Reading McCarthy Episode 23: Reading McCarthy with Audiobook Narrator RICHARD POE
Episode 23 of READING MCCARTHY brings us a great discussion with actor and audiobook narrator Richard Poe. Poe is known to McCarthy fans as the audiobook narrator of McCarthy’s masterwork Blood Meridian. Richard Poe has been a professional actor since 1970, when he left the army and was soon drafted into the chorus of William Ball’s production of Oedipus Rex at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Later that year he was cast as Rosencrantz in a production of Hamlet starring the 73-year-old Dame Judith Anderson, touring all the major theaters in America, including Carnegie Hall. He then played a variety of roles in many regional theaters before coming to New York in 1985. He has since appeared in thirteen Broadway shows, including the 1988 Best Play Tony Award winning M. Butterfly, 1992 Best Play Nominee Our Country’s Good, 2006 Best Musical Revival Winner The Pajama Game, and the 2007 Best Play Revival Winner Journey’s End. He created the roles of Father Dan (among others) in Paul Rudnick’s groundbreaking comedy Jeffrey, and Leonard in Christopher Durang’s Why Torture Is Wrong…And The People Who Love Them. Recently he returned to The American Conservatory Theater, where it all started, and created the role of Edgar Halcyon in the new musical, Tales Of the City, receiving a nomination for Best Actor in a Musical from the Bay Area Critics Association. Additionally, Richard has had featured roles in several films, including Born on the Fourth of July, Presumed Innocent, Transamerica, Speechless, Burn After Reading, and Delivery Man. For his performance as Roy in Teresa is a Mother he was named Best Actor in the 2012 New York City Independent Film Festival. On TV he’s had recurring roles on several series, including Frasier, A Whole New Ballgame and in several episodes of each of the latter-day Star Trek series.
Most interesting for our audience, Richard is a prolific narrator of audiobooks, with over one hundred titles to his credit, including three novels by Cormac Mccarthy, His narration of BLOOD MERIDIAN was nominated for an “Audie” Award. He won the award in 2004 for his narration of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Richard is married to Claudia Howard and they live in Brooklyn.
Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the theme music and interludes for READING MCCARTHY.
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Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor...