Stage Door Jonny

In part two of Jonny’s chat with Chris Abbott they discuss Arthur Miller and the edge of embarrassment, Chris’s thoughts on the extraordinary final scene of Salesman and how to do it afresh each night, just saying the first line and letting go and how to be generous onstage; having an action, grabbing Nathan Lane’s face onstage, a quick shift of recording location to Chris’s bedroom, the suggestio...

This week's episode brings you one of America’s hottest young actors, bubbling under as a major star since Girls and now ready to pop, the man described onstage by Nathan Lane after the final performance of Death of a Salesman as “the best actor i’ve ever worked with onstage”. It's Christopher Abbott. He and Jonny discuss clearing up boxes and making a nest for the baby he was about to hav...

In part two of Jonny’s chat with the legendary Wallace Shawn, they discuss Wally’s awareness of the audience when he’s acting, writing his first play at 10 (about Socrates and his own death), the puppet shows he kept writing until his early 20’s, the pure ecstasy of his early experiences of Eugene O’Neil and knowing Long Day’s Journey had something to say about the secrets in his own family, the p...

This week Jonny’s guest is one of the radical icons of American theatre: writer, essayist and actor Wallace Shawn. Surely one of the most vocally and visually recognisable actors in the world after a screen career ranging from Vizzini in The Princess Bride to Rex the Dinosaur in Toy Story to Dr Sturgis in Young Sheldon, to My Dinner With Andre as himself, Wally has been at the forefront of some of...

Part two of Jonny’s chat with actor/director Joe Mantello starts with a discussion of the response to their production of Death of a Salesman, the staging details that bothered some people, the director as dad, the award that was Joe’s professional pinnacle (and the closest he’s come to feeling like a parent), wrangling problem child like Glenda Jackson, his praising policy and how it’s changed ov...

Welcome back-or welcome to- a new season of SDJ. And who tastier to kick it off than the doyen of American theatre directors and Tony-nominated actor, Joe Mantello. Joe has won the Tony for best director three times, his latest coming shortly after this chat with Jonny, for directing Death of a Salesman starring Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf (and Jonny Cake). Jonny had a front row seat as Joe sha...

In the second half of Jonny’s chat with Lesley Manville, Jonny recalls seeing her onstage for the first time in The Cherry Orchard with Judi Dench, what she learned from Judi, the story about working with her that she won’t repeat (but you should hear it, so here it is ), why some great performers need to be on the verge of laughter, Tony Sher flashing in Tamburlaine the Great, her 13 project...

This weeks guest is a gem: Oscar nominee and two time Olivier-award winner, the magnificent Lesley Manville. In her plushly upholstered dressing room at Studio 54, Lesley and Jonny discuss him hunting her like a fox, her upcoming appearance in Marianne Eliott’s Les Liasons Dangereuses, how theatre is a time machine, ending her triumphant run as Jocasta opposite Mark Strong in Robert Icke’s Oedipus...

(CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE) In the this week’s episode Jonny talks to celebrated theatrical disruptor Tom Morris. They talk about Tom’s most embarrassing moment in the theatre (it’s very embarrassing). His artistic directorship of Battersea Arts Centre and putting on shows without a script; how his work in alternative theatre was incorporated by Nick Hytner at the National; making Jerry Spring...

In the second act of their chat, Sir Greg Doran remembers some of his late husband and leading man, Anthony Sher’s most unforgettable moments; Greg’s theory of “crossroads” and examples of how to meet them; Shakespeare’s radical extremity; Greg’s theory of what plunged the Bard into his late great tragedies; why Ian Mckellen defaces bibles; the comfort to be found after bereavement in Shakespeare’...

Jonny’s guest for his 100th episode is class on a stick. Sir Gregory Doran is the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, for 35 years and with the late Sir Anthony Sher one half of one of the most celebrated power couples in British theatre (and possibly the first pair of married Knights). In this episode Jonny and Greg reminisce about meeting on Derek Walcott’s Odyssey, Greg’s...

In the second half of Jonny’s chat with Elliot Levey, Elliot makes the case for why good actors submit; how directors reveal themselves through notes and acting that isn’t “mirror-kissing”; the moment Elliot regretted in the theatre and the horrible play that prompted him to nearly leave it mid performance via a fire exit; spending a decade at the National Theatre, how plays stay fresh and why Sat...

