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Talking Theater

Arts & Culture Podcasts

Talking Theater podcast celebrates theater! Your host, Marc Smith, interviews theater makers for theater people who love theatre. Actors, directors, playwrights, designers, stage managers, musicians, and other professionals will share stories about their career, their craft, and their community. You will be introduced each week to artists who make a living in the performing arts. We’re not just talking – we’re talking theater!

Location:

United States

Description:

Talking Theater podcast celebrates theater! Your host, Marc Smith, interviews theater makers for theater people who love theatre. Actors, directors, playwrights, designers, stage managers, musicians, and other professionals will share stories about their career, their craft, and their community. You will be introduced each week to artists who make a living in the performing arts. We’re not just talking – we’re talking theater!

Language:

English


Episodes

Bonus: Tony Award Predictions with Jose Solís

6/8/2018
It's all about Tony Award predictions today on the podcast! Theater critic Jose Solís comes back to the podcast to make his picks. Jose has been writing about film and theatre since 2003 and his work has appeared in major film and theatre publications including The New York Times, American Theatre, and Backstage. Jose is a member of the Drama Desk, the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and the Online Film Critics Society. Along with Diep Tran, Jose hosts the popular Token Theatre...

Duration:00:32:33

34: Isaac Butler - Shakespeare, Angels, and Politics

6/6/2018
Isaac Butler is a writer and theater director, recently of The Trump Card, about the rise of Donald Trump with solo performer Mike Daisey. Isaac also wrote and directed Real Enemies, which was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and named one of the top ten live events of 2015 by The New York Times. Along with Dan Kois, he is the co-author of the critically-acclaimed The World Only Spins Forward, a history of Angels in America which was just released this year. And, most...

Duration:00:42:52

33: Idris Goodwin - Playwright Spotlight

6/1/2018
Idris Goodwin is an award-winning playwright, poet, performer, and essayist. This summer, he will become the Producing Artistic Director of StageOne Family Theater in Louisville, KY. For StageOne, Idris penned American Tales and the widely produced And In This Corner: Cassius Clay. Other plays include: How We Got On, Bars and Measures, The Raid, Hype Man: a break beat play, Blackademics, The Way the Mountain Moved, commissioned as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s American...

Duration:00:41:14

32: Ken Urban - Playwright Spotlight

5/8/2018
Ken Urban is a playwright, screenwriter, and musician based in New York. His plays include Sense of an Ending, The Correspondent, A Future Perfect, The Awake, The Happy Sad, Nibbler, A Guide for the Homesick which recently premiered just a few months ago at the Huntington Theater in Boston, and his newest work, a darkly-comic play called The Remains, which opens in May 2018 at Studio Theatre in Washington D.C. His work has been produced Off-Broadway at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater,...

Duration:00:51:15

31: Jessica Burr - Bodies Moving Through Space

2/19/2018
Jessica Burr is the artistic director of Blessed Unrest, an ensemble-based experimental theatre company in New York City, co-founded with Matt Opatrny. In 2011, Jessica received the Lucille Lortel Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women, in recognition of her work as a director and the body of work that Blessed Unrest has created under her leadership. With Blessed Unrest, just a few of the productions she has directed include Body: Anatomies of Being, Eurydice’s Dream (for...

Duration:00:46:59

30: Dámaso Rodriguez - Transforming Artists Repertory Theatre

2/13/2018
Dámaso Rodriguez is a Cuban American director based in Portland, Oregon, where he serves as artistic director of Artists Repertory Theatre, Portland's longest-running professional theatre company, which became a member of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) under his leadership. Prior to joining Artists Rep, Dámaso served as the associate artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse and co-founder and co-artistic director of the Furious Theatre in Los Angeles. And upcoming projects...

Duration:00:50:30

29: Julia Sirna-Frest - All the Weird, Crazy Stuff Downtown

1/29/2018
Julia Sirna-Frest is an actor and singer based in New York. She was most recently seen as Margit in Seder at Hartford Stage. And in the title role of: [Porto] which played at The Bushwick Starr last year where it was an NYT Critics Pick and The Times review said it was quote: “an excellent cast led by the wonderful Ms. Sirna-Frest” Porto makes its Off-Broadway premiere at the WP Theater. Other productions include: A Tunnel Year (The Chocolate Factory), and The Offending Gesture (The...

Duration:00:32:59

28: Jose Solís - Theater Critic Spotlight

1/26/2018
Jose Solís, as a theater critic, has been writing about film and theater since 2003, and his work has appeared in major film and theater publications including (links are reviews or articles): The New York Times, American Theatre, and Backstage. Jose is a member of the Drama Desk, the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and the Online Film Critics Society. Jose is putting together a panel called Being a Critic of Color for BroadwayCon 2018. And, when he's not at a show, a screening or...

Duration:00:45:14

27: Community Conversations with Jamil Jude

1/25/2018
Jamil Jude is a director, producer, playwright, and dramaturg. Self-identifying as an "Artist Plus", Jamil feels most at home bringing socially relevant art to the community. Jamil is the Associate Artistic Director at Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company in Atlanta, GA as well as the Co-Founder of The New Griots Festival. He was a participant in the Leadership U: One-on-One program, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group. The program...

Duration:00:52:15

26: Brendan Hines - Fueled by Performance and Collaboration

12/14/2017
Brendan Hines is a versatile actor and singer-songwriter. He currently stars in Amazon's The Tick as Superian. The show is based on Ben Edlund's comic book of the same name, with new episodes in February 2018. Brendan is also performing Histrionics, a one-man show at New York's Theater for the New City through mid-December of this year. Brendan has also appeared in fan-favorite shows including Suits, Scandal, and Lie To Me, as well as a number of other films and television shows. Recently...

