Showing results by author "Yuri Rasovsky" in All Categories

In The Oresteia, Aeschylus dramatizes the myth of the curse on the royal house of Argos. The action begins when King Agamemnon returns victorious from the Trojan War, only to be treacherously slain by his own wife. It ends with the trial of their son, Orestes, who slew his mother to avenge her treachery - a trial with the goddess Athena as judge, the god Apollo as defense attorney, and, as prosecutors, relentless avenging demons called The Furies.

Set in Los Angeles during the era of early 19th-century Colonial Spanish California, the story introduces us to wealthy, young aristocrat Don Diego de la Vega, son of the richest ranchero in the country. Don Diego is an idler who has never concerned himself with more than the cut of his clothes. Unlike other full-blooded youths of his age, he presents himself as a fop, lacking in vigor, vitality, and strength. But Vega’s timorous reputation is merely a mask to conceal his alter ego—El Zorro.

Here is the 18th-century classic about the "demon barber" of Fleet Street, London, who cuts the throats of his customers and disposes of the bodies in a most unusual way. He carries them through underground tunnels to the bakery of one Mrs. Lovett a few blocks away, where they supply the stuffing for her meat pies, the favorite mid-day repast of the lawyers who work nearby and get their shaves from Sweeney Todd.

In the folklore of Eastern European Jewry, a dybbuk is a wandering soul that comes to rest in the body of a living person. In this case, the dybbuk is an impoverished student that possesses a young bride on her wedding day. She is taken to a great Chassidic rabbi for exorcism. But before he can expel the spirit, the sage must discover who the dybbuk was in life, why he has possessed the maiden, and most importantly, how to balance the scales of cosmic justice.

When this groundbreaking serialized dramatization premiered on 320 U.S. radio stations, critics were unanimous in their praise. It won numerous honors including the George Foster Peabody Award and the Pulitzer Prize for broadcasting. Never before or since has such an ambitious undertaking been attempted in public radio, and it was accomplished, not by a major network, but by a small nonprofit independent producer in Chicago. That was in 1981. It has been sitting on the shelf ever since.

Originally broadcast nationwide in 1993, this meticulously researched five-part historical radio drama is being published to commemorate Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday. It reveals the multifaceted, complex Franklin's little known adventures in London before the Revolution. For 15 years, he lived on Craven Street off the Thames, where he established a surrogate family, began his autobiography, and became America's most famous citizen.

Inspired by the classic silent film of 1919, this original audio play won the Independent Publishers Award in 1998 for best direct¿to-audio production. John De Lancie stars as a young poet who visits a fair one night with his friend and girlfriend. Entering Doctor Caligari¿s tent, they meet the mysterious Cesare, a kind of zombie, who is neither alive nor dead¿and who forecasts doom for our high-strung protagonist and his friends.

Blackstone Audiobooks is pleased to present the first audio recordings ever of the only two Holmes plays written by his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This new, specially commissioned production of the Hollywood Theater of the Ear stars Audie Award-winning readers Martin Jarvis (as Sherlock Holmes) and Kristoffer Tabori (as Dr. Watson).

With the premiere of two new film versions of the Snow White tale, Blackstone enters the fray with its own adult, edgy, and not altogether serious full-cast exposé of fairy-taledom. At last it can be told! Was Snow White really as pure as the driven snow? Did her allegedly wicked stepmother get a bum rap from the Grimm brothers? What went on behind the closed Dutch doors of the dwarves’ cottage? How many handsome princes does it take to screw in a light bulb?