Short Story - WordTheatre presents The Wild West

WordTheatre presents The Wild West Performed Live at The Met Theatre in Hollywood, Produced and Directed by Darrell Larson and Cedering Fox

The Wild West offers an introduction to WordTheatre's comprehensive survey of the literature inspired by the West. This vital genre has, for the past 150 years, shown us who we are by reflecting the struggles of individuals facing a lawless frontier.

We begin our journey with "Deadwood Dick: At the Met," a rambunctious example of the notorious dime novels. Amy Madigan (Pollock, Carnivale) gives a rip-roaring reading of Edward Wheeler's 1887 account of one night inside Deadwood's wildest saloon, featuring a cameo appearance by Calamity Jane.

Next, Sheila Kelley (The Sopranos, Dancing at the Blue Iguana) offers a heartbreaking performance of Dorothy M. Johnson's short story, "Journey to the Fort," a psychologically acute rendering of one woman's path back to civilization.

Gary Dourdan (C.S.I., Alien Resurrection) smoothly inhabits "The Naked Gun," a powerful fable of fate working through innocent hands from John Jakes's Western story collection, The Bold Frontier.

WordTheatre brings people together to share stories in a unique way. Through this collective experience, we aim to deepen our sense of community as we celebrate the oral storytelling tradition. We welcome you to join world-class writers and actors at our literary salons in Los Angeles, New York and London for live readings and book signings. For more information on WordTheatre please visit www.wordtheatre.com

Publisher: Harper Collins US
Author: Various
Narrator: Various
ISBN: 0061120421 More about this Short Story

Maupassant is hailed as one of the greatest masters of the short story. This collection focusses upon the land he knew and loved so well - Normandy. Its people and its countryside are portrayed here in vivid colour and with great warmth. Amusing, saucy, and sometimes even farcical they may be, but they are also capable of great pathos, often branching off to end tragically. It is this skilful and affecting blend of tragedy and comedy, of tears and laughter, which make Maupassant's Normandy Stories the enduring favourites they are today.
Publisher: NAXOS
Author: Guy de Maupassant
Narrator: Oliver Montgomery
ISBN: 9 62634 311 7 More about this Short Story

The Prologue
The Knight's Tale
The Miller's Tale
The Pardoner's Tale
The Merchant's Tale
The Franklin's Tale

Chaucer's greatest work, written towards the end of the fourteenth century, paints a brilliant picture of medieval life, society and values. The stories range from the romantic, courtly idealism of The Knight's Tale to the joyous bawdy of The Miller's; all are told with a freshness and vigour in this modern verse translation that make them a delight to hear.

The Canterbury Tales, written near the end of Chaucer's life and hence towards the close of the fourteenth century, Is perhaps the greatest English literary work of the Middle Ages: yet it speaks to us today with almost undimmed clarity and relevance.

Chaucer imagines a group of twenty-nine pilgrims who meet in the Tabard Inn in Southwark, intent on making the traditional journey to the martyr's shrine of St Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. Harry Bailly landlord of the Tabard, proposes that the company should entertain themselves on the road with a storytelling competition. The teller of the best tale will be rewarded with a supper at the others' expense when the travellers return to London. Chaucer never completed this elaborate scheme - each pilgrim was supposed to tell four tales, but in fact we only have twenty-four altogether - yet, with the pieces of linking narrative and the prologues to each tale, the work as a whole constitutes a marvellously varied evocation of the medieval world which also goes beyond its period to penetrate (humorously, gravely tolerantly) human nature itself.

Chaucer, as a member of this company of pilgrims, presents himself with mock innocence as the admiring observer of his fellows, depicted in the General Prologue. Many of these are clearly rogues - the coarse, cheating Miller, the repulsive yet compelling Pardoner - yet in each of them Chaucer finds something human, often a sheer vitality or love of life which is irresistible: the Monk may prefer hunting to prayer, but he is after all a manly man, to be an abbot able. Perhaps only the unassuming, devoted Parson and his humbly labouring brother the Ploughman rise entirely above Chaucer's teasing irony; certainly the Parson's fellow clergy and religious officers belong to a Church riddled with gross corruption. Everyone, it seems, is on the make, in a world still recovering from the ravages of the Black Death.

Publisher: NAXOS
Author: Geoffrey Chaucer
Narrator: Full Cast Production
ISBN: 9 62634 044 4 More about this Short Story