Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.
The Inheritance  By  cover art

The Inheritance

By: Matthew López
Narrated by: Bradley James Tejeda, Israel Erron Ford, August Gray Gall, Miguel Pinzon, Eddie Lopez, Jay Donnell, Kasey Mahaffy, Avi Roque, Adam Kantor, Juan Castano, Bill Brochtrup, Tuc Watkins, Tantoo Cardinal, Eric Flores
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $7.95

Buy for $7.95

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Considered “perhaps the most important American play of this century” by The Daily Telegraph, the Tony Award-winning Best Play has arrived on Audible. Based on Howards End by E.M. Forster, The Inheritance takes place in New York City decades after the AIDS epidemic. Eric Glass is a political activist engaged to his writer boyfriend, Toby Darling. When two strangers enter their lives—an older man and a younger one—their futures suddenly become uncertain as they begin to chart divergent paths. In this epic examination of survival, healing, and class divide, three generations of gay men attempt to forge a future for themselves amid a turbulent and changing America.

The Tony Award-winning Best Play

©2023 Matthew Lopez (P)2023 AO Media LLC

The cast discusses the importance of Matthew Lopez’s play, The Inheritance.

0:00

About the Creator

Matthew López is an American playwright and screenwriter. His play The Inheritance, originally directed by Stephen Daldry, is the most honored American play in a generation, sweeping the “Best Play” awards in both London and New York, including the Tony Award, Olivier Award, Drama Desk Award, Evening Standard Award, London Critics Circle Award, Outer Critics Circle Honors, Drama League Award, and GLAAD Media Award. He is the first Latin writer to win the Tony Award for Best Play.
In New York, Matthew’s work has been seen off-Broadway with The Whipping Man and The Legend of Georgia McBride. Other works include Somewhere, Reverberation, The Sentinels, and Zoey’s Perfect Wedding. Matthew is currently co-writing the musical adaptation of the classic film Some Like it Hot.
Matthew will be making his directorial feature debut with the LGBTQ+ romantic comedy Red, White & Royal Blue for Amazon Studios. In addition to directing the film, Matthew has adapted the script, based on Casey McQuiston’s bestselling novel.
Matthew is also working on a reimagining of the iconic 1992 Whitney Houston box office hit, The Bodyguard, for Warner Bros, as well as a feature film adaptation of the novel Leading Men for Searchlight Pictures, which centers on Tennessee Williams and his longtime partner Frank Merlo.
In October 2020, he signed an overall television development deal with Amazon studios.
Photographed by Emil Cohen

About the Director

Mike Donahue's first short film, Troy, premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival and has gone on to screen at another 30 festivals internationally, including the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. It has won a handful of awards, including the Audience Award for Best Narrative Short at Outfest 2022 and the Vimeo 'Unofficial Award' for Best US Narrative Short at Sundance. Mike and writer Jen Silverman are currently working on their first feature, with Pacific Electric producing. For the past decade, Mike has worked as a theater director, primarily in New York and Los Angeles. NYC credits include: world premieres of Matthew López's The Legend of Georgia McBride (MCC, The Geffen and Denver Center, Joe A. Callaway Award, Outer Critics Circle Nomination, Ovation Award Nomination); Jen Silverman’s Collective Rage (MCC, Woolly Mammoth, Drama League Nomination), The Moors (Playwrights Realm – NYC premiere), and Phoebe in Winter (Clubbed Thumb); Ana Nogueira’s Which Way To The Stage (MCC); and Jordan Seavey’s Homos, Or Everyone In America (Labyrinth). Regionally: The LA premiere of Matthew López's The Inheritance (Geffen Playhouse); Little Shop of Horrors with MJ Rodriguez, George Salazar and Amber Riley (Pasadena Playhouse); world premieres of Jen Silverman’s The Roommate (Humana, Williamstown, Long Wharf), Wink (Marin); Rachel Bonds’ Curve of Departure (South Coast Rep, Studio Theater); Matt Schatz's A Wicked Soul In Cherry Hill (Geffen Playhouse); Kate Cortesi’s Love (Marin); the US premiere of Anne Carson’s adaptation of Euripides’ The Bakkhai with original music by Diana Oh (Baltimore Center Stage); and Shostakovich’s Moscow, Cheryomushki in a new libretto by Meg Miroshnik (Chicago Opera Theater). Mike is recipient of a Fulbright to Berlin, the Dramaleague Fall Fellowship, The Boris Sagal Fellowship at Williamstown, and was the artistic director of the Yale Summer Cabaret for two seasons. Mike is a graduate of Harvard University and the Yale School of Drama.

