Audiobooks by John Lahr

Arthur Miller: American Witness

A great theater critic brings twentieth-century playwright Arthur Miller’s dramatic story to life with bold and revealing new insights. Distinguished theater critic John Lahr brings unique perspective to the life of Arthur Miller (1915–2005), the playwright who almost single-handedly propelled twentieth-century American theater into a new level of cultural sophistication. Organized around the fault lines of Miller’s life—his family, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, Elia Kazan and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Marilyn Monroe, Vietnam, and the rise and fall of Miller’s role as a public intellectual—this book demonstrates the synergy between Arthur Miller’s psychology and his plays. Concentrating largely on Miller’s most prolific decades of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, Lahr probes Miller’s early playwriting failures; his work writing radio plays during World War II after being rejected for military service; his only novel, Focus; and his succession of award-winning and canonical plays that include All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible, providing an original interpretation of Miller’s work and his personality.

John Lahr (Author), John Rubinstein (Narrator)

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The Manchurian Candidate

Renowned theater critic John Lahr created a bold reworking of Richard Condon's political thriller, updating the action to the 1990s while retaining the core premise of a brainwashed war hero who's programmed to become an assassin. Kelsey Grammer stars as Raymond Shaw in this co-production with Chicago's Shattered Globe Theatre, starring the original cast. Recorded before a live audience at the DoubleTree Guest Suites Chicago in March 1996. Director: Louis Contey Producing Director: Susan Albert Loewenberg Rich Baker as Gaines, Jordan and others Mara Casey as Doctor, Nurse and others Mark Alexander Clover as Melvin and others Joe Forbrich as Ben Marco Julie Gainey as Jocelyn Jordan Kelsey Grammer as Raymond Shaw Rebecca Jordan as Eugenie Doug McDade as Senator John Iselin Brian Pudil as Jorgenson and others Linda Reiter as Eleanor Iselin Jim Saltorous as O'Neill Radio Producer: Robert Neuhaus Recording Engineer: Larry Rock Assistant Engineer: Mike Konopka Foley Artist: Judy Anderson Production Stage Manager: Patrick Brannick Original Music by JJ Porterfield

John Lahr, Richard Condon (Author), Brian Pudil, Doug Mcdade, Jim Salturos, Joe Forbrich, Julie Ganey, Kelsey Grammer, Linda Reiter, Mara Casey, Mark Clover, Rebecca Jordan, Rich Baker (Narrator)

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Tennessee Williams

John Lahr has produced a theater biography like no other. Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh gives intimate access to the mind of one of the most brilliant dramatists of his century, whose plays reshaped the American theater and the nation’s sense of itself. This astute, deeply researched biography sheds light on Tennessee Williams’s warring family, his guilt, his creative triumphs and failures, his sexuality and numerous affairs, his misreported death, even the shenanigans surrounding his estate. With vivid cameos of the formative influences in Williams’s life—his fierce, belittling father Cornelius; his puritanical, domineering mother Edwina; his demented sister Rose, who was lobotomized at the age of thirty-three; his beloved grandfather, the Reverend Walter Dakin—Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh is as much a biography of the man who created A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as it is a trenchant exploration of Williams’s plays and the tortured process of bringing them to stage and screen. The portrait of Williams himself is unforgettable: a virgin until he was twenty-six, he had serial homosexual affairs thereafter as well as long-time, bruising relationships with Pancho Gonzalez and Frank Merlo. With compassion and verve, Lahr explores how Williams’s relationships informed his work and how the resulting success brought turmoil to his personal life. Lahr captures not just Williams’s tempestuous public persona but also his backstage life, where his agent Audrey Wood and the director Elia Kazan play major roles, and Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Bette Davis, Maureen Stapleton, Diana Barrymore, and Tallulah Bankhead have scintillating walk-on parts. This is a biography of the highest order: an audiobook about the major American playwright of his time written by the major American drama critic of his time.

John Lahr (Author), Elizabeth Ashley (Narrator)

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