Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast

Dawn Tucker, Hannah Fontes, and Becki Zaritsky are the hosts of the Untamed Shrews Podcast, a production of Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival (where Dawn and Hannah are the Executive and Marketing Directors, respectively, and Becki is the former production manager). The three Shrews discuss their work with Flagstaff Shakes and how the pandemic inspired the podcast's creation, and how they bring their...

Reed Martin remembers seeing the 1985 production of Merrily We Roll Along, the troubled musical by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth that found its final form (according to Sondheim) at the La Jolla Playhouse when it was directed by James Lapine. Reed and Austin struggle to find the greatness that everyone else sees, and discuss what compels them to take icons like Sondheim and Shakespeare off the...

Nicolette Bethel, the co-founder of Shakespeare in Paradise, in The Bahamas, talk about the process of decolonizing Shakespeare in parts of the world where Shakespeare's been weaponized as a tool of imperialism and a symbol of "superior" – meaning, white and English – culture. This second part of our conversation (part one can be found here) features discussion about the complicated symbolism of C...

Shakespeare In Paradise, an annual festival committed to exposing Bahamian audiences to a range of productions from classical theatre traditions around the world while celebrating and developing Bahamian Theater artists. Co-founded in 2009 by Nicolette Bethel, Shakespeare In Paradise is the only international theater festival of its kind in the Caribbean, and Nicolette talks about the festival's o...

The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s own Michael Faulkner and his wife, actor Amanda Pajer, have created new musical identities as Mike & Mandy, writing and producing new music that’s being heard and buzzed about all over the world. For this special Valentine’s Day episode, they discuss working together as a couple and the process of collaboration; how they survived the pandemic by turning it into an...

Netta Walker, one of the stars of All-American: Homecoming and a stage actor who spent time in Chicago, discusses how her stage experience compares with her TV experience, and, amazingly, how one of her early formative experiences was with the Reduced Shakespeare Company (!). FEATURING: her debut on the stage of Lincoln Center; where she got her early professional experience; being blessed with su...

Gina Pulice and Jen Bosworth-Ramirez are the hosts of the “I Survived Theatre School Podcast”, which started as a pandemic project, but has become a fantastic ongoing conversation about the things we learned in theatre school, the things we didn’t learn, and how we’ve all managed to survive: some of us in the theatre, and some of us in other fields. Austin Tichenor was a guest on their podcast and...

Just what New York needs – another theater, right?! Yet New York Classical Theatre has carved a valuable niche by presenting all-free productions of popular classics and forgotten masterpieces in public spaces throughout New York City. Founding Artistic Director Stephen Burdman talks about how the company began; how the importance of access drives everything; the blessing of producing in a city fi...

Emily Lyon and Shannon Corinthen are the artistic and producing directors of the Hedgepig Ensemble in Brooklyn, NY, and two of the hosts of “This is a Classic: The Expand The Canon Theatre Podcast,” an outgrowth of Hedgepig's mission to uplift the legacy of women and non-binary writers. Shannon and Emily talk about the plethora of plays out there by underrepresented writers; how they curate their...

The Gamut Theatre in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, hosted the 2022 Shakespeare Theatre Association conference last weekend, and artistic director Clark Nicholson sat down to talk about the theater's origins, its evolution, and how they run many different operations under one umbrella. Featuring adventures in real estate; changing one kind of sacred space into another; the challenges and rewards of mak...

Last week's podcast about an uneasy correspondence with Stephen Sondheim prompts this first podcast of 2022! Matt Croke joins us to dig into the question of where artistic inspiration comes from, and how artists transform their influences into art. Featuring comic influences that have inspired the RSC (in both spoken word and musical form); finding more meat on the bone; the importance of acknowle...

Attend the tale!! In 2016, The Sondheim Review published an article by our own Austin Tichenor that discussed the similarities between the Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt musical The Fantasticks and the James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim collaborations Sunday in the Park with George and Into The Woods – and Mr. Sondheim was sorely displeased. What follows is a tale of honest curiosity; genuine repentance;...

Louis Bayard’s novel Mr. Timothy, a sort-of sequel to Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, imagines what happens to Tiny Tim as a grownup. It’s a moving literary thriller, with its own sort of redemption and set in and around the Victorian London underworld, and author Bayard discusses the book's origins and creation; how A Christmas Carol is a surprisingly angry book; how he realized that...