About the Director

Stephen Daldry is an award-winning theatre, film, and television director, and producer.
He has directed many theatre productions for London's West End and New York's Broadway, including Billy Elliot, The Inheritance, and An Inspector Calls, winning multiple Olivier and Tony awards.
Stephen has directed six feature films which have all been nominated for industry awards. His 2021 film Together, for the BBC, won a BAFTA.
Netflix’s The Crown, winner of 21 Primetime Emmy Awards, which he serves as Executive Producer, is currently in production on its final season with Stephen directing the last episode.
Stephen is Chairman of a refugee arts charity Good Chance, who produced The Jungle and The Walk, which saw a 10ft tall puppet of a Syrian refugee girl, Little Amal, walk from Turkey to Glasgow.

Featured Article: Audible Essentials—The Top 100 LGBTQIA+ Listens of All Time


While LGBTQIA+ creators have been around for millennia, it’s only recently that we’ve been hearing more diverse, more queer-authored, and more queer-performed stories about the entire spectrum of LGBTQIA+ experiences and identities. This list—just like the community it represents—is meant to be fluid. But most importantly, it’s meant to celebrate and reflect on the issues faced by LGBTQIA+ people everywhere.

What listeners say about The Inheritance

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    69
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    4
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    65
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    63
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellence in Theatre

I have nothing bad to say about this piece. Matthew Lopez is a brialliant storyteller. Each character in Inheritance is beautifully realized and brilliantly performed by its talented cast. Its equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful. The sequence where Trumps America is compared to an HIV infected body is particularly eloquent. I cannot recommend checking this one out enough. You wont regret it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A Great way to learn about other people's affairs

story very different from what I'm used to hearing about, but I enjoyed.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Tear jerker

Crazy story keeps you interested the whole time. Great characters wacky story. Fun to listen to makes you think

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Powerful truth needs told &retold.

I thought I knew the story they didn’t know it so intimately. I would love to see this as a play. I hope it comes to Oregon.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

it has surprising depth

as I started this play it annoyed me a little. i was unsure if I would finish. However this was a stage setting in a multilayered cyclical story in wich not only the characters but also the character of the author matures and grows, bringing so many themes and stories into new perspectives.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A Great Play

As Angels in America defined Queer Theatre/Playwriting for the last half of the 20th Century. The Inheritance is to the 21st Century.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazingly funny and realistic

It grabbed me at first bc it was hilarious and then it got steamy and then it got reeeal
It’s a really great play/story.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I lost track of who was who, but didn't care!

Unbelievably witty, sad, truth telling of the bravest & most devastating time for gay men.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Emotional

As a story, Matthew Lopez weaves the lives of white gay men in a way that the listeners connects with emotionally. As a play, there isn’t much theatricality but still, the play has a lot of merit.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The definitive performance. Bring your tissues.

The Inheritance is one of the best American plays ever written, a sprawling, episodic drama series in play form that will have deep resonance with the LGBT world, and to anyone processing the loss of a loved one. But at over 6 hours over two nights, it was hard to recommend and hard for people to see (not to mention expensive). The production at Los Angeles' Geffen Playhouse, which featured a new, realistically diverse cast (it does take place in NYC) and the same gorgeous minimalist staging of its COVID-truncated Broadway run, was considered by many critics to be the definitive version. I saw it twice. Both nights. It left a deep mark on me. I was a little heartbroken that its run was so short, or I would've gladly seen it a third time.

I was elated to hear that Audible was preserving this production in audiobook form. While normally plays would lose quite a bit in this format, The Inheritance emerges nearly intact, as its action is largely narrated by its characters. (The lack of physicality also cuts over an hour from its running time.) And I am so grateful to hear these characters again. From Juan Castano's brash, needy, overcompensating Toby, to Adam Kantor's gentle, unassuming Eric, to Bill Brochtrup's reassuring E.M. Forster and his closed off Walter. Special attention must be paid to Bradley James Tejeda in a double role as both ambitious young actor Adam and shut down sex worker Leo. In a work filled with superlative performances, this is one I utterly fell in love with. While some characters keep the staginess of their stage performance, Tejeda adjusts seamlessly to the more subtle performance demanded of a recording booth. He is one to watch.

This play moved me deeply. It reminded me of all of the dear friends I'd lost, and made me refocus on how I want to live out the rest of my life, what's important to me, and most importantly, who is important to me. I'll be grateful to everyone involved in its telling for the rest of my days.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful