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Billy Crystal’s new play coming live to Audible

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Billy Crystal arrives at Caruso’s Palisades Village opening gala in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. The comedian plays a U.S. president in his new play “Have a Nice Day.”

NEW YORK >> In its latest foray into the theater world, Audible Inc. has announced that it will bring a live reading of “Have a Nice Day,” a new play by Billy Crystal and Quinton Peeples, to the Minetta Lane Theater for a two-night engagement in October.

Crystal, Annette Bening and Kevin Kline will star in the reading, in which Crystal will play the leading role of a U.S. president deciding whether to run for a second term.

The reading, which runs Oct. 7-8, will be recorded live, and audio from the performances will be made available on Audible soon after.

This isn’t the first play by Crystal to be adapted for digital media. A 2013 revival of “700 Sundays,” a stage version of Crystal’s autobiography that won a Tony Award in 2005, was filmed by HBO for broadcast in 2014.

And it isn’t the first theater show produced by Amazon’s audiobook subsidiary. In June, Audible brought “Girls &Boys,” a one-woman play starring Carey Mulligan, from the Royal Court Theater in London to the Minetta Lane Theater. That production followed Audible’s first off-Broadway show, in March, when the company brought “Harry Clarke,” a one-man play starring Billy Crudup, to Minetta Lane from the Vineyard Theater.

Audio from those performances has been made available on the service.

Audiences in New York and online already have more to look forward to this fall. The company has announced that it will produce “Sakina’s Restaurant,” a one-man show from actor and writer Aasif Mandvi, which is scheduled to open Friday at the Minetta Lane Theater and run through Nov. 4.

The company brought “Patti Smith: Words and Music at the Minetta Lane,” a concert and spoken-word performance from author and musician Patti Smith, to the theater for a three-night run last week.

And it will produce Chisa Hutchinson’s “Proof of Love” at Minetta Lane as part of a $5 million fund for emerging playwrights that Audible announced last year.

All those productions will be recorded and released as audio plays through Audible.

© 2018 The New York Times Company

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