Marks & Vincentelli: A Theatre Podcast

In this episode we welcome the playwright David Lindsay-Abaire, whose new Tony Award-nominated comedy, “The Balusters,” is currently on Broadway with a fab cast that includes today’s other guest, Richard Thomas, alongside Marylouise Burke, Anika Noni Rose, Margaret Colin and Michael Esper. We’d assumed that the play was named after a family but no, the title refers to the kind of small pillar that...

In this episode we talked to the two men who are largely the reason why “The Lost Boys” is the wow-iest wow spectacle of the Broadway season: director Michael Arden and scenic designer Dane Laffrey. They’ve been friends since their days at Interlochen, and “The Lost Boys” — which landed a whopping 12 Tony nominations — is just the latest in a long collaboration that also includes the revivals of “...

A run at London’s Royal Court Theatre, followed by a transfer to the West End, followed by Broadway: not bad for your first play! That is exactly what happened to Mark Rosenblatt, the author of “Giant” and our guest on this episode. Mark spoke to us from London about his play, which explores Roald Dahl’s antisemitism; the action takes place not long after Dahl came under fire for his review of a 1...

Ann Harada is the only lead from the Apple TV+ series “Schmigadoon!” to reprise her role (Florence Menlove, the mayor’s wife) in the Broadway version, and we couldn’t be happier — she’s particularly well tuned to Cinco Paul’s wacky world. Ann’s been a fan favorite since her breakthrough as Christmas Eve in “Avenue Q” but we’re also longtime fans of her turn as Trina in the National Asian American...

It seems hard to believe that Gina Gionfriddo is just making her Broadway debut now. And she does it with a comedy, “Becky Shaw,” that premiered at Second Stage back in 2009. Not only that, but the show marks this terrific playwright’s return to NYC theater after 10 years writing for TV — the “Law & Order” universe has been good to her, as it’s been for many actors. On the podcast, Gina’s candid a...

An unlikely thespian is winning over fans in Season 3 of the Lisa Kudrow cult series “The Comeback”: Jack O’Brien, who is playing Tommy, the hair stylist of Kudrow’s Valerie Cherish. Theater fans certainly are familiar with O’Brien — but as a director. He’s won three Tonys, and for wildly different productions: “Hairspray,” “The Coast of Utopia” and “Henry IV.” Pretty good range, and that’s even b...

There’s a reason “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” has been a hit since its premiere in 2005: Rachel Sheinkin and William Finn’s musical is incredibly funny and sneakily poignant — and the songs are simply great. Now the show is back in New York in a fab production — Elisabeth gave it a critic’s pick in the Times — that includes Lilli Cooper and Jason Kravits as Rona Lisa Peretti and Vi...

One of the great pleasures of Lauren Yee’s new play, “Mother Russia” (at Signature Theater until March 29) is watching expert actors work their comic magic. We’re lucky that two of them, Steven Boyer and Adam Chanler-Berat, took some time to drop by our virtual studio. Elisabeth wrote a glowing review of “Mother Russia” in the New York Times, praising Steven and Adam’s performances as a pair of mi...

One of the things we enjoy doing on this podcast is talking to people fighting the good fight around the country. Now, you might have heard that there’s some turmoil in the Washington, D.C. arts scene — understatement of the year! It started with the sabotage of the Kennedy Center by the Trump administration, and now another institution is crumbling: the Washington Post recently decided it didn’t...

This episode’s guest is Susannah Flood, from the play “Liberation” — one of the best-reviewed Broadway shows of 2025 (you can read Elisabeth’s glowing take for The New York Times here ). The show mostly takes place during meetings of a feminist consciousness-raising group in 1970s Ohio. Susannah takes on two roles: Lizzie, who founded the group, and Lizzie’s daughter, who’s narrating the story. Sh...

With Broadway recovering from its holidays binge and rehearsing for its next batch of shows, January on New York City stages means one thing: festivals! These days the dominant one is Under the Radar , which has overcome many odds to celebrate its 21st season with its biggest slate yet. We’re delighted to welcome founder Mark Russell, now the fest’s director (with co-creative directors Meropi Pepo...

Just the two of us, we can make it if we try…and so we did! Peter and Elisabeth rocked this episode on their own and managed to cover quite a bit of ground. They started off with Peter’s report from his recent trip to the Divine Comedy festival in Krakow, Poland. Then they remained behind the Iron Curtain for a chat about the recently departed Tom Stoppard (who was born in the former Czechoslovaki...

The musical “Revolution(s),” which recently concluded its premiere run at the Goodman Theater , in Chicago, comes with an impressive and à propos pedigree. The score was pulled from the songbook of Tom Morello, best known as the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave and many other projects. The book is by Zayd Ayers Dohrn, a playwright who carries quite the legacy: His parents, Bill A...

The hit de scandale of the fall in New York is Andrew Fox and Joel Sinensky’s “Slam Frank,” an Off Broadway show that purports to be a staging of a musical about Anne Frank — except that it’s a terminally enlightened production in which she is now Anita Franco, “an ambitious LatinX teenager” surrounded by family and friends who have gone through a similar recasting process. “Slam Frank” doesn’t ai...

If you saw “The Band’s Visit” in New York, you remember Ari’el Stachel, who played Haled, the musician obsessed with Chet Baker — a big highlight was his jazzy “Song About Love,” one of David Yazbek’s loveliest numbers. Stachel is back with his own show, the autobiographical solo play “Other,” and he dropped by our (remote) studio to talk about it. We’re happy to report that he didn’t sweat, a ref...

There’s much talk these days about the dire financial health of musicals on Broadway, where costs have skyrocketed — and so have ticket prices. Yet, very few of the big shows manages to turn a profit. How can this go on? Tom Kirdahy submits to some questioning about this issue, and his own work on Broadway and in the movies. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscr...

Whitney White is a busy director, and we couldn’t be happier about it — we’ve been following her career for several years now, and it’s always exciting to see what she’ll come up with next. You can see her production of the new musical “Saturday Church” (which Elisabeth wrote about for The New York Times ) at New York Theater Workshop until Oct. 24. And on Oct. 8, she’s starting previews for the B...

Our guest this week is none other than Jinkx Monsoon , who’s killing it as Mary Todd Lincoln in “Oh, Mary!” on Broadway. Just ask Elisabeth: She’s seen the show five times with three different leading ladies. Jinkx basically gave us a TED Talk on the art of comedy, and frankly she’s well placed to talk about that stuff — there’s even a Madeline Kahn reference, so you know we’re in good hands. Of c...

RADA is a world-famous institution that has trained the likes of Vivien Leigh, Ralph Fiennes, Anthony Hopkins, Glenda Jackson, Alan Rickman and Roger Moore. Now you can add Peter Marks to the list. In August, Peter — as you may recall, a former theater critic — embarked on a daunting adventure: He enrolled in RADA’s five-week Shakespeare intensive program! He tells us about living out his acting d...

Both Peter and Elisabeth tore through Jeff Hiller ’s new memoir, “Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty Year Trail to Overnight Success.” And they both experienced episodes that involved laughing so hard that you feel nauseous (Peter) and laughing so hard on the subway that you start drawing stares (Elisabeth). Yes, the book is that funny. So of course we had to get Jeff on the show. Also because we...

In this episode, multi-hyphenate theater man Jeremy McCarter talked to us about his new project: a six-part audio adaptation of “Hamlet” he wrote and directed for his own Make-Believe Association (you’ll find links to listen on your favorite platform on the company’s site). McCarter’s adaptation streamlines Shakespeare’s play and places the listener inside the Prince of Denmark’s head — which is w...

On this episode we welcome Joe Iconis and Christopher Ashley, whose show “The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical” is at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Va., until July 13. Joe wrote the music and lyrics, and co-wrote the book with Gregory S. Moss. Christopher directed, as he did at the La Jolla Playhouse premiere a couple of years ago. They’re going to talk about the show’s loooo...

On this episode, Jonathan Groff talks to us about his new Broadway show, “Just in Time,” in which he guides the audience through his own love for Bobby Darin and, of course, Darin’s life. It’s an explosive performance from an actor we thought we knew — after all, Groff is no stranger to the stage, from “Spring Awakening” to “Hamilton” to his Tony-winning turn as Franklin Shepard in the revival of...

One of the most annoying canards out there is that critics relish writing pans. Wrong! A pan is a pain for everybody, and it certainly is not fun to write. Elisabeth recently had to do it for Caitlin Saylor Stephens’s new play “Five Models in Ruin, 1981,” which is playing through June 1 at Lincoln Center Theater, as part of the LCT3 incubator. So Peter decided to interview his own co-host to see h...

For this episode we had the pleasure of talking to Kimberly Belflower, a young playwright who’s making quite a splash with her Broadway debut, “John Proctor Is the Villain” — yes, that John Proctor, from “The Crucible.” It just got seven Tony nominations, including for best play and for best leading actress in a play (for Sadie Sink — yes, that Sadie Sink, from the Netflix series “Stranger Things”...