Marina Tempelsman and Niccolo Aeed of “MURDER!”

Posted on July 17, 2015 by robby

This podcast’s affection for all things “radio drama” has been well-documented (see past episodes on All That Fall, three episodes on RadioTheatre’s Lovecraft series, and The Offering for a few examples).

But what we haven’t yet heard on the podcast is a show in that most classic of classic radio genres: the murder-mystery.

Long-time comedy-and-sketch-writing duo Marina & Nicco remedy that, as they bring their comedic sensibilities to the old “group of strangers meet at a strange house for a party, and bodies start to drop” setup—but they’ve got a lot of twists, turns, and laughs for you along the way that are anything but formulaic.

It’s written in a serial format, so there are four different nights of live radio fun, each with two episodes, but never fear if you can’t catch them all: they’re podcasting the episodes, so you can catch up on prior plot-points on your way to The PIT to see future episodes!

(and yes, you are hearing the Jurassic Park theme in the background of this episode—which means you’ve got more chances to catch Hold On to Your Butts, which is back at The PIT, so listen to the episode on that one here, and try to catch a Murder!/HOTYB double-header!)

Listen in to this episode as the Marina & Nicco themselves, Marina Tempelsman and Niccolo Aeed, discuss answering sketchy Craigslist ads, writing to the form, and exploring foley by hitting everything in the hardware store with a hammer.

“…it just lends itself so well to being serialized…”
“…it’s funny and screw-bally, but we also got excited about making people get that feeling of, ‘what comes next?!?'”

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Liz Thaler and Lauren Miller of “Happy”

Posted on June 19, 2015 by robby

Your ever-humble GSAS! producer is sound designing a great play that’s being produced as part of F*ckFest at The Brick in Williamsburg—and because I have editorial control over this here podcast, well, this is an episode about it.

Even if I weren’t working on the show, I’d still be excited to have playwright Liz Thaler and director Lauren Miller join me on the mic to talk about this “love story with a few kinks,” Happy. That’s because I’m extremely proud of the work everyone’s done on the show, and I think you’ll enjoy it, too. Go see this one, y’all.

Listen in as Liz and Lauren discuss how this “Shotz” piece proved itself to be the germ of a larger play, personal vs. professional BDSM, status, power, mystery, and what really makes us happy.

“…nobody’s left out of the story. Nobody has to come in and be, like, ‘oh, that’s not my kink,’ because some of the fantasies aren’t ever said out loud—so they get to fill it in with whatever’s scariest. Or whatever’s sexiest. So I think that allows the audience to identify with something that sometimes people are terrified to identify with, which is their own raw human sexuality.”

Quick point of order: the play and this podcast episode acknowledge the existence of sexual behavior among human beings, and some of that behavior might be outside the realm of what you’re used to seeing depicted in pop music videos and teen comedies; no discretion advised, but you’ve been notified.

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Jeremy Bloom, Brian Rady, & Catherine Brookman of “The Upper Room”

Posted on June 9, 2015 by robby

Start creating a new work of theatre from a classic fairy tale, and you might find yourself taking a detour through the “back to the land” movement, and wind up with a movement play full of original music, lovely light projections, and a manatee mask.

That’s an oversimplified way to describe Rady & Bloom‘s The Upper Room, currently playing at The New Ohio—but it’s a whole lot more than that.

Listen in as the Rady & Bloom, Brian Rady and Jeremy Bloom, along with composer/performer Catherine Brookman, discuss collaboration between song-writer and directors/creators, post-show parties, The Little Mermaid, working with your spouse, and the long haul.

“…there’s a thrust, there is a story, but we’re trying to express the inexpressible, we’re trying to express the feeling of, ‘what will happen next to me,’ or ‘what will happen to US…'”

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Don Nguyen, Kim Wong, Nancy Sun, and Criena House of “Red Flamboyant”

Posted on May 15, 2015 by robby

Firebone Theatre wants to tell you a story.

Weaving the tale of the Trung Sisters, who led the first national uprising of the Vietnamese against the Chinese in 40 A.D., and the modern history of Pham Thi Hue, who started the first support group for people with HIV/AIDS in Vietnam, playwright Don Nguyen‘s Red Flamboyant is a play about struggle and defiance in the face of terrible circumstances, beautifully performed and produced.

Plus: they fly.

