Savage Wonder

As the Producing Director at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Jon Jory directed over 125 plays and produced over 1,000 during his 32-year tenure. He conceived the internationally lauded Humana Festival of New American Plays, the SHORTS Festival, and the Brown-Forman Classics-in-Context Festival. He was also the Artistic Founding Director of Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, and he has bee...

Josh Francis is a Marine veteran who is now a stand-up comic working across the US. A former writer at VET TV, Josh was raised with heavy comedic influences in his life. He embodies not only the flexibility and adaptability of the functional veteran, but the entrepreneurial spirit and discipline necessary to succeed as a comic.

Matt Smythe is a staff writer for Free Range American . He hails from the Finger Lakes region of western New York. An Army veteran and lifelong outdoorsman, Matt suffers from an inability to sit still. If he’s not in the woods, or on the water, he’s scheming ways to get there. His work has appeared in Gray’s Sporting Journal , the Fly Fish Journal , The Drake , Southern Culture on the Fly , Revive...

Justin Eggen is a father, 2X national award-winning poet, motivational speaker, combat veteran, and Graduate Student at Florida Atlantic University. Justin Eggen is also the President of the ‘Veteran Owls’, the FAU Veteran Organization, and he holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from FAU. He served active duty Marine Corps from 2008-2012 as a combat engineer attached to 2nd CEB, 2nd MARD...

Air Force spouse Ashley Gutermuth turned down a surefire career as a flight investigator and inspector to pursue stand-up comedy. Not only was she not deterred by the pandemic, she succeeded in navigating the Zoom comedy world, finding corporate gigs and continuing to hone her craft. Finding a way to tell jokes and not fully derail her husband's career, Ashley is a natural comic who is just hittin...

Matt Rendar is an Army combat veteran, current NYPD officer and wildly popular artist. His Etsy shop BattleTribe features evocative, colorful, playful, memorable images that pay homage to both his military past and his pop culture influences. Matt Rendar Twitter Matt Rendar's Etsy shop

Ava Aston is an award winning Independent Recording Artist. She is the wife of a U.S. Air Force Veteran and the daughter of a former Purple Heart National Service Officer. Ava is a passionate supporter of U.S. Veterans, Active Duty Military, Fire, Police and First Responders, as well as animal and humanitarian causes. Born and raised in upstate New York where she was classically trained, Ava ...

Jason Pizzarello is a Connecticut-based playwright and co-founder of Stage Partners, a digital licensing house for new plays (yourstagepartners.com). He is currently developing his plays Lost Near Daytona, Found (Semi-finalist, Arts in the Armed Forces Bridge Award) with The Tank /dir. Meghan Finn, and his outdoor immersive children’s play Off the Trail (grant recipient, Frances R. Dewing Foundati...

This week on the Savage Wonder podcast… Lindsay Partain is an internationally published and produced Oregon playwright and member of the Dramatists Guild. She holds her BA in Theatre from Pacific University and is a resident artist of Theatre Viscera. She was selected to be part of the Ashland New Play Festival's 2022 New Voices Cohort, her 10-minute play, "Cookie Cutter Christmas" was selected as...

Katie Grugin is a Knoxville, TN native who served five years as a Field Artillery Officer and fell into art after injury. She is a pen and ink artist and has illustrated two books of poetry on family and grief. Katie is currently a graduate student in a Master of Science of Social Work program at the University of Tennessee. She has worked with victims of Intimate Partner Violence and is currently...

This is one of those conversations I won't forget easily. I spoke the unbelievably honest, vulnerable and thoughtful Leilani Squire about her childhood as a Navy brat during the Korean War, her deep dive into nefarious activities during her early adulthood, her iron-willed classical dance training, and, ultimately, her highly disciplined and inspiring writing career as a poet and playwright. Leila...

This week on the Savage Wonder podcast… Phanésia Pharel is our third-place finalist in our inaugural full-length playwriting competition for her drama LUCKY. About her play, our judges said, "Beguiling, moving, deeply satisfying — and genuinely original. Her theatrical devices were both enchanting and extremely credible. She offers a fresh look at Creole and Haitian cultures and how both have been...

