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Selected Shorts

Coming and Going

Selected Shorts

Symphony Space

Arts, Fiction, Books, Society & Culture

4.42.7K Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2023

⏱️ 62 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Host Meg Wolitzer presents four stories about journeys, performed by actors including Stephen Colbert and John Turturro. Strangers size one another up on a busy city bus in Kurt Vonnegut’s “City,” performed by Bhavesh Patel and Sarah Steele. An excerpt from James Baldwin’s Another Country takes us on a frantic subway ride toward an ultimate moment. It is performed by Nathan Hinton. Hopeful immigrants try to reach America in a dubious boat in “The Long Voyage” by Leonardo Sciascia, performed by John Turturro. And a man in transit takes the opportunity to try to recover a bit of his past, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Three Hours Between Planes,” performed by Stephen Colbert.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Love at the bus stop, soul searching on the subway, fishing for America and flying into the past.

0:12.0

It's all a grand journey as Stephen Colby. America and

0:13.8

more perform stories that take us places.

0:18.8

Fassen your seat belts.

0:19.8

I'm your host Meg Walitzer. Stay with us.

0:36.2

You're listening to selected shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time.

0:41.5

I love stories, so I'm very excited to host selected shorts. Not only do I get to listen to these

0:46.9

stories I get to talk about them too which even if I weren't hosting this show I would

0:51.5

probably be doing anyway to my circle of very kind

0:54.9

and very patient friends. A story is always a journey so on this week's selected

1:00.6

shorts we're doubling down on stories framed by some kind of travel or

1:04.8

transit. Three American masters, James Baldwin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Kurt Vonnegut,

1:11.4

offer encounters on subways, planes, and buses.

1:15.2

And a charming Italian story hand-picked by Jumpel Lahiri lands us on a rickety fishing boat bound

1:20.9

for America.

1:22.3

We gain access to our character's thoughts as their minds

1:24.7

wander while in transit. These musings lead to risk adventure, happy endings, and

1:30.3

tragedy. Selected shorts celebrated the 100th anniversary of the transgressive satirist Kurt Vonnegut

1:38.0

with a live event at symphony space.

1:40.0

Vonnegut is best known for fiction like his anti-war novel Slaughterhouse Five, but he had a kinder gentler side too.

1:47.0

City is a playful meet cute story set at a bus stop.

1:51.0

Meet cute always takes two, so we chose a stylish pair of actors,

...

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