Duration:00:49:32

25: Inclusivity as a Practice with Rachel Grossman

12/8/2017
Rachel Grossman is the Ensemble Director and a co-founder of dog & pony dc where audience integration is their guiding artistic principle. She is also a theater artist and engagement strategist. She likes to explore the triangulation between art, artist, and audience. Rachel is a member of HowlRound’s National Advisory Committee and is a regular presenter with National Arts Market Project on audience engagement and empowering staff to serve as change-agents. Rachel is responsible for...

Duration:00:36:24

24: Ilana Levine - Little Known Facts and Acting Relationships

11/30/2017
Ilana Levine is an acclaimed actor on Broadway, TV and film. She’s also a producer, and the amazing host of one of my favorite podcasts, Little Known Facts. Ilana is probably best known to Broadway fans for her comedic turn as "Lucy Van Pelt" in the Broadway revival of You're A Good Man Charlie Brown with Kristen Chenoweth, Anthony Rapp, B.D. Wong, Roger Bart, Stanley Wayne Mathis (directed by Michael Mayer, Choreography by Jerry Mitchell). And she also starred in the Broadway productions...

Duration:00:37:33

23: Risky Writing with Andrew Rosendorf, Playwright

11/24/2017
Andrew Rosendorf is a playwright based in Minneapolis. He is a 2016-2017 McKnight Fellow in Playwriting at The Playwrights’ Center. His work has been produced or developed at La Jolla Playhouse, MCC, Luna Stage, American Theater Company, Nashville Rep, City Theatre, Geva Theatre, Actor’s Express, Palm Beach Dramaworks, UglyRhino, and Toftee Lake Center. Andrew is an alum of terraNOVA Collective’s Groundbreakers Playwrights Group, the Ingram New Works program, National New Plays Network...

Duration:00:40:25

22: Visual, Lyrical Literary Adaptations with Seth Bockley

11/20/2017
Seth Bockley is a playwright and theater director, specializing in literary adaptation, physical and object theater as well as multimedia works. As a director, Seth has led productions throughout the United States and around the world, including Mexico, Colombia, and Ireland. Just a few of the theatres where he has recently directed include The Goodman Theater, Victory Gardens, Redmoon Theater, Foundry Theater, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. As a playwright, his works include 2666,...

Duration:00:48:40

21: Guillermo Reyes - Playwright Spotlight

11/9/2017
Guillermo Reyes has produced and published a variety of plays including Men on the Verge of a His-Panic Breakdown and Mother Lolita as off-Broadway productions with Urban Stages, Chilean Holiday and Saints at the Rave at the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and many others. Men on the Verge debuted in Los Angeles at the Celebration Theater and won the L.A. Ovation Award for Best World Premiere Play which went on to win the New York Outer Critics’ Circle Award for Best Solo...

Duration:00:46:14

20: Spinning Stories with Deborah Yarchun, Playwright

11/2/2017
Deborah Yarchun is a New York City playwright from Austin, Texas. Her honors include two Jerome Fellowships, an EST/Sloan Commission, The Kennedy Center’s Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award for The Man in the Sukkah, the Kernodle New Play Award for Tectonic Mélange, the Richard Maibaum Playwriting Award, and the Iowa Art Fellowship. Deborah's plays have been developed at places including Ensemble Studio Theatre, The New Harmony Project, Jewish Plays Project, The Great Plains Theatre...

Duration:00:29:07

19: Writing as Activist and Artist with Lauren Gunderson, Playwright

10/25/2017
Lauren Gunderson is the most-produced living playwright in America for both 2016 and 2017. Her work has been commissioned, produced and developed at companies across the US including South Coast Rep (Emilie, Silent Sky), The Kennedy Center (The Amazing Adventures of Dr. Wonderful and Her Dog!), The O’Neill, San Francisco Playhouse, Marin Theatre, Synchronicity, Olney Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Shotgun Players, TheatreWorks, Crowded Fire and others. And, her play, The Book of Will, was...

Duration:00:41:15

18: Making the Classics Her Own with Kate Hamill, Playwright

10/17/2017
Kate Hamill is a playwright and actor based in New York City. In 2014, her adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility premiered off-Broadway where it was named in the "Top 10 Theater of 2014" by both Ben Brantley of the NY Times and by the Huffington Post, which called it “the greatest stage adaptation of this novel in history.” Sense and Sensibility was remounted off-Broadway in 2016, and it was nominated for Best Revival by the Drama League, it also received 2 Lortel nominations,...

Duration:00:36:21

17: Adam Szymkowicz - Playwright Spotlight

10/10/2017
Adam Szymkowicz is a playwright based in New York City. His plays have been produced throughout the U.S., Canada, England, and around the world. Adam’s plays include The Wooden Heart, Deflowering Waldo, Pretty Theft, Food For Fish, Hearts Like Fists, Kodachrome, Marian (or the True Tale of Robin Hood), Rare Birds, Incendiary, Clown Bar, The Adventures of Super Margaret, The Why Overhead, and many others. Adam received a Playwright’s Diploma from Juilliard, an MFA from Columbia University....

Duration:00:34:19

16: Leading the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival with Davis McCallum

7/19/2017
Davis McCallum is the Artistic Director of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, where he’s also directing The Book of Will, which is now playing. His recent productions in New York include Fashions for Men, which received Drama Desk, Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Nominations for Best Revival; The Whale, winner of the Lortel Award for Best Play, and Davis received a Calloway Nomination for Best Director, Water by the Spoonful, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, February House, nominated for...

Duration:00:43:16