Showing results by narrator "Ron Altman" in All Categories

This play, which bears an alternate title of What You Will, was written in about 1602. Twelfth Night has always been one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies, and many adaptations have been made for film and musical theatre.

When Drake is told that his beloved wife does not have long to live, he clutches at straws for anything that will prolong her life. A mysterious stranger offers him a cure for his wife's illness that appears to be remarkably effective - but, like many miracles, it comes at a cost.

Shakespeare's King Lear ranks with Sophocles' Oedipus as a tragic hero destroyed by his own good intentions. From the moment when Lear unfolds his darker purpose, we are drawn into an ineluctable chain of events that leads through betrayal, deceit, destructive family conflict, reconciliation, despair, and death. Considered by many to be the most grueling of Shakespeare's tragedies.

Santa is in trouble - he catches a cold at the most inconvenient time of the year. As he rests in bed, he ponders anxiously: Who will deliver the presents this year?

A magical tale of love frustrated, tested, and finally triumphant, A Midsummer Night's Dream has always been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. It is also one of his most accessible, and its broad humor remains vivid and compelling to this day. On the serious side, as a dramatic examination of love in all its guises - romantic, conjugal, filial, parental, and patriotic - A Midsummer Night's Dream has never been surpassed.

Interplanetary visitor Moop has been sent on a mission: to investigate Christmas. When he meets Santa, Moop discovers that there is rather more to Earth's greatest festival than he had expected.

Charles Dickens' classic Yuletide tale is one of the most popular tales of personal redemption in world literature, and has been adapted many times for presentation on film and on stage.

Initially published in 1914, Papa was the first major dramatic work by playwright and poet Zoë Akins (1886-1958). A subtle but quietly savage comedy of manners, the play was not a commercial success but has since come to be regarded as a masterpiece. As a skillfully drawn portrait of genteel corruption, it ranks with the works of masters of dramatic satire like Moliere and Oscar Wilde.

Stephen Leacock (1869 - 1944) is considered by many to be the Canadian counterpart to the better known American humorists Mark Twain and S.J. Perelman. In the early 20th century he was one of the most widely read authors in the English speaking world. Jack Benny and Groucho Marx considered Leacock as one of the funniest writers they had ever read. The following sketches have been adapted from pieces in the miscellanies Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy and Further Foolishness, in which Leacock satirizes many of the social institutions of his time.

Even to this day Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865) remains the most loved and respected of all American presidents. In this heartfelt biography, Ernest Foster reprises the ever-inspiring story of the man who traveled from a log cabin to the White House and presided over one of the momentous periods of change in the nation's history.

First published in 1881, the subtitle of this book tells us that it was written “for children and those who love children”. Heidi, a 5-year-old orphan, is handed off by her young Aunt Dete to live with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. Though her new life is foreign, Heidi soon falls in love with her grandfather, and he with her. They share a contented life of goat-herding. But when Grandfather refuses to allow Heidi to attend school in the small village below, quarrels ensue.