Listen in as Don, along with actors Kim Wong, Nancy Sun, and Criena House discuss epic stage directions, playing real people onstage, and working through the pain to look awesome while flying.

“…so Don has the most epic stage direction I have ever read in my life…it’s like this living room drama…you’re going along, realism, realism…then all of a sudden it says,
‘…the ceiling cracks open and the mountains of Vietnam appear. The Trung Sisters fly down the mountain. Enter. Yes, they fly…’
…I read that and I was just like, “ok, yeah, let’s do this.”

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Melody Bates & J. Stephen Brantley of “R & J & Z,” in conversation with Mariah MacCarthy

Posted on April 15, 2015 by robby

If you stop and think about it, of all the classics being overrun by zombies these days, Romeo & Juliet is kind of the most logical to receive the undead treatment.

Playwright Melody Bates was struck with just such a notion after seeing the Met’s opera of Roméo et Juliette, and the result, R & J & Z, is now playing at The New Ohio. Picking up Shakespeare’s story in Act V, Bates keeps the action going long after the dagger through her heart has turned Juliet’s white dress to crimson—and you might be surprised who the villain of the story is…

GSAS! sat down to chat with Melody (who also plays Juliet) after a performance of the show, and thanks to the brilliant suggestion of Hard Sparks Artistic Director J. Stephen Brantley (Mercutio in this production, and past podcast guest), we were joined by playwright Mariah MacCarthy, who’s also adapted Romeo & Juliet with her musical Ampersand.

Listen in as Melody, J. Stephen, and Mariah discuss their respective adaptations of Shakespeare, gender-swapping & cross-dressing, low opinions of Paris, upending the power structure of the world, and how death changes everything.

“…so frequently you have scenes in Shakespeare where the women just stop talking, and the scene continues for several more pages and the men do the talking. And that’s an interesting challenge as an actress because you’re like, ‘well, I have to figure out why I’m not talking—”

“—right, and why I’m still here, not talking—”

“—exactly. So I pointedly wanted to write a scene where that happened to a man.”

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The Cast & Playwright/Director of “Live from the Surface of the Moon”

Posted on April 8, 2015 by robby

July 20, 1969 was a day that changed everything—the United States put a man on the moon.

Seen through the lens of playwright/director Max Baker’s play Live from the Surface of the Moon, the history made that day wasn’t just extra-terrestrial.

Listen in as Max, along with the entire cast (!) of Kevin Gilmartin, Ian Patrick Poake, Kate Garfield, Brian Edelman, Breanna Foister, and Lisa Anderson discuss nostalgia, perspective on the normalcy of the past, crushing optimism, and change.

“…the themes of that moment…it feels like it resonates now…”
“…that’s what’s scary about doing this whole play, and also being a woman in this play: the gender repression might be more blatant here, but we still have it, it’s just disguised in different ways…”

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Mim Granahan, Eric Chase, and Rob Brown of “Making History”

Posted on April 1, 2015 by robby

When you see time travel portrayed in popular media, no matter how noble the reason for leaping through history, it almost always ends up making things worse.

That certainly seems to be the case in Mim Granahan‘s new play Making History, but, she adds in a little family drama for an interesting and unique take on the idea. Patrick Tyler seemingly gets stuck in the past, and after mourning the loss of his old life, tries to adjust to his new one—but things get complicated when he finds a way to travel back to his original time.

When you exist in two places, which is your life? And what happens when dividing your time also seems to be destroying you?

Actor Rob Brown and friend of the podcast Eric Chase, who directed the show, joined Mim on the mic to talk about Making History over a pint, and as you’ll hear, it got a little silly, which makes sense, because it’s always a fun time (see what I did there?) catching a Dysfunctional Theatre Company jam—check out their multiple past podcast appearances!.

…and, an emphasis on Dysfunctional Theatre Company, because I accidentally say Distilled Theatre Company at the top of the interview (they’re another company you should know!) because Eric & I were reminiscing about a fun radio play we did together for DTC Radio last year; you should check it out, after you listen to this episode!

Listen in as Mim, Eric, and Rob discuss creating characters, “the player’s great medium,” learning the lines of your own script, and doing the math.

“…make it simple, make it functional, make it about the performances…”
“…we can’t build a time machine…”
“…well maybe you can’t…this is actually our 3rd time doing this interview…”
“…it’s a loop!”

