No Script: The Podcast

No Script is back! In this first episode of Season 9, Jackson and Jacob discuss a product of one of America's strongest theatrical partnerships: Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. Their musical Sunday in the Park with George is often called one of Sondheim's most personal works. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob explore this enthralling, puzzlingn piece.  ------------------------------ Please conside...

In the last episode of the season, Jackson and Jacob discuss a true American classic. Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart is a painful, hilarious family drama set in Mississippi. Kin to plays like Streetcar Named Desire, August: Osage County, and Buried Child, Crimes is another example of the way the American family controls the orbit of the American stage. Listen in to J&J discuss this great play! ...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob go back nearly 100 years to discuss a script with massive theatrical daring. Elmer Rice's Street Scene is packed with people and stories, Rice's attempt to capture the pulsing heartbeat of a New York City street. Listen in as J&J admire the craftsmanship, abundance, and bravery of the play!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on P...

This week on No Script, Jacob welcomes special guest Jeffrey Sweet to the show. Sweet is a playwright and teacher based in New York City. Together, he and Jacob discuss Lanford Wilson's semi-autobiographical play Lemon Sky. Sweet knew Wilson personally, and discussed the play with him on several occasions. Sweet brings these experiences, and many more, to the discussion. Listen in! ---------------...

This week, Jackson and Jacob discuss a heartbreaking play. Eclipsed is Danai Guriria's moving piece about women and their struggle for survival during a civil war in Liberia. Listen in as J&J grapple with this difficult, powerful text.   ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  https...

In this week's episode of No Script, Jackson and Jacob discuss a semi-autobiographical play (or, more like, theatre event!) that has swept the nation in its half decade of life. What the Constitution Means to Me is a highly comedic, educational, political, deeply personal look at the American Constitution and its evolving relationship to women. Listen in! ------------------------------ Please cons...

One of the famous shows for young actors, Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth follows three people on the cusp of adulthood. With an acerbic wit and total irreverence, Lonergan paints an empathetic portrait. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob discuss this American classic.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No S...

The Gin Game is a witty, irascible drama by D.L. Coburn. It won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob discuss Coburn's tender, irreverent look at the sometimes lonely life inside a senior home.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  https://w...

The final episode of David Henry Hwang Month has arrived! Jackson and Jacob conclude their themed month by discussing Hwang's newest work, a musical written in collaboration with the great Jeanine Tesori. Soft Power is a satiric view of American politics. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob discuss how Soft Power is a play on The King and I.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob continue through the Season 8 themed month! In this third week of plays by David Henry Hwang, J&J discuss Hwang's play "Chinglish," a comic examination of the perils and pitfalls of cross-cultural communication. Listen in! ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script P...

In the second episode of David Henry Hwang month, Jackson and Jacob discuss one of Hwang's earliest semi-autobiographical works: Golden Child. This play is an examination of the pace and cost of change. 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/noscr...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob begin a 4 week series on David Henry Hwang. Hwang is one of America's premiere playwrights, shaping the present and future of drama. His play M. Butterfly catapulted him into prominence and remains one of the best American plays of all time. Listen in!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob come back to Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. One of America's foremost contemporary playwrights, Jacobs-Jenkins writes plays that are challenging, uncomfortable, and so, so smart. His play Appropriate is a stark portrait of the legacy of racist violence in the American south.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob talk about a play with HUGE name recognition and fascinating production challenges. Qui Nguyan's play She Kills Monsters is an adventurous reflection on grief and loss. Listen in as J&J discuss D&D! ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  ht...

Larissa FastHorse is a contemporary indigenous playwright. Her play The Thanksgiving Play was inspired by FastHorse's experience of trying to tell indigenous stories on the American stage - and the frustration of the blockades in place. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob discuss this satiric new(ish) play! ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month,...

Lillian Hellman's play The Little Foxes is an American classic. It tracks the changing landscape of the post-Civil War South by following one corrupt family as they attempt to make their fortune. Listen in this week as Jackson and Jacob discuss this piece of American history.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure th...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob discuss a musical that changed the landscape of musical theatre in America. "Rent," by the late Jonathan Larson, is the story of friends in New York City. Listen in as J&J chat about Rent's unlikely origins, vignette structure, and overall investigation of love.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/mont...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob discuss Jen Silverman, who made her No Script debut in Season 1. Silverman's play That Poor Girl and How He Killed Her is uncomfortable, poignant, funny, and oh-so-relevant. 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...

In the second episode of Season 8, Jackson and Jacob revisit Dominique Morisseau. As one of America's most impressive contemporary playwrights, Morisseau's work tracks pressing issues in our society. Her play Pipeline examines the American education system and its impact on one family. Listen in as J&J dive in to this moving piece.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on P...

Welcome back to No Script! Season 8 begins with a Pulitzer Prize-winner. Join Jackson and Jacob for a discussion on Stephen Adly Guirgis' play Between Riverside and Crazy. This script is a powerhouse of scene writing, showing off some of Guirgis' strongest characters in conflict.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensur...

In the final episode of Season 7, Jackson and Jacob return to one of America's great dramatists: Suzan-Lori Parks. This week, J&J cover one of her earlier plays: Venus. In this loose adaption of a true story from the 1800s, so much of what makes Parks the playwright she is can be seen and appreciated. Listen in!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low a...

This week on No Script, Jackson hosts the season's SPECIAL GUEST! Jana Latchaw Milbourn joins Jackson to discuss a play she's recently directed: AR Gurney's The Dining Room. 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  -----------------...

After a month of murder, Jackson and Jacob are delighted to return to regular programming for the last three weeks of the season. This week on No Script, J&J discuss The Chronicles of Kalki by Aditi Brennan Kapil. Kalki re-imagines the final avatar of the god Vishnu as a teenage monster slayer who must intervene in the life of two high schoolers. Listen in! ------------------------------ Please co...

For the last week of Murder Month, Jackson and Jacob discuss a documentary theatre piece about the murders of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. Emily Mann's Execution of Justice is a verbatim script about the trail of Dan White. 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...

Jackson and Jacob return to Murder Month this week with a loose adaption of Agatha Christie. Lloyd Suh's Charles Francis Chan Jr.'s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery is a play about writing a play, in which the playwright takes on racist portrayals of Asian Americans in American media. Listen in! ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can...