Leonard Nimoy, Jane Kaczmarek, and Other Top Actors Lend Their Voices to 2013 Literary Series

Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story returns to the Getty in 2013 with live readings of short fictions about our favorite leisure activities

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Feb 21, 2013

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Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story, the popular public-radio series, returns to the Getty March 23 and 24, 2013, with live readings of short fictions about our favorite leisure activities.

Actors from stage and screen perform stories about the pleasures and travails of all the things we love to do—from baking to ballroom dancing, card playing to movie watching, and knitting to sex.

This year’s stellar lineup includes performances by Leonard Nimoy, Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle), Robert Sean Leonard (House M.D.), Anika Noni Rose (The Good Wife), Alison Pill (The Newsroom), Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother), Kate Burton (Scandal), and more. Joyce Carol Oates, John Cheever, Etgar Keret, Tess Gallagher, and Dorothy Parker are among the authors whose stories will be read.

“We look forward all year long to our Selected Shorts tour to the Getty, where the audiences are the most enthusiastic around!” said Selected Shorts producer Katherine Minton. “This year’s readings—all around the theme of favorite free-time activities—are wonderfully wide ranging, from Dorothy Parker’s deliciously dry monologue of a wallflower in a ballroom longing to find a waltzing partner to Steven Millhauser’s fanciful and poignant tale of childhood summers spent racing around the neighborhood on flying carpets.”

Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story is produced by New York’s Symphony Space and presented by the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story was started in 1985 with a simple premise: take great stories by well known and emerging writers and have them performed by terrific actors. The performance and reading series has grown into a national, public radio sensation heard on over 140 stations and by over 300,000 monthly podcast subscribers. The radio series is co-produced with WNYC in New York and distributed by Public Radio International.

Selected Shorts Schedule

Saturday, March 23 and Sunday, March 24, 2013
3pm and 7pm on Saturday; 3pm on Sunday
Harold M. Williams Auditorium, Getty Center
Tickets $20; $15 students/seniors

Selected Shorts Schedule

Saturday, March 23, 2013, at 3pm
Dreams hosted by Jane Kaczmarek, cast also includes Leonard Nimoy and Josh Radnor

“The Waltz” by Dorothy Parker
This wallflower heroine is at the ball and dying to dance.

“Anaconda” by Martha McPhee
The stakes of a family card game get higher and higher.

“The Grid” by Rick Moody
The romantic, sexy, intense, dangerous, sad and memorable history of a kiss.

“In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” by Delmore Schwartz
On a summer Sunday in Brooklyn in 1909, a young man discovers truths about his parents at the movies.

Saturday, March 23, 2013, 7pm
Discoveries hosted by Kate Burton

“Art of Cake” by Michael Chabon
This boy’s life as a cook begins on the back panel of a Bisquick box, with Velvet Crumb Cake.

“Summer at Strandhill” by John McGahern
A lonely boy fuels his spirit of adventure through comic books he reads on a beach vacation.

“Creative Writing” by Etgar Keret
A woman takes a writing class and finds it changes her life.

“The Lover of Horses” by Tess Gallagher
Through caring for her dying dad, and discovering his passion for card-playing, gambling and life, a woman comes to think differently about her own.

Sunday, March 24 2013, 3pm
Escapes hosted by Robert Sean Leonard, cast also includes Alison Pill and Anika Noni Rose

“Teach Your Four-Year-Old to Ski” by Christopher Buckley
A wacky story of a father’s day on the slopes with his young son.

“Flying Carpets” by Steven Millhauser
In this fanciful fantasy, a child’s summer is filled with magical rides on a flying carpet.

“Nairobi” by Joyce Carol Oates
A woman enjoys an afternoon of shopping and she comes away with more than a new wardrobe.

“Beg, S1 Tog, Inc, Cont, Rep” by Amy Hempel
A woman turns to knitting when her life falls apart.

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