Showing results by narrator "Edward Asner" in All Categories

The Scopes trial, over the right to teach evolution in public schools, reaffirmed the importance of intellectual freedom as codified in the Bill of Rights. The trial, in a small-town Tennessee courtroom in 1925, set the stage for ongoing national debates over the separation of church and state in a democratic society - debates that continue to this day.

What if, all of a sudden, everyone started performing good deeds every day? This inspiring collection presents many true stories of people who've committed, received, and observed voluntary acts of kindness. Hearing their stories reveals how these simple, small acts of goodness can have a profound positive effect in the world. As explained in the text, "every hand we extend, every act of kindness we commit, sends a ripple out into the world that is magnified by every life it encounters."

At the age of 48, film critic David Denby returned to his alma mater, Columbia University, to re-experience the core humanities courses he had taken as a freshman 30 years before. Facing the question of what he really knows, Denby re-examines the besieged Western classics, ranging from Homer, Sappho, and Sophocles to Dante, Nietzsche, and Woolf. What relevance do the writers and thinkers of the past have to our current life? The answer surprised Denby and will surprise and enlighten his listeners.

Grange, Florida, is famous for its miracles - the weeping fiberglass Madonna, the Road-Stain Jesus, the stigmata man. And now it has JoLayne Lucks, unlikely winner of the state lottery. Unfortunately, JoLayne's winning ticket isn't the only one. The other belongs to Bodean Gazzer and his raunchy sidekick, Chub, who believe they're entitled to the whole $28 million jackpot. And they need it quickly, to start their own underground militia before NATO troops invade America. But JoLayne Lucks has her own plans for the Lotto money - an Eden-like forest in Grange must be saved from strip-malling.

Hilarity abounds in this portrait of three couples successively occupying a suite at the Plaza Hotel. A suburban couple takes a suite while their house is being painted, a Hollywood producer calls a childhood sweetheart for a little sexual diversion, and a mother and father fight about the best way to get their daughter, the bride, out of the bathroom and back to the wedding.

Rachel Corrie’s determination to make a better, more peaceful world took her from Olympia, Washington, to the Middle East, where she died in 2003 while trying to block the demolition of a Palestinian family’s home in the Gaza Strip. A twenty-three-year-old American activist, Corrie also possessed a striking gift for poetry, writing, and drawing. Let Me Stand Alone, a selection of her journals and letters as chosen by her family, reveals her story in her own hand, from her precocious reflections as a young girl to her final e-mails.

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.

As a young Jewish man in 17th century Amsterdam, Baruch de Spinoza excelled as a theological student; but as he encountered free-thinking Protestants, atheists, and radicals in this relatively tolerant city, he began to question his religion and the nature of God. As a result, he was branded a heretic and faced excommunication. Directed by Rosalind Ayres. Recorded before a live audience at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles.

Nell Ryder is a sardonic and urbane school teacher transplanted to small-town Michigan in Joyce Carol Oates’ play. But when she gets into a dispute with an aggrieved parent, Nell finds herself accused of impropriety with one of her adolescent charges.

The Tony Award-winning playwright and creator of TV's MASH has fashioned a wickedly funny satire about the Iran-Contra Senate hearings and their participants. A top-notch Hollywood cast, headed by Walter Matthau, brings this scathing comedy to life.

Coming of age in America by way of the baseball diamond, left-hander Henry Wiggen grows to manhood in a right-handed world. From his small-town beginnings to the top of the game, Henry finds out how hard it is to please his coach, his girl, the sports page and himself - all at once. Starring Edward Asner, Amy Pietz, and a full cast!

In the mid-1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee began investigating the communist influence in the entertainment industry. This searing docudrama from actual transcripts of the hearings reveals how decent people were persuaded to "name names", and the steep price paid by those who refused.

Eight highly diverse works from one of America’s most prolific and versatile authors. This collection includes an exclusive dramatization of Oates’ best-selling novel American Appetites; two comedic plays, The Perfectionist and The Truth Teller; four short plays (Gulf War, Black, The Key, and Tone Clusters); as well as her libretto for Black Water: An American Opera, composed by John Duffy.

This moving courtroom drama is based on a true incident that exposed the shocking conditions at Alcatraz. The tale begins when 18-year-old Willie Moore makes the biggest mistake of his life. Now, all he wants is a chance to talk baseball before he dies.

Director David Fishelson transforms Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot into spellbinding drama that illuminates both titanic novels. In The Brothers Karamazov, the passionate brothers spring to life, led by their roué of a father ¿ who entertains himself by drinking, womanizing, and pitting his three sons against each other. The men have plenty to fight over, including the alluring Grushenka.

From the imagination of radio pioneer Norman Corwin comes one of the strangest trials in the history of jurisprudence. A molecule refuses to be assigned to any particular substance and insists on choosing for itself.

Honor's Voice provides a revealing look at how Abraham Lincoln became the 16th president of the United States and one of the greatest men of his time. Douglas Wilson traces the development of this great leader from an insecure country boy full of ambition to schoolboy, storekeeper, riverboat man, and, finally, politician. The author returns to original sources, including friends and acquaintances in the Illinois of the 1830s and '40s and exposes truths about Lincoln never before revealed.

The original version of LATW’s groundbreaking docudrama about the Pentagon Papers, the infamous classified documents about US involvement in the Vietnam War, and how The Washington Post fought the government to publish them. Includes a 1991 panel discussion with journalists Ben Bradlee, Peter Braestrup, Robert Maynard, Carla Robbins, Robert Scheer, and George Wilson.

Jason Alexander, Mary Gross, Edward Asner, and a full cast of unforgettable characters emerge from the steam, in this hilarious supernatural bathhouse.

What do fast-talking New York octogenarians Abe and Mabel do when their lifelong grocery store, Pepperstein Produce, is driven out of business by Wonder Food? They embark on the ultimate road trip with a 19-year-old stoner, Wisdom, to Los Angeles to become actors.