War of the Worlds
By H.G. Wells, adapted by Howard Koch

The Lost World
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, adapted by John de Lancie and Nat Segaloff

Starring actors from the Sci-Fi Channel, Star Trek, X-Files

Digital Press Kit Available Here

Tour dates available in October 2009

Join L.A. Theatre Works, America’s premiere radio theatre company, for a special back-to-back double bill of chills, thrills and great literature as they present two masterpieces of science fiction and adventure: War of the Worlds and The Lost World.

Recreating the breathless pace and convincing details of Orson Welles’ infamous radio broadcast, L.A. Theatre Works makes it clear why H.G. Wells’War of the Worlds is truly the mother of all space invasions.  Originally performed by Welles’ Mercury Theatre of the Air, the 1938 live 60-minute broadcast of an “eyewitness report” of an invasion from Mars caused a nationwide panic.   The broadcast used an updated adaptation of the original 1898 book authored by one of Welles’ writers, Howard Koch, who changed the time and location from Victorian England to a small town on the East Coast of the United States in 1938 making the story more personal for listeners.  This fascinating piece still resonates today as concerns swirl around our environment, protecting our borders, etc.

Scorned by his colleagues after making the extraordinary claim that prehistoric animals exist and that he has seen them, Professor Challenger leads a harrowing four-person expedition through the remote jungles of South America to settle once and for all the validity of  his claim.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's campy adventure The Lost World follows this scientific expedition deep into the Amazon jungle -- and back in time. Cut off from the outside world on a primeval plateau, the fearless explorers discover a place where dinosaurs have evolved beside ape-men and the fate of the human race hangs in the balance.  From riding the rapids to dodging whizzing arrows, The Lost World will take you on a ride you won't soon forget!

Under the leadership of Producing Director, Susan Albert Loewenberg, L.A. Theatre Works (LATW) has been the foremost radio theater company in the United States for two decades. Broadcast in America on NPR and XM Satellite Radio, internationally on the BBC, CBC, Voice of America and many other English language networks, LATW has single-handedly brought the finest recorded dramatic literature into the homes of millions. The company records the majority of its productions annually in Los Angeles before an enthusiastic and loyal audience of season subscribers. Works by Eugene O’Neill, David Henry Hwang, Athol Fugard, Wendy Wasserstein, Neil Simon, David Mamet, Charlayne Woodard, Arthur Miller, and others have been performed and recorded by LATW with casts of the most critically acclaimed film and stage actors. On the road, LATW has delighted audiences with its unique live radio theater style performances in over 100 small towns and major cities, including New York, Boston, Washington and Chicago. An L.A. Theatre Works performance is immediate, spontaneous, and features a first-rate cast, live sound effects, and a connection to the audience rarely felt in a traditional theater setting. This theater… is an event.

Today, LATW’s Audio Theatre Collection includes more than 400 classic and contemporary titles–the largest library of its kind in the world.  Much lauded, the L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre Collection is available in over 8,000 libraries and has received awards from the Audio Publishers Association, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Publisher’s Weekly, Writer's Guild of America, American Library Association, Grammy Awards and many others. Additionally, over 2,000 high schools nationwide use the recordings and study guides to teach language, literature, history and civics through LATW’s Alive & Aloud educational outreach program. LATW’s newest initiative, The Play’s the Thing for Higher Education, will make over 150 digitized works from our collection available to universities and colleges across the country for use in a variety of disciplines. For more information on these programs, LATW’s Audio Theatre Collection, national radio broadcast information and other exciting projects, visit www.latw.org.

The original 1994 L.A. Theatre Works audio release of War of the Worlds starred Leonard Nimoy, Wil Wheaton, Armin Shimerman, Gates McFaddan, Brent Spiner, and others.

The RFK Project
Written by Murray Horwitz and Jonathan Estrin

Robert F. Kennedy & the Civil Rights Movement: A Journey

Digital Press Kit Available Here

Tour dates available in January and February 2010

“Ladies and Gentlemen - I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because...

I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow
citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.”

--Robert F. Kennedy- April 4 1968, Indianapolis, IN

The 60’s in America was a decade of heroes, violence, love, death, progress, and
disappointment. What began in 1960 as a decade of hope with the election of John F. Kennedy, ended with America embroiled in an impossible war, her streets filled with riots, and the history changing loss of three important figures. It is a decade often studied, debated, celebrated, and mourned - even a half-century later. And now, as those who lived, governed, and shepherded change during the 60’s are passing, L.A. Theater Works presents a major new docudrama focused on Robert Kennedy’s personal and political journey.

In June 1968, the assassination of senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy stunned the world. Kennedy’s death, coming so shortly after the assassination of his colleague Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and only five years after the death of Kennedy’s older brother John, left the nation – regardless of political convictions – uncertain of the future during the most tumultuous time in American history since the Civil War.

