Listen in as the co-creators & performers of The Russian and The Jew, Liba Vaynberg and Emily Louise Perkins, discuss adapting Anna Karenina, their development process, sell-out fake-outs, varying audience reactions, drinking thimble-fuls of wine, & devising while co-writing with a large cast.
“…it’s all about female friendship, and betrayal, and love, and lust, and how dreams are politicized. And it’s sexy, and strange…and there’s free vodka…”
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Listen in as producer Leah Abrams, along with most of the cast of Custom Made Theatre Company‘s production of Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night—Gabriel Grilli, Trish Lindstrom, Eric Rice, Dave Sikula, Matthew Van Oss, & Andrea Gallo—discuss why you should take the chance and just ask, the hearty challenge of leaping through time, the beauty of adaptation, searching for a Schenectady accent, what we relate to and what we don’t, and the timeliness of this story written in 1961.
“…it’s a really specific sensibility. There’s a drollness, and a darkness to it, that I hope we’ve captured…”
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Listen in as Hunger and Thirst Theatre artistic director, producer, actor & playwright of Your Invisible Corset, Patricia Lynn, along with her co-stars Patrick T. Horn, Emily Kitchens, and Elizabeth Anne Rimar, discuss getting away from sexy sparkly vampires, internal horror, jump scares & gore effects, seduction through feminism, walking into the fog, the human drama in a supernatural story, and the horror of strapping one’s self into a corset.
“…the parallels are very, very now…there are Draculas in this world that would like to see women be smaller, be more constricted, who think that is the shape that a woman should take. And that’s the horror of the story…”
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Listen in as Worse Than Tigers producer/director Jaclyn Biskup and actor Braeson Herold discuss collegiate connections, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia’s Rhinoceros?,” using your space, how to play an insufferable drip (hint: kindness & generosity), unexpected journeys, the importance of openness & trust in your rehearsal room, and “sausage casing” as metaphor.
“…I really like to direct absurdism the same way that one would direct realism, because I feel like it’s a really fine line. And I think today, our lives are very fu**ing absurd…”
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Listen in as the co-producers & performers of the U.S. premiere of Charlie Falkner’s Sex Object, David De Almo & Kelly McCready, along with director Susanna Wolk, discuss bringing this Australian play to the States, embracing the space, “how you perceive yourself and how you’re presenting yourself to the world,” having the audience on your side, sibling relationships, sex-shop sponsorship, and what a Black Mirror episode might look like in real life.
“…marrying all the different comedic elements to the heartfelt core was something that was really exciting to me about this play…”
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Listen in as Smith Street Stage‘s Executive Director (and director of this show) Jonathan Hopkins, and Beth Ann Hopkins, Artistic Director (& “Titania”), discuss their new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Carroll Park, why this was the right year for the company to produce this comedy, playing to a large & diverse audience, going beyond actor voice for the outdoor stage, the overlap of personal/professional partnerships, making original music & sound, advice for producing in public places, and why it’s important to be an active part of the community you’d like to perform in.
“…I think last year, we tried to afflict the comfortable, and this year we’re trying to comfort the afflicted…”
“…although this is not a ‘Midsummer’ of just clowns and fools, there’s a lot of deeper ground that we’re digging…”
“…it’s a play about the power of art to change people, and bring people outside of the normal boundaries, and it’s a play about how people change themselves, and the circumstances in which people are changed…”
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Listen in as Cannibal Galaxy: a love story playwright Charise Greene, along with the duo behind the producing company Between Two Boroughs—the show’s director, Jenn Haltman, and Becca Schneider, who plays “Claire”—discuss impossibility in the theater, finding communal experiences in the wake of trauma, “the relationship between violence, science, and spirituality in our country,” embracing the structural elements of a space, galactic cannibalism, magical realism, irrevocable change, and where creativity and violence collide.
“…I always ask the question, ‘why does this have to be a play?’…for me, impossible plays are an opportunity to welcome collaboration…Becca’s ‘Claire’ coughing up peach pits, or ash, is going to be very different than another actress, and I want Becca’s version of that, and Jenn’s version of the larger picture…to me, it’s a leap of exciting theatricality that is the reason why I go to the theater.”
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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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Listen in as Attic Theater Company‘s executive director Ted Caine, and cast members Hannah Sloat, Jack Sochet, and Noelle Franco of the company’s world premiere production of Jericho by Michael Weller, discuss working with the playwright in the room, loving and hating your protagonist, “having the conversation,” perspective from present day vs. the time of the play’s action, “doing the do of the play,” complicating the motives of your characters, and the importance of presenting hits that absolutely do not feel like kisses.
“…the only person that can change is you […] Just as he has to figure out how he’s going to change, the audience has to figure out how they’re going to change…”
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Listen in as Phoenix Theatre Ensemble‘s producing artistic director Craig Smith, along with performers Lori Parquet, Ariel Estrada, Elise Stone, Stacey Raymond, and Layan Elwazani of the company’s world premiere production of Topher Cusumano’s The Cult Play, discuss the play’s resonance with the current zeitgeist, how defense of one’s identity can put others in harm’s way, technology’s place in telling a story in the theatre, killing different characters in different drafts, surviving cults, what we believe and why we believe it, “truth” vs. “certainty,” and the responsibility of not just the leader, but of those who choose to follow them.
“…2.5 million Americans have been in cults in the past 30 or 40 years. It’s pretty widespread, and I think cults are enormously interesting. I think all of us, on some level, feel wounded, and maybe a bit fragile, and I think we’re more fragile than we think that we are, and we come under the spell of these folks like Mama Pearl […]”
“You don’t have to go political with this play. If you’re on Instagram, or Twitter, or whatever, you already follow someone…”
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