"Selected Shorts" is the award-winning, one-hour radio program from PRI, which features readings of classic and new short fiction by notable actors from stage and screen. Now in its 20th season, "Selected Shorts" is hosted by Isaiah Sheffer and produced by Symphony Space in New York City.
On Nov. 6 at 8 PM, Westport audiences will have the opportunity to hear Ivey and O'Hara read selections from "The Best American Short Stories 2007" edition, which is guest edited by horror writer Stephen King.
King, one of literatures most successful authors of the macabre, states in his introduction to the anthology, "If these stories have anything in common—anything that made them uniquely my best American stories—it's that sense of emotional involvement, of flipped-out amazement. I look for stories that care about my feelings as well as my intellect, and when I find one that is all-out emotionally assaultive . . . I grab that baby and hold on tight.”
Judith Ivey is set to read from T.C. Boyle's "Balto," "a cliffhanger about a 12-year-old girl who can protect her beloved father if she lies under oath," press notes state. Kelli O'Hara will read Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," which press materials describe as "an assimilation fable about a halfway house for the human children of werewolves."
Kelli O'Hara, who earned Tony nominations for her work in The Light in the Piazza and The Pajama Game, will return to the Lincoln Center stage later this season as Nellie Forbush in the first Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. Judith Ivey is a two-time Tony winner for her performances in Steaming and Hurlyburly. Ivey most recently starred on Broadway in the 2001 revival of Follies. Her directorial credits include the musical Vanities, the world premiere of The Butcher of Baraboo, as well as Yeardley Smith: More, Southern Comforts and Fugue.
A Celebration of the Short Story is presented by the Westport Country Playhouse in partnership with the Westport Arts Center. Tickets are available by calling (203) 227-4177 or by visiting www.westportplayhouse.org.
The Westport Country Playhouse is located at 25 Powers Court, off Route 1, in Westport, CT.
