No Script: The Podcast

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...

Steven Dietz is one of America's most prolific playwrights. This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob discuss one of his only plays to make it to New York - "Lonely Planet." The play tells the story of two men during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Listen in as J&J examine the play's strange new context.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/mo...

Pulling again from the robust library of Pulitzer Prize-winning scripts, Jackson and Jacob return for the second episode of Season 6! "Anna in the Tropics" by Nilo Cruz is a delightful, poetic, and highly engaging play about a time when cigars were hand rolled and lectors still read aloud from great novels. When a new lector arrives at a family cigar factor in Tampa, he brings along Tolstoy's grea...

Season Six begins with another Pulitzer Prize winning play! "Cost of Living" by Martyna Majok is a sharp play full of heart. It follows two caretaking relationships with wildly different contexts. This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob break down how these journeys mirror and oppose each other.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you...

In this final episode of Season Five, Jackson and Jacob return to the list of Pulitzer Prize winning plays and discuss Quiara Alegría Hudes' surprising, inventive script "Water by the Spoonful." The play dramatizes robust online communication while also using powerful visual imagery. It is the second play in Hudes' "The Elliot Trilogy."    This is the last episode of Season Five. The boys of No Sc...

This week on No Script, Jackson is joined by special guest Maria Booth to discuss the musical "Once," which tells the story of singer-songwriters in Ireland. Maria, a singer-songwriter in Ireland herself, brings a unique perspective on the script. If you've never listened to the "Once" soundtrack... do yourself a favor and look it up!   You can also look up Maria and her music here: https://marian...

It's the second week of a two part series on No Script. Last week Jackson and Jacob looked at Ibsen's famous "A Doll's House." This week, the boys discuss a new play that's sweeping the nation (or was, before COVID): "A Doll's House, Part 2" by Lucas Hnath.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podcast...

In part one of a two part series, Jackson and Jacob explore Henrik Ibsen's famous drama "A Doll's House." When the play was released, it was so controversial that many theatres refused to perform it. Next week, J&J will discuss "A Doll's House, Part 2" by Lucas Hnath.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Scr...

In their first episode back after Monologue Month, Jackson and Jacob discuss a play that's sweeping the regional professional theatre scene. The Goodman Theatre's production of the show was postponed by the pandemic, but a recording of their production was briefly available online. The script, of course, is "School Girls: Or, the African Mean Girls Play" by Jocelyn Bioh. Listen in! ---------------...

It's the final episode of Monologue Month! The concluding episode of this season's themed month is a discussion of perhaps the most famous and celebrated one person show of all time, written by one of the most famous and celebrated playwrights of all time: "Krapp's Last Tape" by Samuel Beckett! Listen in! ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/mon...

In Episode 3 of Monologue Month, Jackson and Jacob visit one of the titans of the form: Anna Deavere Smith. Smith is well known and well lauded for one person shows like "Twilight: Los Angeles" and "Fires in the Mirror." This week, the boys discuss her sweep through American history: "House Arrest."  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, y...

It's the second week of Monologue Month, which means Jackson and Jacob are continuing their weekly examinations of one person shows. This week? The Pulitzer Prize-winning play "I Am My Own Wife." Doug Wright's loving portrait of a complicated human being is the stuff of dramatic masterpiece.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can h...

It's the first episode of Season 5's Themed Month: Monologue Month. During October, Jackson and Jacob will discuss four one-person shows. This week? That famous ode to the Women's Rights Movement: The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe by Jane Wagner.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Sc...

Charles Fuller's script for "A Soldier's Play" was awarded the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Drama - just the second play by a black playwright to win the award. The story is specific, engrossing, and brilliantly told using devices that play with time and space. Listen in this week as Jackson and Jacob discuss this American masterpiece.  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Pa...

Two high school students (strangers to each other), a last-minute group project on Walt Whitman, and a mysterious lack of internet access - thus begins Lauren Gunderson's play "I and You." Her knack for compelling, humorous, and personality-driven dialogue fills out the pages of this tight and moving script. Listen in as Jackson and Jacob explore Gunderson's popular two-hander.  ------------------...

Lauren Yee's play "The Great Leap" is a tribute to her father, known in the neighborhood she grew up in for his basketball skills. Sharply written and highly theatrical, "The Great Leap" delights and surprises Jackson and Jacob this week on No Script. Listen in! ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Pod...

This week on No Script, Jackson and Jacob discuss another play by the American master August Wilson. Wilson's second Pulitzer Prize winner, The Piano Lesson tells the story of how one piano represents a complicated web of family legacy and slavery. Listen in!  ------------------------------ Please consider supporting us on Patreon. For as low as $1/month, you can help to ensure the No Script Podca...

A weekend at the family vacation home in Martha's Vineyard... Sounds relaxing, right? But Lydia R. Diamond's play "Stick Fly" imagines the LeVay family (and a few guests) trying to enjoy their weekend at the Vineyard, but finding out that secrets, lies, and high expectations can tend to ruin the relaxation. Listen in this week as Jackson and Jacob discuss Diamond's "well-made play."  -------------...