Melissa Moschitto & Mariah Freda of “Artemisia’s Intent”

Posted on February 15, 2018 by robby

Listen in as performer Mariah Freda & director/”script assembler” Melissa Moschitto of The Anthropologists‘ new show Artemisia’s Intent discuss the company’s approach to devising, the well-meaning wish of “break a frame,” skirts from tablecloths, working from found texts, activating original art, and the resonance of 17th Century baroque painting with #MeToo.

“…pressing up these two points in time, with 400 years in between them, there’s actually still a lot with us, and we’re trying to point that out, and be, like, ‘now what?’ Let’s move forward from that…”

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Alexander V. Thompson, Brad Raimondo, Greg Carere, Simon Winheld, & Rosie Sowa of “Pete Rex”

Posted on February 13, 2018 by robby

Listen in as the team behind the world premiere of Pete Rex—playwright Alexander V. Thompson, director Brad Raimondo, and performers Greg Carere, Simon Winheld, and Rosie Sowa—discuss the uses & dangers of fantasy, making your hometown a central character in your script, eerie resonance with the political moment, fun actor challenges, familiarity with the characters and situations onstage, loving someone while hating their inaction, crossing Ionesco with Albee, and, of course, dinosaurs.

“…this place that had been something, and turned into kind of a ‘non-place’ through the loss of industry, and the loss of jobs, and the economy. And we were all, ‘that feels like it should be in here now’…I think that’s something that we really want people to take away…the experience of these places…that have gone from thriving, to nowhere, and what that does to people…”

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Jennifer Fell Hayes & Kate Grimes of “Rosemary and Time”

Posted on February 12, 2018 by robby

Listen in as playwright Jennifer Fell Hayes and actor Kate Grimes of Rosemary and Time discuss beginning with a true story before letting the playwright’s imagination take over, mastering the Yorkshire accent, figuring out where in time your play begins, issues of class in the U.K. vs. the U.S., throwing in local turns of phrase, and dealing with issues of “shame and grief and connection and the past and guilt.”

“…having met the two women […] I really was very, very touched by what had happened to them, and promised them I would really try to do the best I could…a truthful play that might say something about the human condition, about love and loss and life, all those major, major themes that we try to wrestle with…”

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Larry Phillips, Ben Liebert, and Peter Buck Dettmann of “Koalas are Dicks”

Posted on February 5, 2018 by robby

Listen in as actor Peter Buck Dettmann (“Brody”), director Ben Liebert, and playwright/actor Larry Phillips (“Davey”) of Koalas are Dicks discuss turning a six-foot man into a koala, finding sight gags, inspiration from Charlie Sheen, writing to your actor’s Aussie accent, finding a balance between groan-worthy and intellectual humor, and using abstraction through the absurd to get closer to the ridiculous & terrible truth.

“…there’s a lovely irony that the koala is the only one who seems to understand how worthless what they’re doing is…it is very liberating, that fantasy element…being a six-foot-tall dude playing a tiny koala, if the audience follows you on that, they’re with you…”

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Brett Evan Solomon, Kelsey Lurie, and Gabriel Vasquez of “SOMEONEPLEASELISTENANDUNDERSTAND (they’re wiretapping our brains)”

Posted on January 25, 2018 by robby

Listen in as writer & performer Brett Evan Solomon, director & performer Kelsey Lurie, and performer Gabriel Vasquez of SOMEONEPLEASELISTENANDUNDERSTAND (they’re wiretapping our brains) discuss collaborative creation, mediatization, putting a podcast into the live theatre realm, “abstracting feelings,” how technology and the people around you can shape identity, surveillance, and developing a shared language with your close collaborators.

“…that screen is not a threat to me as a performer; that’s my friend…”

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Paul Pinto of “Thomas Paine in Violence”

Posted on November 17, 2017 by robby

Listen in as Paul Pinto, composer/performer of the new opera Thomas Paine in Violence, discusses difficult elevator pitches, millions of radio signals heading in millions of directions, “a shit-ton of words,” why Thomas Paine deserves this musical treatment,live editing, debating the ideas Paine himself was debating over 200 years ago, “words as texture, language as music,” and writing for his thingNY band-mates.

