About the Play:

Talk Radio was a Finalist for 1988 Pulitzer Prize in Drama

Talk Radio is a full-length drama by Eric Bogosian. The program of a provocative Cleveland talk-radio host is about to go nationwide. As he goads, mocks and entertains callers and listeners, his producer wonders if his subversive style will win fans or alienate sponsors. Inspired by the 1984 murder of controversial shock jock Alan Berg, his breakthrough 1987 Public Theater hit was made into a film by Oliver Stone.

Talk Radio is set in the studio of Cleveland's WTLK Radio over the course of Barry Champlain's two-hour broadcast, being scrutinized that night by producers with an interest in taking the show national. Fuelled as always by coffee, cocaine, and Jack Daniel's, Cleveland's controversial radio host is on the air doing what he does best: insulting the pathetic souls who call in the middle of the night to sound off. Barry's jousts with his unseen callers – ranging from a white supremacist to a woman obsessed with her garbage disposal – are interspersed with confrontations by his ex-deejay pal and his sometime girlfriend/producer. Tomorrow, Barry's show is going into national syndication and his producer is afraid that Barry will say something that will offend the sponsors. This, of course, makes Barry even more outrageous. In a review of a 2007 production, the New York Daily News stated that Talk Radio was "More timely today than it was twenty years ago..." More than thirty years since its first production, at a time when discussions of free-speach rights can be heard on almost all media platforms, Talk Radio once again proves its social relevance.

Talk Radio premiered in 1987 at The Public Theater and had a long run off Broadway in New York City, starring the author as Barry Champlain. The play was revived in 2007 in a "mesmerizing" (Newsday) production on Broadway, with Liev Schreiber playing the role of the late-night shock jock that Eric Bogosian himself originated. The play has been performed in regional repertory, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 7 male, plus offstage voices

What people say:

"A compelling work that draws you straight into the heart of its fringe world. It makes the call in show a metaphor for America's lost souls." — New York Newsday

"Imagine Lenny Bruce at the height of his notoriety becoming a popular talk show host and you may begin to have an idea of the whiplash intensity and black, hard edged cynicism of Talk Radio." — The New York Times

"More timely today than it was twenty years ago … Radio crackles with intensity." — New York Daily News

"The most lacerating portrait of a human meltdown this side of a Francis Bacon painting … This revival, like the original production, allows its star to grab an audience by the lapels and shake it into submission." — The New York Times

About the Playwright:

Eric Bogosian is an American actor, playwright, monologist and novelist renowned for employing his dark wit in the fearless examination the darker side of human nature. He is the author of three novels, several films and numerous award-winning plays and solos for the theatre. As an actor he has starred onstage as well as on film and television.