It's the world premiere of a new radio play by Rick Moody, about the characters, stories and theories that seem to gather at the base of a big, black cube in downtown Manhattan. Featuring, among others, Ethan Hawke, Miranda July and Larry Pine, this is no ordinary radio drama. It incorporates all kinds of sounds and voices - cell phone calls, answering machine messages, and the music and noise you find on city streets — a kind of cinema for your ears only.

Interview with Rick Moody

Rick Moody and NBT host Dean Olsher talk about the genesis of "Alamo: A Radio Play," and about Rick's reflections on this very big cube.

Alamo: A Radio Play

Listen to an excerpt of Alamo or visit the website on Monday for the full version.

The play revolves around an existing work of contemporary art, Tony Rosenthal's Alamo (known to New Yorkers as "the cube"), which sits on a traffic island in Astor Place in downtown Manhattan. Irving Paley, a middle-aged doctoral candidate in English, is obsessed with the cube and the ways in which it affects those who pass by it. On an answering machine ("Call 1-900-555-CUBE"), he collects the voices of cab drivers, students, drug dealers and conspiracy theorists, all of whom find some sort of meaning in the cube.

The cast features Scott Shepard as radio producer Doug Haines; John Hadden as doctoral candidate Irving Paley; Tirlok Malik as a taxi driver; Miranda July as a Midwestern college student; James Harry as a conspiracy theorist, Larry Pine as artist Tony Rosenthal, Ethan Hawke as a purveyor of federally scheduled substances, and Diane Salinger as an art historian. Alamo's actors were recorded on location, in cafes, on street corners and answering machines all over New York.

The play was written by Rick Moody and produced by Bruce Odland for The Next Big Thing. A print version was published in The Paris Review, Summer 2002, #162.

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