“…it’s juxtaposing Thomas Paine’s incredible writing with pop-culture…”
“…whatever that is…”
“…whatever’s on my brain at the time…it really is like radio stations changing all the time…”

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Christie Perfetti Williams & Charmaine Broad of “The Werewolf of Washington Heights”

Posted on October 13, 2017 by robby

Listen in as The Werewolf of Washington Heights playwright Christie Perfetti Williams and director Charmaine Broad discuss adapting your own work to the stage, why you should put “awesome, talented, and kind” people in your cast, the importance of putting women onstage (and in the producer’s chair), doing your job vs. doing what’s right for the world, swapping the genders of your characters, what’s next for Carnival Girls, and what happens to a family when tragedy strikes in a dystopian near-future U.S.A.

“…Imogene says, ‘we all, all of us as humans just want to be heard, our stories want to be told.’ I think that goes across the board, for every person on the planet, we just want to know […] that our voices have been heard. And I think for women, we haven’t been. So this play was hopefully a small little piece of what’s missing in the puzzle…”

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J. A. Moad II of “Outside Paducah: The Wars at Home”

Posted on October 6, 2017 by robby

Listen in as the writer & performer of Outside Paducah: The Wars at Home, J. A. Moad II, discusses creating dialogue through story and art, how he got to the stage from the page, the seeds of the stories he tells in this show, how those stories have touched audience members, society’s role in taking care of its veterans, and how war affects not only those who serve on the front lines, but also those who serve without a uniform at home.

“…these stories live in me…everything comes down to story, right? It’s that basic human impulse, from the time we’re a little kid and the first thing we say to our dad is, ‘tell me a story.’ If we embrace that idea, of how we learn through story, how story changes the way we see the world and the way we imagine the possibilities, it invites us into all these other places that we cannot begin to see…”

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James Godwin of “The Flatiron Hex”

Posted on September 29, 2017 by robby

Listen in as James Godwin, co-creator and performer of The Flatiron Hex, discusses his roots in puppetry, accidental iconography, flood myths, how you know when your puppet is complete, astounding coincidences, mocking the sacred to make it stronger, how the show requested the puppets (and extreme physicality), and why you should make the kind of things that you enjoy.

“…you know your [work] is done when you’re sitting there, and you decide, ‘there’s one more thing I’m going to change.’ Don’t ever do that change. Because if you think there’s only one more thing to change, you’re about to destroy [it]…”

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Chesney Snow & Rebecca Arends of “The Unwritten Law”

Posted on August 7, 2017 by robby

THE UNWRITTEN LAW, created and performed by Chesney Snow with direction and choreography by Rebecca Arends, at Dixon Place Listen in as The Unwritten Law co-creator & performer Chesney Snow, along with co-creator, director, performer & choreographer Rebecca Arends, discuss working with collaborators who can help turn your story into art, making “something different,” microphones and music, “the magic that happens between people onstage,” American issues, and how sound and movement come together to tell this very personal story.

“…I tell people, they’re coming to see a story of America…we’re looking at black life, and I’m hoping they’ll be able to follow the journey of where we’ve come from…I don’t want to preach at people, but I would love for people to hear the story, and maybe they’ll have a different perspective on some of the things that are happening today…”

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The off-off-Broadway podcast

Category Archives: Playwrights

Melissa Moschitto & Mariah Freda of “Artemisia’s Intent”

Alexander V. Thompson, Brad Raimondo, Greg Carere, Simon Winheld, & Rosie Sowa of “Pete Rex”

Jennifer Fell Hayes & Kate Grimes of “Rosemary and Time”

Larry Phillips, Ben Liebert, and Peter Buck Dettmann of “Koalas are Dicks”

Brett Evan Solomon, Kelsey Lurie, and Gabriel Vasquez of “SOMEONEPLEASELISTENANDUNDERSTAND (they’re wiretapping our brains)”

Paul Pinto of “Thomas Paine in Violence”

Christie Perfetti Williams & Charmaine Broad of “The Werewolf of Washington Heights”

J. A. Moad II of “Outside Paducah: The Wars at Home”

James Godwin of “The Flatiron Hex”

Chesney Snow & Rebecca Arends of “The Unwritten Law”