No Script: The Podcast

In their second discussion on playwright Lauren Gunderson, Jackson and Jacob discuss her play The Revolutionists. The play is loosely based on the lives of four women who lived during the French Revolution. With modern dialogue, meta-theatre comedy, and several beheadings, The Revolutionists is a fascinating play to talk about. Listen in! ------------------------------ Please consider supporting u...

Quiara Alegría Hudes is a highly lauded playwright whose recent (re)entrance into the popular culture is due to writing the book for In the Heights. Jackson and Jacob have come to Hudes before - discussing her Pulitzer Prize-winning play Water by the Spoonful. This week on No Script, J&J discuss the first play in the Elliot trilogy: Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue.  ------------------------------ Please...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob visit a new playwright to the podcast: Gina Gionfriddo. Her play Rapture, Blister, Burn was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Join J&J as they explore this comedic look at the history and present practice of American feminism.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to e...

Paula Vogel is one of America's great playwrights. This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob return to Vogel's body of work once again. This time, they explore her charming and heartfelt play-tribute to her brother: The Baltimore Waltz. ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast can continue.  https:...

Episode 1 of this season was a (fairly) brand new musical. Now, in one of the great whiplashes of No Script history, Jackson and Jacob pivot entirely and visit an American classic by (perhaps) the greatest male American playwright: Tennessee Williams. His play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is often called his greatest work. Listen in!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreo...

No Script is back! In this first episode of Season 7, Jackson and Jacob discuss the 2020 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama: A Strange Loop by Michael R. Jackson. ------------------------------ 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 wa...

For the last episode of Season Six, the boys of No Script discuss one of Jacob's favorite musicals of all time: Company by Stephen Sondheim. Jackson and Jacob discuss Sondheim's lyrical genius, and the play's odd structuring.  Though the season may be ending, never fear! No Script will return in late summer or early fall with Season Seven! ------------------------------ Please consider supporting...

For the first time, Jackson and Jacob visit Eugene Ionesco, one of the master playwrights of the 20th century. Ionesco's vision for the theatre and it's literature has had far reaching consequences. This week, J&J discuss his best known full length work: Rhinoceros.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Scrip...

Are you ready for a ghost story? This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob discuss Naomi Iizuka's eerie play Language of Angels, which takes place in cave country in North Carolina. Listen in!   >>PLEASE NOTE: A previous edition of this episode included a small editing mistake about halfway through the episode. We apologize for this and it has been corrected. Thanks! ------------------------------...

This week on No Script, Jacob is joined by special guest K Edmonds to discuss Dominique Morisseau's play Detroit '67. Edmonds directed the play for Albion College in fall of 2020. Listen in as Jacob and Edmonds discuss the way Morisseau has layered her incredible characters and complex worldview into this funny, poignant play about the long hot summer in Detroit.  ------------------------------ Pl...

This week of No Script begins a pair of episodes about Detroit. On this episode, listen in as Jackson and Jacob discuss Lisa D'Amour's play "Detroit." A play about new neighbors, suburban nostalgia, and authenticity, "Detroit" was a nominee for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure...

Returning from (Original) Masters Month, Jackson and Jacob revisit a playwright from Season 2! David Lindsay-Abaire's play Ripcord is a sharp, irreverent comedy about roommates in a senior living facility. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob discuss Lindsay-Abaire's structuring and creative imagination!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, yo...

It's the final week of Season 6's themed month: Original Masters Month. In this episode, Jackson and Jacob discuss the famous bawdy comedy "Lysistrata" by Aristophanes. 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  ----------------------...

In Week 3 of (Original) Masters Month, Jackson and Jacob welcome a new playwright to the podcast: the famous Euripides! His play "Medea" is one of the great masterpieces of the Ancient Greek library.... even though it only won third place in its initial competition. Listen in as J&J discuss this titanic tragedy. ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as...

In their second episode of (Original) Masters Month, Jackson and Jacob take on one of the great masterpieces of the stage: "Antigone" by Sophocles. Listen in as J&J discuss the theme of moral obligation to the family versus moral obligation to the state.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast ca...

(Original) Masters Month has arrived! During April, Jackson and Jacob will release four conversations about Ancient Greek scripts. This week, J&J discuss one of the bizarre comedies in Aristophanes' library: "The Birds."  ------------------------------ 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...

In the last episode before Season 6's Themed Month, Jackson and Jacob take on one of the titans.... both the playwright AND the play. George Bernard Shaw's gargantuan script "Man and Superman" is both a witty domestic comedy and a steely Socratic dialogue. Listen in as J&J talk about Shaw's reputation and the script's incredible intricacies.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporti...

Jeremy O. Harris' play "Slave Play" has taken Broadway by storm. Earning an incredible number of Tony nominations, the play was THE ticket in NYC before the pandemic. This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob discuss this wonderful, challenging, engaging script.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Po...

Avante garde playwright and director María Irene Fornés is known for her visually stunning and symbolic works. "What of the Night" was nominated for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It's a collection of four plays, and remains one of her most memorable pieces. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob weave their way through her dream landscapes! ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob discuss one of the classic comedies of the stage. Molière's play "Tartuffe" chronicles a wealthy household in distress as the religious hypocrite Tartuffe slowly takes over. The play was banned from the French stage for some time upon its initial writing: listen in to Jackson and Jacob talk about why! ------------------------------ Please consider supporti...

One of the great playwrights of the 20th century, Alice Childress has been often overlooked in theatre history. Her play "Trouble in Mind" is a frank look at the racism which saturated the theatre of her day... and too often still saturates the theatre of our day. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob discuss this dark comedy! ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For a...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob travel back in time to visit a play some theatre thinkers have called, "the best play ever written." In "The Cherry Orchard," Anton Chekhov explores a group of Russian aristocrats whose lives are changing even as the world changes around them. Listen in as J&J discuss the subtle, inspiring brilliance of Chekhov. ------------------------------ Please consid...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob take on Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Pulitzer Prize-nominated script "Gloria." When a shocking workplace tragedy upends the life of several cubicle employees, questions about the ownership of stories and trauma are raised. This dark comedy is fascinating in its structure!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/...

Anne Washburn's play "Mr. Burns" is a delightfully weird take on the apocalypse. After a catastrophe has collapsed the power grid, and civilization as we know it, how will humanity hold on to our stories? This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob dive into the wonderful world of the Simpsons... but 80 years after a television ever turned on. Listen in! ------------------------------ Please conside...

In Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World, playwright Yussef El Guindi takes a popular American genre, the romantic comedy, and adds his own delightful twist. This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob discuss the wonderful new elements Guindi has brought to this popular form! ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure t...