The Night Kitchen Radio Theater
Like Orson Welles’s brilliant “Mercury Theater on the Air,” The Night Kitchen Radio Theater, founded and directed by Arthur Yorinks, harks back to the best of early radio and infuses it with contemporary original scripted programs and the unique talents of an extraordinary repertory cast. By creating and producing dramatic and comedic plays, audio shorts, suspense series, musicals, literary adaptations and more, all with music and sound effects, The Night Kitchen Radio Theater embraces the “Theater of the Imagination” and brings to its audience a rich and refreshing antidote to the current landscape of mediocre television and formulaic films.
The Night Kitchen Radio Theater has performed live in New York and Los Angeles and can be heard on XM Satellite Radio. Its work for children can also be heard on Nickelodeon’s Nick.com.
The Night Kitchen Radio Theater is a not-for-profit theater company. We depend upon contributions to keep creating and developing our radio programs. If you'd like to help support our work, please send your donations to:
The Night Kitchen Radio Theater
PO Box 294
New York, NY 10025.
Thank you so much.
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Arthur Yorinks, New York City
Arthur Yorinks, artistic director
Arthur Yorinks...writer and director, for thirty-five years Arthur Yorinks has written and directed for opera, theater, dance, and film and is the author of over two dozen acclaimed and award-winning books for children, including the Caldecott Medal winner, Hey, Al.
In his three decades of working in the theater, Mr. Yorinks has written and directed numerous plays including So, Sue Me which premiered at The Kennedy Center and It’s Alive, premiering at the Tribecca Performing Arts Center in New York. Mr. Yorinks was Philip Glass’s librettist for the operas The Juniper Tree and The Fall of the House of Usher, both of which have been performed all over the world. With Maurice Sendak, Mr. Yorinks helped create a full-length dance/theater piece entitled A Selection with the renowned dance company Pilobolus. Over the years, his eclectic and wide ranging career has brought him into projects with celebrated artists from Bill Irwin to the legendary film maker Michael Powell.
In his books for children, his writings have been hailed as “one of the most distinctive prose styles in children’s literature.” Through his almost thirty years of picture-book making he has collaborated with such famed artists as Maurice Sendak, William Steig, Mort Drucker, David Small, and Richard Egielski. The New York Times once hailed Mr. Yorinks’s body of work as “some of the best humor to appear since Woody Allen was writing for The New Yorker...” His books include Louis the Fish, Oh, Brother, The Miami Giant, Company’s Coming, Harry and Lulu, It Happened in Pinsk, and many many others. His most recent work, a CD of songs for children called Happy Bees!, has already garnered a Parents Choice Award.
Mr. Yorinks is the founder and director of The Night Kitchen Radio Theater.
Maureen Golden, executive director, The Night Kitchen Radio Theater...is a 30 year veteran of the book business, 23 years of which were spent at Barnes & Noble. She began her career at B & N as the children’s book buyer in 1976, when the bookseller had only the main store and the sale annex, both on 18th Street and Fifth Avenue. She is proud of her many contributions to the growth of what is now America’s largest bookseller.
Her last position at B & N was vice president of Marketing and Merchandising. In this role, Maureen oversaw the creation and administration of many of B & N’s charitable literacy-based activities, including (but not limited to) funding for: Poetry in Motion, First Book, Reading Rainbow, The Annual Discover Great New Author’s Program, and the Poets and Writers Fellowship. She was also responsible for all of the marketing coop programs, author promotions, and advertising, as well as all in-store merchandising. For the last five years, Ms. Golden has been a consultant to the book industry and has worked with literacy organizations, book packagers, and writers.
Leonard Marcus, literary director, The Night Kitchen Radio Theater...is one of the world’s most respected historians and critics of children’s literature and illustration. His book reviews for Parenting, which have appeared in every issue since the magazine’s founding in 1987, reach more than two million readers each month. In addition, his reviews and commentaries have been featured in the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, The Horn Book, and numerous other publications, as well as on ABC’s Good Morning America, NPR’s Talk of the Nation, and other radio and television programs. He has lectured throughout the world, including at the national libraries of France and Japan and at the Bologna International Children’s Book Fair, as well as before groups of parents, teachers, librarians, writers, illustrators, publishers, physicians, and school children.
Mr. Marcus’s books include A Caldecott Celebration, Side By Side, Author Talk, his critically acclaimed biography, Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon, and Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom.
OUR ADVISORY BOARD
The Night Kitchen Radio Theater
enjoys the expertise of an
ever-growing volunteer group of extraordinary professionals
across a broad spectrum of the arts and education. The advisors meet on a monthly basis, keeping in touch with each other throughout the month, to inform, research, and help develop the various projects undertaken by
The Night Kitchen Radio Theater.
Our current advisory board includes:
Barbara Clark
prominent book editor/Reader's Digest
Dan Feigelson
principal, Public School 6, NYC
JoAnn Fruchtman
owner of The Children’s Bookstore, Baltimore, MD and founder of
The Children’s Bookstore Educational Foundation
Teddy Gross
founder, executive director of COMMON CENTS
Kim Ketchell
owner/partner of CHOWDER, INC. advertising agency
Leonard Marcus
nationally renown writer, critic, journalist
Ania Mianowska
photographer
Judith Rovenger
youth services, Westchester County Public Library, NY; noted writer, educator
Lesley Stoller
composer, educator, special education teacher, NYC public schools
Don Wershba
v.p. Solid State Logic, Inc.
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Our Collaborators
Darrell Ayers, Vice President, Education, The Kennedy Center
Kim Peter Kovac, Director, Youth & Family Programs, The Kennedy Center
Teddy Gross, Common Cents New York
Heidi Okla, Reading Is Fundamental
Kenny Curtis, XM Satellite Radio
Steve Karesh, XM Satellite Radio
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