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Jon Stancato & Kiran Rikhye of “Kill Me Like You Mean It”

Posted on March 6, 2015 by robby

Tough detectives. Tougher dames. Double-crosses. Cigarettes. Shadows. Fedoras. All the hallmarks of film noir.

With their show Kill Me Like You Mean It, playwright Kiran Rikhye and director Jon Stancato (no strangers to the podcast—definitely check out their interviews from past Stolen Chair shows The Man Who Laughs and Potion) transfer all those classic film noir elements to the stage.

Then, they add in a healthy dose of theatre of the absurd.

What comes out is an absurdly fun & tightly executed piece of drama.

Listen in as Jon & Kiran discuss re-mounting (and revamping) a show from their past, audience placement as camera angles, abandoning tetralogies, having your actors create their own vocal musical score, and honing the rhythmic and sonic nature of your show.

“There’s something really unsettling about it…even though it is fun, and even though it is a comedy, it sort of is a deeply unnerving world…”

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Matt Cox of “Kapow-i GoGo”

Posted on February 27, 2015 by robby

A theatre-artist’s day-job can be…well, it can be soul-sucking.

But, if you look at it right, it can instead be a source of material for your creative projects.

At his day-job in a certain New York City comic-book landmark, Matt Cox found the inspiration for Kapow-i GoGo, the most epic fun you can have in a manga-and-video-game-inspired episodic comedy series, now running over several weeks at The PIT.

Listen in as Matt, as the show’s creator and writer (and portrayer of Mr. Snuggles), discusses how he came up with his blue-haired heroine, playing in your own piece, costuming on a budget, and working on a deadline.

“…sometimes I find I make funnier things up in the moment than I did when I was staring at my computer for ten hours…”

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Nat Cassidy, Matthew Trumbull, and Arthur Aulisi of “The Temple, or, Lebensraum”

Posted on February 24, 2015 by robby

It surprised me to hear that Nat Cassidy‘s new work The Temple, or, Lebensraum, currently running at The Brick, was based on a story by godfather of horror H. P. Lovecraft, because in all my collections of the man’s writings, I hadn’t read it.

It’s an early piece of his, available for free online, so I breezed through it on my way to the theatre. But where the original is a small (and, truth be told, somewhat weak) tale from 1920 set on a German submarine in World War I, Cassidy’s adaptation moves that submarine to 1943 (and is anything but weak).

While it’s completely unnecessary to read the story in advance, if you’re familiar with it, you’ll see a lot that’s familiar (dolphins!); but you’ll also quickly realize this isn’t just a stage adaptation. This is full adaptation, pulling the undersea dread of Lovecraft’s short story from simply a fear of the unknown into a complex play simultaneously weaving in fear of a well-known terror that humanity constantly struggles with: the fight amongst ourselves for power, and self-preservation.

Now that’s horror.

Listen in as Nat, along with two of the show’s actors, Arthur Aulisi and Matthew Trumbull, discuss why this particular Lovecraft story and why it’s set in WWII, “terrible things,” finding authentic costumes for your show, I am Providence, and dealing with things that are way too huge for the human mind.

“I try to parse out what it is in our souls, or in our psyches…why it is that we find chaos so terrifying. What does it make us ask, what does it force us to confront about ourselves…to find the humanity in horror…”

“There’s a very strong…you can’t even call it an undercurrent, it’s the main current of the show, is joking, and humor…one of the many reasons for that is horror and humor are hand in hand, they’re so intricately related…”

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Tag Archives: Playwrights

Marina Tempelsman and Niccolo Aeed of “MURDER!”

Liz Thaler and Lauren Miller of “Happy”

Jeremy Bloom, Brian Rady, & Catherine Brookman of “The Upper Room”

Don Nguyen, Kim Wong, Nancy Sun, and Criena House of “Red Flamboyant”

Melody Bates & J. Stephen Brantley of “R & J & Z,” in conversation with Mariah MacCarthy

The Cast & Playwright/Director of “Live from the Surface of the Moon”

Mim Granahan, Eric Chase, and Rob Brown of “Making History”

Jon Stancato & Kiran Rikhye of “Kill Me Like You Mean It”

Matt Cox of “Kapow-i GoGo”

Nat Cassidy, Matthew Trumbull, and Arthur Aulisi of “The Temple, or, Lebensraum”