Jonny’s guest is the two time Olivier award winner and Loveliest Man in British Equity, Elliot Levey. In his dressing room at the Harold Pinter theatre before his award-winning performance in Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant, Jonny and Elliot begin by lifting the lid on podcasting’s dirty secret and Elliot’s generous superfan. They break down Giant, a play about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism at the time of the...

In the second half of Jonny’s chat with Mark Strong, his guest describes feeling hated during Ivo van Hove’s A View From the Bridge; the strong conviction he had about the playing of Eddie Carbone; becoming a movie actor (not star), what he learnt from the camera and taking it back to the stage; working with Ivo before he became the global theatrical influencer he is now, his mischief,and how he f...

Jonny is joined this week by the actor who is the current toast of Broadway for his portrayal of Oedipus in Robert Icke’s updating of the great tragedy, Mark Strong. They start off by talking about Simon Russell Beale, original inspiration for SDJ and the way talent is sometimes undecodable. Being told what Mark’s “thing” was at drama school, the attraction of charm, his very unusual origin s...

In a second half lightly underscored by the Wagner seeping in from Glyndebourne’s Parsifal, Jonny hears how the doyenne of modern lighting designers spent her formative years in the creative ferment of Theatre de Complicité, the tough love from another designer that propelled her, what makes an experience on a show great for her, the two types of directors, splitting up with Katie Mitchell, what m...

Stage Door Jonny gets well classy this week, with a double episode recorded in the gilded environs of Glyndebourne. One of the greatest influences in the modern theatre on how we see and experience a world onstage, Paule Constable is the nonpareil of modern lighting designers. The most nominated artist in Olivier Award history (17 nominations, 6 wins, 2 Tony awards) Paule has defined a visual aest...

The second half of Jonny’s conversation with Ewan McGregor kicks off with reminiscences of Oscar Isaac’s covid-era Oedipus. What Ewan needs from a director like Michael Grandage and their most recent partnership, Lila Raicek’s My Master Builder; scenes with Kate Fleetwood that felt like dancing and giggling together in the wings afterwards; Ewan’s battle with fear, drying onstage and being willed...

Welcome back! A slightly lengthy hiatus comes to a close with this, the first episode of Jonny’s Festive Season. And what more festive guest to kick off with than Ewan McGregor? There’s a distinct frisson with the Stage Manager, the question of whether actors should just shut the fuck up, being frustrated by some theatre interviews, Ewan’s three plays with Michael Grandage, learning his lines befo...

In the second half of Jonny’s chat with actor and writer Denis O’Hare, we hear the harrowing tale of a confrontation at a French airport, its relationship to his investigation of male violence in his play  An Iliad , performing it for an audience of soldiers, not understanding what just happened after performing a show, how bad blocking once made him cry, why some plays can’t be left at...

Tony Award-winner, 2,800 year old vampire, bona fide American Horror and one of the most thrilling actors on the modern stage or screen, Denis O’Hare is Jonny’s guest this week. In his dressing room at the National Theatre in London, far too close to the time to go onstage, Denis and Jonny discuss what learning means to an actor, brutalist architecture, why he’s a bad director, saying “why?”, the...

In the second half of their chat, the artistic director of the Old Vic, director of the internationally acclaimed hit musical Matilda and perhaps modern theatre’s pre-eminent master of comedy, Matthew Warchus, discusses laughter, audience noises, not having a plan, the illusion of fusion and the philosophy that it will all work out in the end; the obstacle of fear, the unknowability...

One of the titans of the English-speaking theatre joins Jonny for a deliciously insightful chat this week. Sitting in the storied auditorium of the Old Vic, outgoing boss, Olivier and Tony award-winning theatre and film director, Matthew Warchus guides Jonny through a decade of coming into that space to think; why directors should be waiters, Tragedy and whether or not he sees the point of it, und...

In the second part of their chat Indira reveals to Jonny that she didn’t know she is the Best Reviewed Actor on the British stage: they discuss sharing the boys dressing room, whether or not she thinks chemistry is bollocks, what she makes of her theatrical partnerships with Ralph Fiennes, Andrew Scott and Ramy Malek and whether as a woman she’s ever felt a lack of space onstage or in the rehearsa...

In this week's episode Jonny shares grapes, birdsong and theatrical butterflies in the garden of “Britain’s best reviewed” theatre actor (J Cake)- Olivier award-winning star of Game of Thrones, Indira Varma. Indira talks about her calmness under pressure, what she thinks rehearsal should be, what daring to fail actually means, seminal experiences working with Katie Mitchell, the Maly theatre and M...