Listen in as playwright Johnny G. Lloyd and director William Steinberger of Or, An Astronaut Play discuss capitalism, Emerson, childlike wonder, designing to your space, stealing kids’ artwork, and why the play goes to space school (as well as literal space).
“…it’s a play about race, and privilege, and access, but also, still, about finding access to that inner child, and finding a way to negotiate that…”
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Listen in as GSAS! correspondent Alex Randrup meets with Of the Woman Came the Beginning of Sin and Through Her We All Die director Kylie M. Brown, along with producer Leigh Honigman, to discuss basement cults, Biblical inspiration & imagery, the marketability of femininity, ushering a new text to maturity, ritual & retail, accepting the weirdness to find the grounded truth, & living under late capitalism while femme.
“…what I see this show as, is femmes living in boxes, and trying their best to get out of said boxes. And we burn the boxes down. Simple enough.”
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Listen in as the cast of Friendly’s Fire—Matthew Weitz, Adeyinka Adebola, Desiree Pinol, Kyle Porter, Johnny Blaze Leavitt, & Ita Korenzecher—along with Artistic Director Akia Squitieri (with a quick note from Production Stage Manager Callie Stribling) discuss non-toxic male friendships, the sad timelessness of plays about trauma from war, the difference between cheerleading into war vs. receiving the warriors back into society, and how we use stories to make myths and to heal.
“…the same way kids believe in ghosts, and Santa Claus…and then you’re taught years later that these things are pretend, and made up, and that you need to get a job. So you’re pulled away from storytelling…and the healing powers that it has for people…”
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Listen in as Whore writer/producer/performer Suzanne Tufan and director Lindsey Hope Pearlman discuss “showing the emotion of little moments,” the various masks we create, working as a director with the writer/performer, the roller-coaster of baring one’s soul in a public setting, playfulness within serious personal material, and transformation, survival, and hope.
“I thought it was an important story to share, because I think we have so many misconceptions about women and sexuality. The word ‘whore’ is this dirty word, and women get these dirty words thrown at them from such a young age, for no reason…”
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Listen in as TILT creator, choreographer, director, & performer Rachel Cohen, along with tap dancer Heather Cornell, composer Lynn Wright, and lighting designer Jon Harper discuss constructing your reality, creating a feast for the senses, a tight structure overlain with chaos, scaling your show, the sound of sandpaper and wood, pinball, and brilliant, delusional minds.
“…when you start to work on Don Quixote, and…you think about it, you realize, ‘oh my God, this is me’…as artists, too, you just keep trying to fight these windmills, and no matter how many times you get knocked down, you get back up, and you keep going…”
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Listen in as Nylon director Knud Adams, along with producer Nicola Korzenko, composer Anand Wilder, and cast members Maggie Bofill, Brian Miskell, Cesar J. Rosado, Claire Siebers, & Sheila Vand, speak with GSAS! correspondent Alex Randrup to discuss how best to tease your show, the cages we build for ourselves, “coming up from beneath the role,” the audience as an invisible character, making art on an indie theatre budget, jedi director tricks, demanding a response, making messy decisions and messing up, and balancing *you* with your character.
“…I loved when I first read this play, this idea that, we do create a narrative for our lives, and what happens when you start to confront the cracks in that narrative…?”
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Listen in as CC: You in Hell! playwright/producer/actor Mark Levy, along with fellow performer Sarah Detrik, discuss a love for 90s horror, uniting the theatre and comedy scenes, ensemble work, creating your style, putting horror onstage, finding collaborators with a different view of the world from your own, warm hugs, and the magic of the indie theatre community coming together.
“…it is a horror comedy set very much now, but it feels like it’s from the late ’90s…it’s a very nerdy, theatre-movie-nerd play…”
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Listen in as co-producers of Romeo & Juliet, Kelsey Hercs (“Juliet”) and Drew Bolander (adaptor/director) discuss undermining romanticism, logic-ing your way through your feelings, finding the kernel of the play we all think we know so well, making limitations into opportunities, love overflowing into hysteria and violence, and what we’re willing to do for the people and things we care about.
“…all of the violence comes from a place of love…it’s coming from a place of trying to protect what’s ‘theirs’…I think it’s interesting, because then we can apply that to ourselves, and our own groups, and kind of see where other people are coming from, even if their actions are wrong, and bad…”
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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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