The first release is "Poetic License," which will be released April 2 and features 100 poems read by 100 performers of the stage and screen. The recording will be available on Amazon.com and on itunes.
Among the artists who lend their talents to the new disc are Patti LuPone, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Charles Busch, Len Cariou, Michael Cerveris, Florence Henderson, David Garrison, Paige Davis, Kate Mulgrew, Harriet Harris, Cynthia Nixon, Kathleen Turner, Michael York, and Jason Alexander.
“I love poetry. I love reading it. I love memorizing it. I love hearing great actors recite it,” said GPR Records artistic director Glen Roven in a statement. “In the past, I have had the audacity to set poetry to music. But, on this CD, the only music you will find is the music of the poems. Poetry unadorned. Great poetry needs nothing but a great actor with a voice as eloquent and expressive as the poem itself to lift the poem off the page and into the heart.”
The list of poems and performers on “Poetic License” follows:
1. Jason Alexander (Robinson: Richard Cory)
2. Glen Seven Allen (Shakespeare: Sonnet 131)
3. Nancy Anderson (Blake: Mary)
4. Linda Balgord (Strand: Eating Poetry)
5. Christine Baranski (Shakespeare: How Happy Some)
6. James Barbour (Kipling: If)
7. Brent Barrett (Shakespeare: Sonnet 29 When In Distress)
8. John Belhamm (Shakespeare: Hang My Poems)
9. Reed Birney (Blanding: Some Lines Scrawled on a Door of a Vagabond’s House)
10. Charles Busch (Browning: My Last Duchess)
11. Danny Burstein (Hayden: Those Winter Sundays)
12. Zoe Caldwell (Caldwell: On Behalf of Trees)
13. Ann Hampton Calloway (Rilke Sonnet 3 from Orpheus)
14. Alan Campbell (Lux: A Little Tooth)
15. Douglas Carpenter (Whitman: To What You Said)
16. Len Cariou (Shakespeare: Ye Elves)
17. Donna Lynne Champlin (Cadell: The Job Interview)
18. Philip Casnoff (Thomas: Fern Hill)
19. Michael Cerveris (Ondaatje: The Cinnamon Peeler)
20. Chuck Cooper (TBA)
21. Donald Corren (Poe: Annabel Lee)
22. Veanne Cox (Milton: Paradise Lost)
23. Tyne Daly (Auden: But I Can’t)
24. Daniel Davis (Cavafy: Waiting for the Barbarians)
25. Paige Davis (Field: New Yorker)
26. Ed Dixon (co Producer) (Frost: Bearer of Evil Tidings)
27. Mike Doyle (S.L. Johnson) Lovers on a Park Bench
28. Melissa Errico: (Kenyon: Otherwise)
29. Francesca Faridany (Rukeyser: Myth)
30. Barbara Feldon (Atwood: I Would Like to Watch You Sleeping)
31. Lauren Flanigan (Weinstein: Grosz)
32. Peter Friedman (Levertov: Psalm Concerning the Castle)
33. Penny Fuller (Lawrence: Terra Incognita)
34. David Garrison (Frost: Road Less Traveled)
35. Joanna Gleason (Neruda: Sonnet XVII)
36. Amanda Green (Carroll: You Are Old Father Williams)
37. Harriet Harris (Spice: Any Fool Can Get Into an Ocean)
38. Roxanne Hart (Moore: Poetry)
39. Florence Henderson (Longfellow: The Day is Done)
40. Edward Hibbert (Bentjamin)
41. George S. Irving (Fearing: Elegy in a Theatrical Warehouse)
42. Dana Ivey (Henley: Invictus)
43. Beth Howland (Parker: Sympton Recital)
44. Moises Kauffman (Williams: Life Stories)
45. Cady Huffman (Taylor Mali: A Dog Named Bodhidsattva)
46. Byron Jennings (Yeats: When You Are Old and Grey)
47. Judy Kaye (cummings: I thank God for this…)
48. Lauren Kennedy (Stevens: The House was Quiet…)
49. Charles Kimbrough (Browning: Meet At Night)
50. Marc Kudisch (Frost: Fire and Ice)
51. Claire Lautier (Donne: A Valediction…)
52. Judith Light (Stoher: Soft Knife)
53. Patti LuPone (TBA)
54. Rebecaa Luker (Rosetti: Remember)
55. Ramona Mallory (Silverstein: The Nap-taker)
56. Jeff McCarthy (Collins: Conversion)
57. Carolyn McCormick (Millay: Dirge Without Music)
58. Roberta Maxwell (Stevie Smith: Not Waving But Drowning)
59. Kate Mulgrew (Dickinson: I Could Not Stop for Death)
60. Tom McGowan (Lawrence: Afternoon in School)
61. Keith McDermott (Yeats: Second Coming)
62. Michael Minarek (Ammons: Beautiful Woman)
63. Julia Murney (TBA)
64. Cynthia Nixon (Milne: Vespers)
65. Diedre O’Connell (Harrison: Barking)
66. Cieran O’Reilly (Yeats: Cloths of Heaven)
67. Nancy Opel (Clampitt: The Sun Underfoot Among…)
68. Daniel Okulitch (Hoaglund: Self Improvement)
69. Patrick Page (Shakespeare: Our Revels)
70. Peter Paige (Anne Sexton)
71. Guy Paul (Marvell: To His Coy Mistress)
72. Michele Pawk (Karr: Last Love)
73. Dean Pitchford (Parker: Song of a Hopeful Heart)
74. Alice Playten (Kushner: An Undoing World)
75. Sam Robards (Bunan: Die While You’re Alive)
76. John Rubinstein (Coleridge: Ancient Mariner)
77. Michael Rupert Ginsberg: A Supermarket in CA)
78. Chris Sarandon (Tennyson: Ulysses)
79. Lynn Sherr (Rich: Heroines)
80. Paul Schoeffler (Owens: Dulce et Decorum Est)
81. Matthew Schechter (Silverstein: The Poem Tester)
82. Emily Skinner (Millay: Love is not All)
83. Douglas Sills (Monette: Context)
84. Carole Shelley (Wordsworth: Composed Upon Westminster)
85. Bobby Steggart (Naruda: If You Forget Me)
86. James Patrick Stewart (Pinsky: Doctor Frolic)
87. Richard Thomas (Hopkins: Spring and Fall)
88. Maria Tucci (Yeats: A Prayer for My Daughter)
89. Kathleen Turner (Dorfman: Correspondence)
90. Harriet Walter (Hardy: The Walk)
91. Tony Walton (Cook: Blue Football)
92. Brenda Wehle (Hirshfield: Lake and Maple)
93. Chandler Williams (O’Hara: To The Harbour Master)
94. JoBeth Williams (Keats: When I have fears)
95. Geraint Wyn Davies (Thomas: In My Craft or Sullen…)
96. Michael York (Kipling: Tommy)
97. Chip Zien (Longfellow: Mezzo Cammin)
98. Catherine Zeta-Jones
99. Louis Zorich (Tennyson: Crossing the Bar)
100. Alan Campbell (Lux: A Little Tooth)
101. Gregory Jbara (Shakespeare: Bottom’s Dream)
102. Michael Learned (Millay: An Ancient Gesture)
103. Paul Provenza (Justice: Men at Forty) For more information visit www.GPRRecords.com.
