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Under Milk Wood: From New York

Michael Sheen leads and directs a cast including Kate Burton and Mark Lewis Jones in a reading of Dylan Thomas's play on the very stage where it was first performed in May 1953.

1 hour, 55 minutes

Last on

Christmas Day 2014 15:05

Live from New York: Michael Sheen in Under Milk Wood

Michael Sheen directs and stars in this special performance of Under Milk Wood for ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio Wales at New York’s 92nd Street Y cultural centre, where Dylan Thomas premiered his β€˜play for voices’ in 1953. The radio dramaΒ broadcasts live on 26 October at 7 PM GMT, to mark the centenary of Dylan’s birth (and is available online here for 30 days afterwards).

OurΒ broadcast follows that's run throughout this centenary year. Earlier in 2014,Β ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Wales haveΒ presented a kaleidoscope of programmes across, radio, televisionΒ and online, celebrating the poet’s life, work and legacy.

Michael Sheen says: β€œIt's a real honour and an absolute thrill to perform Under Milk Wood in this very special year and on the stage that it first found its voice.Β 

β€œThis live radio broadcast is an opportunity to celebrate him and his work in both New York - a city that became so important to Dylan - and, at the same time, in Wales, his inspiration and home.” 

In addition to directing, Sheen reads β€œFirst Voice”, the play’s narrator, a part Dylan himself read in the 1953 premiere.Β 

The all-Welsh cast also features actress Kate Burton, whose parents, Sybil Williams and Richard Burton, participated in the first ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ radio recording of Under Milk Wood in 1954 - just two months after Thomas’s tragic death in New York. Burton also starred in the 1972 film adaptation of Under Milk Wood.

β€œIt is very meaningful for me to be participating in this event as my parents were in the original recording,” says Burton. β€œI am very proud to be Welsh and to carry on the family tradition."Β 

Radio Wales editor Steve Austins, said: β€œI'm really excited to be able to bring our listeners the chance to hear Dylan's masterpiece performed live, in the city he loved, on the stage where it was first performed. And it's wonderful that Michael has come on board to direct and perform in this unique event."

It was 92nd Street Y’s Poetry Center that introduced Thomas to an American audience. Former Poetry Center director John Malcolm Brinnin brought Thomas to 92Y for his first US reading in 1950, and the poet made 11 more appearances at 92Y between 1950 and 1953, including four performances of Under Milk Wood. Brinnin also acted as Thomas’s agent in the US, arranging the reading tours that took him to colleges and universities across the country.

Broadcasts

  • Sun 26 Oct 2014 19:00
  • Christmas Day 2014 15:05