Selected Shorts is an event at New York’s Symphony Space on the Upper West Side, in which actors read classic and new short fiction before a live audience. The stage show began in 1985 and continues today at Symphony Space's Peter Sharp Theater.
The annual season of the live events at Symphony Space begins in the mid-fall and ends in mid-spring, and a typical episode would include about three short story readings. Symphony Space's Artistic Director Isaiah Sheffer hosted the live event, although many Selected Shorts also feature guest hosts, often well-known writers, who will also choose the stories to be read that evening. Mr. Sheffer died on November 9, 2012 at 76.
The readings are recorded live and become the basis of a one-hour radio program, hosted by Isaiah Sheffer with literary commentator Hannah Tinti of One Story Magazine, and produced in conjunction with WNYC. The programs are distributed by Public Radio International and air on PRI affiliate public radio stations in the United States. The radio program airs weekly throughout the year.
Originally, the program was distributed by National Public Radio. However, in October 2007, it switched to distribution by forging a partnership with PRI, Public Radio International.
The program's theme is David Peterson's "That's the Deal," performed by the Deardorf/Peterson group.
Until 2011, the radio show began and ended with the piano and cello duet "Come to the Meadow" by Roger Kellaway.
Famous quotes containing the words selected and/or shorts:
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“The world is never the same as it was.... And that’s as it should be. Every generation has the obligation to make the preceding generation irrelevant. It happens in little ways: no longer knowing the names of bands or even recognizing their sounds of music; no longer implicitly understanding life’s rules: wearing plaid Bermuda shorts to the grocery and not giving it another thought.”
—Jim Shahin (20th century)