No Script: The Podcast

Season 14 begins! Jackson and Jacob discuss the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Eboni Booth: Primary Trust. Listen in as the boys rave about Booth's theatrical imagination -- and debate her main character's affinity for mai tais.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  https://www.p...

For the season finale, Jackson and Jacob discuss the hit musical Waitress. With a rocking score by Sara Bareilles and book by Jessie Nelson, Waitress is several love stories all wrapped into one... and there's pie! Listen in.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  https://www.patr...

How does playwright Luis Santeiro imagine a terrible part of Europe's colonial history? With puppets, of course! Listen in as Jackson and Jacob discuss this wild and wacky take on history.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  https://www.patreon.com/noscriptpodcast  ------------...

Jacob is joined by Dr. David Cody to discuss Sondheim's famous musical Into the Woods. Dr. Cody provides a detailed and rich exploration of the music of the show.  David Cody is a professional singer, actor, and musical director primarily in musical theatre and opera. He also teaches courses in voice, musical theatre history, and music theory at The University of Montana. He is a graduate of the J...

In the grand finale of Marriage Month, Jackson and Jacob take on one of the most fractious, combative marriages in the American library... George and Martha in Edward Albee's famous Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Listen in!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  https://www.patre...

Marriage Month continues with a play that spans a whole relationship, looking at the same couple across decades of their lives. Tanya Barfield's Bright Half Life explores how memory works -- not chronologically, but in moments. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob unravel the many interweaving threads of this excellent play.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For a...

Marriage Month continues with a play by Loy A. Webb. In The Light, a romantic proposal becomes the context for a complicated, emotional discussion of power and abuse. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob explore the way Webb masterfully builds her characters' relationship and points of view.  ------------------------------ Check out these other conversations on The Light:  Sesali Bowen interviews the pl...

Marriage Month is in full swing as Jackson and Jacob discuss Neil Simon's newlyweds play: Barefoot in the Park. Full of physical comedy, well timed jokes, and reflections on close relationships, this play is a perfect addition to our five-part look at marriage on stage. Listen in!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensu...

MARRIAGE MONTH BEGINS!  For the first episode of their themed month, Jackson and Jacob discuss one of the most famous plays of all time. But Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy -- not a romance! Listen in to learn why.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  https://www.patreon.com/noscr...

Oh, the things that happen in the family kitchen. That's the subject of Zora Howard's Stew, a play in which the preparation for an important meal at church brings out hidden family tensions and secrets. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob discuss this Pulitzer Prize finalist!  ------------------------------ Check out these other conversations on Stew: Interview with Zora Howard for Shattered Globe's pr...

A broken apartment buzzer system serves as the basis for terrifying intrusions. Tracey Scott Wilson's Buzzer is about relationships under stress and gentrification. It's also just really good writing. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob discuss!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  h...

Stephen Karam's play Speech & Debate takes on censorship in schools. When three high school students find themselves unable to speak truth to power through traditional means, they use the school's new speech and debate club to fight the puritanical adult culture around them.... with the help of a dancing Abraham Lincoln and Mary Warren. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob discuss this play!  ------...

Lydia Diamond's play Smart People took her 7 years to write. It's a character study which boldly explores how race can be an explosive ingredient in contemporary American conversation. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob explore Diamond's smart structuring and theatricality.  ------------------------------ Check out these other conversations on Smart People: Lydia Diamond discusses her Radcliffe Fellow...

A famous musical about a famous piece of English children's literature that might not be for kids? Sounds like a job for No Script. This week, Jackson and Jacob discuss The Secret Garden (Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon), a musical full of ghosts, special effects, and singing orphans. Listen in!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can...

Jackson and Jacob discuss Madeline Sayet's one person show Where We Belong. Sayet's play explores identity and colonialism in Shakespeare, tracking her journey as a theatre director and an Indigenous Shakespearean scholar. Listen in!  ------------------------------ Check out these other conversations on Where We Belong: Madeline Sayet's website: https://www.madelinesayet.com/ Interview with Sayet...

What if Judas Iscariot was on trial, with all heaven and earth and all history available to call as witnesses? This is the setting for Stephen Adly Guirgis' irreverent, yet deeply insightful play "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot." Listen in as Jackson and Jacob discuss this wild story!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to...

Insane fame, seemingly infinite money, a feeling of freedom from all consequences... what could go wrong? UK playwright Simon Stephens aks questions about how fame interacts with one's very humanity in his play "Birdland." Listen in for all the rock and roll debauchery as Jackson and Jacob discuss this wild play.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low...

This episode, Jackson and Jacob discuss playwright Lloyd Suh's two-hander "The Heart Sellers." The play is a hilarious strangers-turned-friends story set amidst the political and social turmoil of the Nixon administration and the cheery loneliness of the holidays.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script...

Katori Hall's Pulitzer Prize-winning play kicks of Season 13 of No Script. Join Jackson and Jacob as they discuss all the wild shenanigans and poignant moments that make up this moving celebration of a script. Listen in!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  https://www.patreon.c...

Jackson and Jacob discuss the PLAY ON! translation of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. This black comedy asks deep questions about power and human sexuality, even while it pokes fun at institutions and officials. Listen in!  Learn more about Play On! here: https://playonshakespeare.org/ ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help...

Jackson is joined by special guest Phil Quinn to discuss a musical by famed Broadway and film composer Stephen Schwartz: Children of Eden. Listen in!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  https://www.patreon.com/noscriptpodcast  ----------------------------- We want to keep the c...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob dive into the tumultuous disagreements that frame one self-defense workshop. Liliana Padilla's How to Defend Yourself won the Yale Prize for Drama.   ------------------------------ Check out these other conversations on How to Defend Yourself:  Liliana Padilla at Victory Gardens Theatre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43cdBYwpoqM New York Living: https://...

This week, No Script explores the moving, imaginative musical by Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori: Caroline, or Change! Talking washing machines, apocalyptic buses, and singing moons feature prominently in this through-composed character study.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue....

Jackson and Jacob do Christmas in springtime! Listen in as the boys discuss the legendary Langston Hughes' gospel song play Black Nativity.  ------------------------------ Check out these other conversations on Black Nativity:  Seattle Channel, with Director Jackie Moscou: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wod7f1f0TcI The legendary Elma Lewis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0SUtySiO2Y Baylor Unive...

Who owns the stories of our lives? If every memory is necessarily a flawed, singular perspective, how can we trust the reliability of memoirs and autobiographies? Jackson and Jacob discuss these issues, which are explored in Pulitzer Prize nominated play Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz. Listen in!   ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/mo...