The American People, Vol. 1

Larry Kramer is an award-winning playwright and author and a celebrated public-health and gay-rights advocate. A pioneering AIDS activist, he cofounded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in 1982 and founded ACT UP in 1987. Kramer has won numerous awards for his plays and in 2013 was named a Master American Dramatist by the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater. In 2014, the HBO adaptation of his play The Normal Heart won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie.

Robertson Dean has recorded hundreds of audiobooks in most every genre. He's been nominated for several Audie Awards, won eight Earphones Awards, and was named one of AudioFile magazine's Best Voices of 2010. He lives in Los Angeles, where he records books and acts in film, TV, and (especially) on stage.

Traber Burns worked for thirty-five years in regional theater, including the New York, Oregon, and Alabama Shakespeare festivals. He also spent five years in Los Angeles appearing in many television productions and commercials, including Lost, Close to Home, Without a Trace, Boston Legal, Grey’s Anatomy, Cold Case, Gilmore Girls, and others.

Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbins’s Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.

Ray Porter is a prolific voice actor that has recorded for over 100 audio books and dozens of television series, video games and video shorts.  Among his wide variety of audiobook credits are The Silver Linings Playbook, The Black Hole War, and the Joe Ledger series. He claims, “With every book I’ve done, I have found that the author has a voice and if I can just do my best to stay out of the way of that voice, then the writer will convey what he’s trying to put across. So for me, it’s really more about enabling the text and what the author is trying to say.”

Kate Reading is the recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards and has been named by AudioFile magazine as a “Voice of the Century,” as well as the Best Voice in Science Fiction & Fantasy in 2008 and 2009 and Best Voice in Biography & Culture in 2010. She has narrated works by such authors as Jane Austen, Robert Jordan, Edith Wharton, and Sophie Kinsella. Reading has performed at numerous theaters in Washington D.C. and received a Helen Hayes Award for her performance in Aunt Dan and Lemon. AudioFile magazine reports that, "With subtle control of characters and sense of pacing, Kate’s performances are a consistent pleasure."

Laura Hicks is an Obie Award–winning actress who has appeared on Broadway, off Broadway, and in regional theater, film, and television. A native New Yorker and a Juilliard graduate, she has performed throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Australia, Austria, Italy, and Ireland.

Grover Gardner has recorded more than 650 audiobooks since beginning his career in 1981.  He's been named one of the "Best Voices of the Century" as well as a "Golden Voice" by AudioFile magazine.  Gardner has garnered over 20 AudioFile Earphones Awards and is the recipient of an Audio Publishers Association Audie Award, as well as a three-time finalist.  In 2005, Publishers Weekly deemed him "Audiobook Narrator of the Year."

 

Gardner has also narrated hundreds of audiobooks under the names Tom Parker and Alexander Adams.  Among his many titles are Marcus Sakey's At the City's Edge, as well as Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and John Irving's The Cider House Rules.  Gardner studied Theater and Art History at Rollins College and received a Master's degree in Acting from George Washington University.  He lives in Oregon with his significant other and daughter.

Bahni Turpin is an experienced audiobook narrator and actress who has appeared in numerous television productions as well as films. An ensemble member of the Cornerstone Theater Company, she also works as a yoga instructor. She currently resides in Los Angeles, where she founded the SoLA Food Co-op.

Chris Patton has narrated over seventy-five audiobooks. His voice can be heard narrating such titles as Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, the dystopian juggernaut Yesterday’s Gone, Clive Barker’s Books of Blood series, and two titles by Joyce Carol Oates. Chris began his career in theater at age ten, and his voice-over career at twenty-nine. Since then, he has voiced over two hundred anime titles, numerous commercials and e-learning and industrial projects, and several video games. He’s also fronted a synthpop band called Paul Lynde Is Dead, written a teen urban fantasy about an emo vampire called Scene Immortal, and has appeared as a special guest at more than eighty-five pop-culture conventions.

Kirsten Potter is an award-winning audiobook narrator who has performed on stage, film, and television. Having graduated from Boston University's School for the Arts, she has received recognition from the American Academy of Achievement and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.

Sean Runnette, a multiple AudioFile Earphones Award winner, has produced several Audie Award–winning audiobooks and has also narrated works by John Steinbeck and Richard P. Feynman. Of his performance of The Courage to be Free, AudioFile Magazine wrote "Runnette’s tender approach to every sentence and paragraph helps the author’s wisdom glow. Along with the understated power of the author’s writing, Runnette’s performance makes this one of the most arresting and thought-provoking audiobooks available today". He is a member of the American Repertory Theater company and has toured internationally with Mabou Mines, an avant-garde theater company. Sean's television and film appearances include Two If by Sea, Copland, Sex and the City, Law & Order, Third Watch.

MacLeod Andrews is an actor, voice actor, and Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator who earned the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2018. He has starred in a number of independent short and feature films and is a member of the Rising Phoenix Repertory Company in New York City.

Carrington MacDuffie is a singer and recording artist, who first began reading audiobooks featuring poetry.  The recipient of multiple Earphones Awards and six Audi nominations, she has read novels by Jackie Collins, Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Anna Quindlen’s Still Life with Bread Crumbs, and Christopher Buckley’s Florence of Arabia.  She also co-narrated Transgressions: Death's Betrayal by Macmillan Audio.  MacDuffe has published her own audiobook, Many Things Invisible, featuring poetry integrated with music and sound.

Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His book, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.