The “RFK Project” chronicles his transformation from discomfort with and indifference towards the Civil Rights Movement to a champion and crusader. His story provides a compelling and dramatic illumination of this crucial decade, enabling a new generation to hear the words, feel the tension, and explore the issues that still resonate today.

The relationship between Kennedy, King, and the movement was complicated. Despite beginnings anchored in mistrust, the relationship ultimately evolved as RFK’s voice became an important force in the fight for civil rights. Both King and Kennedy made strides for civil rights through different means and by very different paths – King with his powerful oratory and public leadership and Kennedy, initially, through quiet tactical maneuvers behind the closed doors of his brother’s White House. In L.A. Theatre Works’ new docudrama, the challenges, victories,
and defeats of that period are refracted through RFK’s experiences.

Noted political correspondent Richard Reeves (Frontline, ABC News, PBS, The New York Times, Esquire) is serving as an advisor on the project. Biographer of the authoritative work on John F. Kennedy, President Kennedy: Profile of Power, his experience and research will provide historical perspective and context.

The World Premiere is set for January, 2010 at the University of Notre Dame.
The LA Theatre Works/RFK Project is a commission led by the University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center and co-commissioned by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, Stanford Lively Arts at Stanford University, and the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond. Additional funds provided by the Susan Raab Simonson Commissioning Project.

About L.A. Theatre Works

Under the leadership of Producing Director, Susan Albert Loewenberg, L.A. Theatre Works (LATW) has been the foremost radio theater company in the United States for two decades. Broadcast in America on NPR and XM Satellite Radio, internationally on the BBC, CBC, Voice of America and many other English language networks, LATW has single-handedly brought the finest recorded dramatic literature into the homes of millions. The company records the majority of its productions annually in Los Angeles before an enthusiastic and loyal audience of season subscribers. Works by Eugene O’Neill, David Henry Hwang, Athol Fugard, Wendy Wasserstein, Neil Simon, David Mamet, Charlayne Woodard, Arthur Miller, and others have been performed and recorded by LATW with casts of the most critically acclaimed film and stage actors. On the road, LATW has delighted audiences with its unique live radio theater style performances in over 100 small towns and major cities, including New York, Boston, Washington and Chicago. An L.A. Theatre Works performance is immediate, spontaneous, and features a first-rate cast, live sound effects, and a connection to the audience rarely felt in a traditional theater setting. This theater… is an event.

Today, LATW’s Audio Theatre Collection includes more than 400 classic and contemporary titles–the largest library of its kind in the world. Much lauded, the L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre Collection is available in over 8,000 libraries and has received awards from the Audio Publishers Association, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Publisher’s Weekly, Writer's Guild of America, American Library Association, Grammy Awards and many others.Additionally, over 2,000 high schools nationwide use the recordings and study guides to teach language, literature, history and civics through LATW’s Alive & Aloud educational outreach
program. LATW’s newest initiative, The Play’s the Thing for Higher Education, will make over 150 digitized works from our collection available to universities and colleges across the country for use in a variety of disciplines. For more information on these programs, LATW’s Audio Theatre Collection, national radio broadcast information and other exciting projects, visit www.latw.org.

About the Authors

MURRAY HORWITZ has had an extraordinarily varied career in the arts and public life. His accomplishments in the performing arts include originating and co-writing Ain't Misbehavin', the hit Broadway musical based on the music of Fats Waller, which won Tony, Obie, Emmy, Grammy, and New York Drama Critics' Circle awards. He wrote the popular song lyrics for John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby. It premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1999, appeared at the Chicago Lyric Opera in 2001, and was revived by the Met in 2002. His other Broadway and off-off-Broadway theatrical credits include co-writing and directing Haarlem Nocturne and Sole Sisters. Since 1998, he has been creative consultant to the annual Mark Twain Prize ceremonies at the Kennedy Center, honoring (among others) Richard Pryor, Jonathan Winters, Carl Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Newhart, Lily Tomlin, Steve Martin, Billy Crystal, and George Carlin, and starring such luminaries as Robin Williams, Chris Rock, and Robert de Niro. In 1997, he wrote and staged the opening and closing ceremonies of the Presidents’ Summit for the Future of America, in Philadelphia (with Presidents Clinton, Ford, and George H. Bush, Gen. Colin Powell, and Oprah Winfrey). Also in 1997, he received a Governor’s Arts Award in playwriting from the State of Maryland. Currently, he may be heard on NPR’s All Things Considered, Talk Of the Nation, Hanukkah Lights (with Susan Stamberg), and as a panelist on the word game show, Says You!