Improviser, novelist, TV writer, podcast host, panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me, and now memoirist Adam Felber is the co-author, with Charles Band, of Confessions of a Puppetmaster: A Hollywood Memoir of Ghouls, Guts, and Gonzo Filmmaking, and he discusses the extraordinary life he's helped document; how he makes sure his writing is entertaining; his foray into the multi-podcast-verse; h...

Matt Crowle has directed and choreographed Irving Berlin's Holiday Inn at the the Drury Lane Theatre outside Chicago, and this week he discusses how one job led to (and informs) the other. Featuring early inspiration from Gene Kelly, Ray Bolger, Eleanor Powell, and Bob Fosse; a litany of luck; advice from Mike Nichols; a preference for "characters who dance" over a uniform chorus line; the attract...

Brad Oscar is a double Tony Award nominee for his performances in the original Broadway productions of The Producers and Something Rotten!, opens this Sunday in the Broadway musical version of Mrs. Doubtfire, met Stephen Sondheim many times, and played Beadle Bamford in the 2017 off-Broadway production of Sweeney Todd set in an actual pie shop where the audience sat at tables and ate during the pe...

Amanda Drinkall plays Desdemona in Othello, The Tragedy of the Moor of Venice, at the Court Theater in Chicago – and, as it happens, she's also played Desdemona before with the Back Room Shakespeare Project. Amanda discusses the differences between the two productions and reveals why she continues to be drawn to the role; the appeal of approaching the text irreverently; the advantages of intimacy;...

In celebration of the RSC Podcast's 15th Anniversary, artistic directors Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor remember the surreal week they spent performing The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged) at the Gielgud Theatre in London in the wake of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Featuring memories of how the country came together; how all the performing arts suffered at the box office; how...

Shana Cooper directed the outstanding five-actor American Players Theatre production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (which runs in person and online until November 14, 2021) and returns to the podcast to discuss how this production differs from the previous two times she's directed it. Featuring pandemic producing on the fly; changing identities; learning how to watch to play; embracing...

Chicago's Court Theatre is producing a powerful and intimate production of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice, and they are absolutely leaning into the play’s full, proper title. Kelvin Roston Jr. (as Oedipus, left, and Othello, above) stars in the title role and discusses how he was brought in early in the process by directors Charles Newelland Gabrielle Randle-Bent, and sha...

On the eve of the RSC Podcast’s 15th anniversary, podcast host and RSC actor/consigliere Matthew Croke, joins us to discuss whether it's time to change things up. What do you think? Should we change the format or the emphasis? Make it longer or more infrequent? Should we eliminate some annoying tics or regular features, or is it just perfect the way it is? Let us know what you think as we discuss...

Friends of the pod Alejandra Escalante and Daniel José Molina are playing Kate and Petruchio in the five-actor American Players Theatre production of The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Shana Cooper, until November 14, 2021. Alejandra and Daniel discuss how they decided to do the play; how they approached their characters; what the play is about now; how the language defines the play; the advanta...

Matt Walker is the founder and artistic director of the Troubador Theatre Company, the LA-based ensemble that combines classic texts with classic Top-40 songs to create such astonishing mashups as Much A-Doobie Brothers About Nothing, The Comedy of Aerosmith, Fleetwood MacBeth, Santa Claus is Coming to Motown, The Little Drummer Bowie, Julius Weezer, Abbamemnon, As U2 Like It, A Christmas Carole K...

Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn is an independent scholar (late of Georgetown University, George Washington University, and most recently, MIT) who is both a creator and scholar of Fan Fiction Studies, and who recently filmed an hour-long interactive conversation with Austin Tichenor on The Shakespeareance. In this excerpt, Dr. Finn discusses how "fan fiction" might be best defined; how fan fiction is a sur...

Two-time Olivier Award winner Adrian Scarborough returns to the podcast to give a masterclass in learning to love Shakespeare, studying him in drama school, and performing him professionally. Adrian shares experiences of learning Shakespeare at his mother's knee; playing Shakespeare's clowns; getting direction from Sam Mendes; occasional rush-hour trains going by; the advantage of dance training i...