A performance of the L.A. Theatre Works production The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial is now available on-line as a podcast. The play, written by Peter Goodchild and based on the transcripts of the Scopes trial in 1925, was originally broadcast by LATW in 1992; it was revived in 2005 to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the trial. The present performance was recorded by WGBH at Harvard University's School of Government on April 9, 2007, and features Ed Asner as William Jennings Bryan and John de Lancie as Clarence Darrow. The complete performance time is about two hours. Reviewing the play in the Wall Street Journal (October 1, 2005), the critic Terry Teachout commented, "the trial itself is heard as it happened, and is all the more dramatic for being true. ... while I doubt it'll change many minds in Harrisburg [where the trial in Kitzmiller v. Dover was being conducted], or anywhere else, it still makes for a thought-provoking show."
May 14, 2007