Selected Shorts

Award-winning actress Stockard Channing adds her elegant, smoky voice to a classic Grimm’s fairy tale, “The Old Woman in the Wood,” as the program’s opener. Her many stage appearances include "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg" (Tony Award), and John Guare’s "Six Degrees of Separation" (Tony nomination). She was also been acclaimed for her role as Dr. Abbey Bartlet, The First Lady, on the long-running NBC drama "The West Wing."

The first food-focused story on this program, “Pie Dance,” maps the delicate territory between two women involved with the same man. Molly Giles was nominated for Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her first story collection, "Rough Translations," which also won the Pushcart Prize, and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, among other honors. Her second book, "Creek Walk," was named one of The New York Times' most notable books of 1997. Her short story "Two Words” won the 2003 O. Henry Prize. She published a novel, "Iron Shoes," in 2000, and is a frequent contributor to literary magazines. She is currently Professor and Director of Programs in Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas. Reader Kate Burton, a SHORTS regular, was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance as Hedda Gabler, and was also seen on Broadway in Somerset Maugham’s "The Constant Wife," for which she received another Tony nomination.

Host Isaiah Sheffer steps into the shoes of another well-known New Yorker, food essayist extraordinaire and long time New Yorker contributor Calvin Trillin, who remembers an epic sequence of take out meals in “Grandfather Knows Best.” Trillin’s books include "Alice Let’s Eat," "Travels with Alice," and "Family Man," and he has appeared on stage in his own right in a one-man show, "Calvin Trillin’s Uncle Sam."

The final tribute to the power of food and cooking on this show is a brief memoir by the late novelist Laurie Colwin. In one of her other stories featured on SELECTED SHORTS, “The Lone Pilgrim,” a character describes herself as “a domestic sensualist,” and this appellation might well apply to Colwin herself, whose books and short stories brim with laden tables and fragrant evocations of food and dining. In “Why I Love Cookbooks” she recalls her earliest encounter with the joy of cooking, although not "The Joy of Cooking." Reader Jane Kaczmarek had a leading role in the television series "Malcolm in the Middle." Other credits include "Felicity," "Party of Five" and "Frasier."

“The Old Woman in the Wood,” by the Brothers Grimm, read by Stockard Channing
“Pie Dance,” by Molly Giles, read by Kate Burton
“Grandfather Knows Best,” by Calvin Trillin, read by Isaiah Sheffer
“Why I Love Cookbooks,” by Laurie Colwin, read by Jane Kaczmarek

For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit Symphony Space