J.F. Holmes is a retired Army Senior Noncommissioned Officer, having served for 22 years in both the Regular Army and Army National Guard. During that time, he served as everything from an artillery section leader to a member of a Division level planning staff, with tours in Cuba and Iraq, as well as responding to the terrorists attacks in NYC on 9-11. From 2010 to 2014 he wrote the immensely popu...

Anthony Torres is a writer, performer, and Executive Director of Combat Hippies , an ensemble of Puerto Rican military veteran performing artists based in Miami, Florida. A grandchild of Puerto Rican immigrants, Anthony was born in New York City and raised in Utica, New York. Following high school, he enlisted into the military and later deployed to Abu Ghraib Prison, Iraq where he provided mental...

Keith Rousseau is an Air Force Veteran who is an actor, model, writer, photographer and abstract artist. His path has been tumultuous, unpredictable yet successful. I had a great time talking with this hard-working artist who is juggling five artistic pursuits at the same time while maintaining his inspiration and his passion. Follow Keith here .

Out of over 180 full-length plays, Anton Sattler's poignant drama LOCAL GODS placed second in our playwriting competition. Our judges said the following about LOCAL GODS: "Authentic, panoramic, fascinating. Lots of terrific detail and dialogue and chock-full of story and characters. A haunting story about the interaction between the services and how humans can and can’t show care for each other."...

It is a real thrill to interview our first finalist from our inaugural playwriting competitions - Arthur Boatin. Arthur's play NOW DEPARTED placed third in our inaugural 10-minute playwriting competition. A character-driven piece, NOW DEPARTED is the story of a chance meeting by small-town natives Rhonda and Clayton. They learn who have in common and compare notes on parenting, drinking, and losin...

It's ironic that the festival spawned by this podcast is the very thing that caused this podcast to go dark for the past two months, but thank you all very much for staying with us as I got thru the final months of festival planning to pull off a successful year 1 of the Savage Wonder Festival of Veterans in the Arts. That said, I knew we needed to come roaring back with a kick-ass guest. We got o...

Derek Stoner is the kind of veteran artist that stands out on paper. He is a former Green Beret who is now a country/Southern Rock Nashville recording artist. But what you can't fully appreciate until you hear him is what a talented singer he is. For someone who only recently retired from the military, he has found a new platform incredibly quickly and has the talent to make as big a splash as he...

Scott Mann is a professional storyteller. His play Last Out is a full-spectrum treatment of our war in Afghanistan. It is not an anti-war play. It is not a pro-war play. It is simply a play about war and all its complications - the toll it takes on the warfighter; the way it impacts the warfighter’s family - both positively and negatively; the intersection of cultures in this particular war; findi...

Jericho Hill is a metal band with catchy hooks and a twinkle in their eye. Former Navy corpsman McClain Potter and former Army soldier Steve Schneider sat down with me to talk about their lives, their musical journey, and the process of being Jericho Hill. Listen to Jericho Hill here . Follow Jericho Hill here .

From the Cold War navy to the dizzying heights of the booming hip-hop scene of the mid-90's, Auguster D. Williams Jr. 's life was a success story until drugs and burnout turned him into a statistic - a homeless veteran with a growing rap sheet and a legacy a disappointment. His life could have ended there. But it didn't. Instead, Gus became an award-winning collage artist who takes reclaimed mater...

This week, Mason Rodrigue returned to Savage Wonder to talk about his debut book, Rock Eater . Our conversation spans everything from granular details about the book to foreign policy to the emotionally significant events in Mason's life. But the real takeaway should be what a fine piece of literature Rock Eater is. An autobiography disguised as poetry, I truly believe it will go down in the annal...

Benjamin Fortier 's writing is not for everyone. It can be shocking, disturbing, wildly imaginative, jarring. There is no doubt it is well done, though. But much like understanding the history of a wine gives you an appreciation for it, understanding Ben's background - from his time in Iraq to his love of metal - gives you the context you need to enjoy his work. I can't wait to hear him read some...

Jesus Daniel Hernandez may have the most Dickensian life story we have ever featured on the show. Jesus immigrated to the US at 14 from Mexico, found himself working a string of low-end jobs as a young father, enlisted in the Army, deployed to Iraq...and then magic happened. He was plucked from the military and thrust into the top tier of classical singers by Placido Domingo and Carlos Slim. It is...