He was the Director and COO of the American Film Institute’s Silver Theatre and Cultural Center from 2002 to 2009. Opened the year after Horwitz’s appointment, the AFI Silver has successfully gone on to become a major Washington cultural landmark. Prior to his work at AFI, Horwitz was Vice President of Cultural Programming for National Public Radio for four years and before that, NPR’s Director of Jazz, Classical Music, and Entertainment Programming. He still appears as a commentator on NPR, where he won the National Medal of Arts and three Peabody Awards: as co-writer with Wynton Marsalis of the series, Wynton Marsalis: Making The Music, and as the conceiver and executive producer of the series The NPR 100 and NPR’s Jazz Profiles. Also at NPR, he started the phenomenally successful comedy news quiz, Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me. Prior to his work at NPR, Horwitz was Acting Director of the National Endowment for the Arts Opera-Musical Theater Program. He has also served as deputy press secretary for the New York State Assembly Speaker's office.

Horwitz began his career as a clown with the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus, where he performed for three years. He has appeared at The Kennedy Center, The Manhattan Theatre Club, and The New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater in the one-man show, An Evening of Sholom Aleichem. Horwitz has also had featured roles in “Kojak” and in the motion picture Night of the Juggler. More recently, he has emceed pianist Marian McPartland’s 85th birthday party, appeared with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis in young people's jazz concerts in New York City and Berlin, and made his Carnegie Hall debut as host of a concert featuring Taj Mahal, David Benoit, and Savion Glover.

Horwitz has directed and written the scripts for many prominent events, including several at Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, the Kennedy Center, and the White House. His written works also include television, film, and theater projects for many studios and networks, including HBO, PBS, 20th Century Fox, and Universal Pictures. He was associate producer of Jazz Comes Home to Newport for PBS and produced the acclaimed series of CBS television spots, “The Lost”, in cooperation with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. For ten years, beginning in 1989, he directed the annual National Heritage Fellowship Concerts, hosted by (among others) Charles Kuralt. He has written or directed concert and night club appearances for dozens of artists, including Max Morath, Linda Ronstadt, Margaret Whiting, Carolyn Mignini, Audrey Lavine, and André De Shields.

In 1991 he received a Gold award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the jazz documentary, Louis Armstrong: The First 90 Years, which he produced for NPR. As a songwriter, Horwitz has won twenty ASCAP songwriting awards, and, in addition to his work on The Great Gatsby, has contributed lyrics to Ain’t Misbehavin’ and many revues, including Broadway’s Upstairs At O’Neals.

In addition to several commencement addresses, Horwitz’s public speaking has included engagements at Vassar College, Butler University, and at such national conferences as Americans for the Arts, the Classical Association of the Atlantic States, the American Symphony Orchestra League, the League of Historic American Theatres, Opera America, and Western States Public Radio. In 2005, he was chosen to introduce filmmaker Ken Burns at the annual Nancy Hanks Lecture at the Kennedy Center.

Horwitz is a former trustee of Kenyon College, and a board member of Young Playwrights Inc. and Yiddish of Greater Washington.. In addition, he has been a board member for Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts and the Writers Center, an officer of Project Return (a drug rehabilitation and human services agency), a member of the National Jazz Service Organization's National Jazz Task Force and the Advisory Board of the International Association of Jazz Educators, and an adviser to the Knight Foundation’s symphony orchestra project, The Magic of Music. In 1999, he was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France. That same year, President Clinton acknowledged Horwitz’s leadership of NPR Cultural Programming by awarding his division the National Medal of Arts.

Horwitz is a native of Dayton, Ohio, and lives near Washington, DC, with his wife, mezzosoprano Lisa Miller, and the effects of their three grown children, Charles Wolf, Ann Minna, and Alexander Thomas (the "Thomas" is for Fats Waller). A graduate of Ohio's Kenyon College with a bachelor of arts degree in English and drama, Horwitz received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from his alma mater in 1992.

JONATHAN ESTRIN runs a consulting practice in education, entertainment, and new media opportunities for nonprofit organizations. He was the Executive Vice-President of the American Film Institute, where he oversaw their programs in education, exhibition, preservation, and new technologies. Prior to that he was the Dean of the College of Media Arts & Design at Drexel University, where he dramatically expanded the offerings, facilities and enrollment of the college. He has been a writer-producer for 30 years, and has created over 100 hours of awardwinning television series, movies and miniseries for various broadcast and cable networks. His credits include Cagney & Lacey, the HBO film Between Friends (starring Elizabeth Taylor and Carol Burnett), the Showtime movie Jasper Texas (starring Jon Voight and Lou Gossett Jr.) as well as such series as EZ Streets, Amazing Grace (with Patti Duke), Dellaventura (with Danny Aiello), Family Law, the pilot Sisters, and an adaptation of Pat Conroy's novel The Water Is Wide for the Hallmark Hall of Fame/CBS.

Estrin is also Chairman of the Board of Operation USA, an LA based international medical relief and development agency that was named by Worth Magazine as one of America’s Top 100 Charities.