Listen in as director Eliza Palter and performers Enrique Huili & Isabel Sanchez of In the Mouth of the Beast discuss spelunking, climate change, father-daughter relationships, highs and lows, worldly stakes vs. the personal, trust, pushing the limits of your resources, life and death, making impossible choices, and what we’re willing to sacrifice.
“…you really get to see how people perceive themselves, as compared to how they really are…”
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Listen in as the co-writers of Steve Burns ALIVE—Steve Burns, performer, and Matthew Freeman, director—discuss the performer-audience relationship, going through some weird experiences, holding hands, asking for help, hermit crabs out of their shells, humans & humanity on the internet, having a conversation with an old friend, ancient technological testaments, the “inherent unsatisfactory nature of being alive,” and the kind of show that can only come from a place of deep friendship and creative respect.
“…it’s built to be a story for the audience, not just a confessional; it’s thematic, about the nature of the authenticity of our relationships through screens, and our relationships to each other…it’s an exploration of communication…”
“…in modern terms, it is really kind of an exploration of what a para-social relationship is, mediated by technology…”
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Listen in as writers/performers David Carl & Katie Hartman of David and Katie Get Re-Married, along with director Michole Biancosino, discuss litigation possibilities, drama school in the ’70s, heading to Edinburgh, psychopathy, wrangling, 9 a.m. dramatic improv (without a director), writing for yourself, confusing your audience, improvising into weird emotional places, and working with your friends and idols.
“…this man wears boat shoes, and quotes ‘The Zoo Story’…”
“And now I wear crocs!”
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Listen in as Xhloe Rice & Natasha Roland, the creators and performers of A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First, discuss doing your own everything, learning curves, making your show mobile, finding a tire, the sinister myth of nostalgia, dressing up in masculinity, chemistry, “becoming people together,” going through a traditional writing process before tearing the script apart, settling disputes with your creative partner, and pulling the rug out from under your audience.
“…all of our work is historically influenced. We play a lot with clown, and absurdity…a lot of American movies, especially about the ’60s and ’70s…are so, like, ‘remember when everything was great, and it was the good ol’ days?'”
“We call it this ‘mythic American boyhood,’ that everybody wanted, but not necessarily anyone got…”
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Listen in as Hellish Delights playwright Scott C. Sickles, director Jesse Edward Rosbrow, and performers Amanda LaPergola, Brian Silliman, Alyssa Simon, discuss finding delight in characterizations, humor traps, storytelling, second chances and the effects of time on the work, finding the through-line, puppets, and what it means to be in hell.
“…I feel like the plays, parts of them, feel very different now than they did five years ago. I don’t know much of that is just that, our world has changed…how much of it was, it was in the back of our minds, ‘working’ for five years, or, we’re five years older, with five years more experience…”
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Listen in as Lilith in Pisces playwright Kayla Eisenberg, along with director Stephanie Cox-Connolly, discuss missed connections, revealing secrets, Jekyll & Hyde, starting from anywhere, campfire plays, designer collaborations, staging the unstageable, adjacency to horror, “a little bit of not-sympathy,” Stephanie’s recipe for making stage-ready mac & cheese, and things that are funny until they’re not.
“…I don’t know if it was the stars in the sky as we were reading this, or the fire started getting more fire-y, but there was a feeling with this that, THIS is a play we need to produce…I wanted plays that had that living room drama kinda feel…I like that kinda feeling of…just, ‘what is happening?’ that had theatrics in it that no one in their right mind would want to do…”
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Listen in as Anonymous playwright & director Nick Thomas, along with performers Adam Belvo (Michael) and Azumi Tsutsui (Diana), discuss sharing a character, letting the story pour out, the relief of the audience, “embedded” theatre, “rehearsal with a bunch of strangers,” going “full Australian business-bro,” finding a character that’s far from you, taking us back to the (awesome) 1990s, and the potential of anonymity.
“…it has a different feeling of freshness. Like, I can feel the people sitting beside me, and they don’t know what’s going on, but hearing the story for the first time…I can feel, people are feeling it…”
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Listen in as the Director of the shows in this year’s The Fire This Time Festival, Kimille Howard, along with Producing Artistic Director Cezar Williams, discuss finding balance, discovering musical talent, bringing together black voices in the theatre, finding new collaborators, figuring out the big game of scheduling Tetris, leaning into the practicalities, and making magic.
“…it’s a theatrical event…to amplify the career of black playwrights…we pull together an incredible team of artist…and it’s always a good time.”
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Listen in as The Last Days of Judas Iscariot director Bernard Bosio, along with performers Elena Lozonschi, Camila Melgar, Claude Choukrane, Ted Thompson, & Phil Williams, discuss the culture of Heights Players, the importance of understudies, the sound of real New York dialogue, despair and hope, vibe shifts, inspiring conversations, relying on your collaborators, and the brilliance of Stephen Adly Guirgis.
“…people do make mistakes, and some of them are catastrophic…but are all of them irredeemable?”
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Listen in as Racecar Racecar Racecar playwright Kallan Dana, director Sarah Blush, and producer/performer Julia Greer, discuss the open road of a script, symmetry & palindromic structures, complicated father relationships, creating breaks, emergency relocations, and taking road trips with your collaborators.
“…I’m a person who tries to talk and talk until I can get to what I mean, and I’m always failing. The words are always failing you. And so I think that feels like a really emotionally true thing for me, and that was part of the fun for generating the language in this play…”
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