Showing titles in Drama

This multicast dramatisation of Arabian Nights: Volume 1 is an Audible Original reenvisioning of three iconic tales - with a twist. Adapted by the great Marty Ross, whose previous audio dramas include Romeo and Jude, Dark Shadows, Doctor Who and Blood and Stone, listeners can expect to hear Sheherezade, Ali Baba & 40 Thieves and Julnar the Sea Born as they've never done before.

Hamlet, which dates from 1600-1601, is the first in Shakespeare's great series of four tragedies. In writing this extraordinary play Shakespeare effectively re-invented tragedy after an interval of roughly two thousand years - you would have to go back to the Greek dramatists of 5th century Athens to find anything of comparable depth and maturity. This production features the voice of Anton Lesser as Hamlet along with a full cast.

When a jealous Zeus discovers that the compassionate Titan, Prometheus, has introduced the gift of fire to liberate mere mortals from oppression and servitude, he has Prometheus bound to a rocky prison in the Scythian desert, where the god discloses the reason for his punishment.

This course will examine the social, historical, and political context of ancient Greek drama and equip listeners with a set of critical analytical tools for developing their own appreciation of this vitally important genre. The course will focus on the four extant playwrights, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, and examine each of their plays closely.

This widely studied play is one of the "best sellers" of the Shakespeare canon. This production is the sixth Shakespeare play in the series undertaken by Naxos AudioBooks in conjunction with Cambridge University Press.

The fabulously rich Timon believes all his friends to be as open-hearted and generous as himself. When his wealth suddenly evaporates, however, he discovers the truth and his altruism turns to a bitter hatred of mankind. Stirred up by the cynical Apemantus, Timon retreats to the woods where he plots the destruction of Athens, the city that had formerly seemed to embody everything pleasurable and civilized. The cosmic scope of his hatred is communicated in a series of powerful and disturbing dramatic tableaux.

Before Twilight and True Blood, only one vampire commanded “the children of the night". In this bloodthirsty tale of unholy terror, Count Dracula slips into Victorian London with a cargo of his native Transylvanian soil - so he can rest between victims. The city seems helpless against his frightful power, and only one man, Dr. Van Helsing, can stop the carnage. But to do this, he must uncover the vampire’s lair and pierce his heart with a wooden stake.

Infamously known as the cursed Scottish play, Macbeth is perhaps Shakespeare’s darkest tragedy. When General Macbeth is foretold by three witches that he will one day be King of Scotland, Lady Macbeth convinces him to get rid of anyone who could stand in his way – including committing regicide. As Macbeth ascends to the throne through bloody murder, he becomes a tyrant consumed by fear and paranoia.

A tender love story, a serpentine villainess, a glittering setting in London society, and a showering of Wildean witticism are only a few of the reasons why this play has enjoyed hugely successful revivals in London, in New York, and on the silver screen. This 1895 drama is eerily prescient, as it examines the plight of a promising politician, desperate to hide a secret in his past. With empathy and wit, Oscar Wilde explores the pitfalls of holding public figures to higher standards than the rest of us.

Jane Austen's classic romantic comedy is the sparkling tale of the Bennets, a family blessed with five daughters and a mother desperate to marry them off. The tempestuous pairing of the witty, independent Elizabeth and her arrogant but honorable suitor Mr. Darcy sets the standard for all great couples of stage and screen. Although many have tried, few literary romances have matched the wit and gentile satire of Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

The major texts of Western culture are a gateway to wisdom that can widen your views on self and society in enduring ways. And now you can examine its most important works - whether drama, poetry, or narrative - in this series of 64 penetrating lectures that reveal astonishing common ground.

Six phenomenally sophisticated Noël Coward comedies: Fallen Angels, Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Blithe Spirit, Present Laughter.

Shakespeare’s timeless story of revenge, corruption, and murder is considered one of the greatest works in the English language. Prince Hamlet sets out to avenge his beloved father's death at the hand of his uncle Claudius - but Hamlet's spiral into grief and madness will have permanent and immutable consequences for the Kingdom of Denmark. Composed over 400 years ago, Hamlet remains one of the theater’s most studied and performed works, and is presented here in a stunning, sound-rich, full-cast recording.

Four classic comedies from one of the wittiest playwrights in Western literature: Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, all featuring star-studded casts with the likes of Jacqueline Bisset, Miriam Margolyes, James Marsters, Alfred Molina, Roger Rees, Yeardley Smith, Eric Stoltz, and many more. This audio also includes a chilling dramatization of Wilde's sole novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Brilliantly manipulative and entirely amoral, the hero-villain Richard is one of Shakespeare's greatest roles. The Yorkists have emerged victorious from the civil wars and Edward IV wears the English crown. But Edward's misshapen brother Richard harbors kingly ambitions and will stop at nothing to achieve the throne. In a fatal battle on Bosworth Field, Richard meets the ghosts of all whom he has murdered and the Earl of Richmond, the future King Henry VII.

By the time Shakespeare came to write Macbeth - almost certainly in 1605/1606 - he had already completed three of the great tragedies with which modern audiences are so familiar: Hamlet (1601), Othello (1603), and King Lear (1605). Each of those plays gives us an eponymous hero who is in some significant way flawed, but for whom we also inevitably feel deep sympathy, whatever his errors or crimes. But in MacBeth, Shakespeare has chosen for his tragic hero a man guilty of the most terrible crime imaginable to a Jacobean audience, that of regicide - the murder of a king.

This classic Shakespearean comedy is presented here in a colorful full-cast dramatization, drawn from the complete text and starring Warren Mitchell, Michael Maloney, and Sarah Woodward.

This final play from the pen of Oscar Wilde is a stylish send-up of Victorian courtship and manners, complete with assumed names, mistaken lovers, and a lost handbag. Jack and Algernon are best friends, both wooing ladies who think their names are Ernest, "that name which inspires absolute confidence." Wilde’s effervescent wit, scathing social satire, and high farce make this one of the most cherished plays in the English language.

Stacy Keach and Jane Kaczmarek star in this 1949 masterpiece by Arthur Miller, a searing portrait of the physical, emotional, and psychological costs of the American dream. Willy Loman (Keach) is the play's iconic traveling salesman, whose family is torn apart by his desperate obsession with greatness and social acceptance. As his two sons cast about aimlessly for their station in life, Willy begins to come unraveled when the reality of his life threatens his long-cherished illusions.

The Code of the Woosters is one of the best known of Wodehouse's Bertie and Jeeves series. Bertie's beloved Aunt Dahlia pressures him into stealing a cow-shaped silver creamer much coveted by his uncle from his arch rival in silver collecting, Sir Watkyn Bassett. At the same time, Bertie attempts to patch up the shaky romance between Guisse Fink-Nottle, the newt expert, and Madeline Bassett, a four star drip. The results of Bertie's efforts are, as always, a financial disaster.