolds

September 6

A panel of Black thinkers (a Broadway playwright, a spoken word poet, a Columbia professor, and an activist) try to define Freedom in the year ???? in this dark comedy about ancestors and artists.

​​Dave Harris is a poet and playwright from West Philly. Selected plays include Tambo & Bones (Playwrights Horizons, Center Theatre Group, 2022), Exception to the Rule (Roundabout Theatre Company, 2022), and Everybody Black (Humana Festival 2019). Upcoming: Incendiary (Woolly Mammoth, 2023), Tambo & Bones (Royal Stratford East, UK, 2023).

Taylor Reynolds is a New York-based director from Chicago and one of the Producing Artistic Leaders of OBIE-winning The Movement Theatre Company. She has worked as a director and collaborator with companies including Playwrights Horizons, CTG, Page 73, Clubbed Thumb, Keen Company, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Company, Baltimore Center Stage, and The 24 Hour Plays. She is the 2021 LPTW Lucille Lortel Award recipient, a New Georges Affiliated Artist, 2017-2018 Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow, and Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab alum.

About Playwrights Horizons

Playwrights Horizons is a writer's theater dedicated to the development of contemporary American Playwrights, and to the production of innovative new work. In a city rich with cultural offerings, Playwrights Horizons' 50-year-old mission is unique; the organization has distinguished itself by a steadfast commitment to centering and advancing the voice of the playwright. It's a mission that is always timely, and one that's necessary in the ongoing evolution of theater in this country.

Playwrights Horizons believes that playwrights are the great storytellers of our time, offering essential contributions to civic discourse and illuminating life's greatest paradoxes. And they believe in the singularity of a writer's voice, valuing the broad, eclectic spectrum and diversity of American writers. At Playwrights Horizons, writers are supported in every stage of their growth through their New Works Lab, POP Master Class series, Soundstage audio program, the Lighthouse Project, and Almanac, their digital magazine.

Playwrights Horizons presents a season of productions annually on their two stages, each of which is a world, American, or New York premiere. Much like Playwrights Horizons' work, their audience is risk-taking and adventurous; and the organization is committed to strengthening their engagement and feeding their curiosity through all of its programming, onsite and online.