Ok Radio

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Annemie Vanackere, the new director of the Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, about the relative merits and certain pitfalls of too much leadership.  Also too much dependency.  How can artists develop and maintain a share of agency in the work, as well as a healthy balance of power in our relationships with grantors, curators, and producers?  

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to playwright/director Tina Satter of the New York company Half Straddle about sports, rigor, training, discipline and commitment.  Also up for consideration: should experimental theater be looking more ambitiously at stadiums and mass audience?  Do revolutions really happen in small rooms?

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Bruce Gladwin, director of Back to Back Theatre, based in Geelong, Australia, about ability, disability, inability, responsibility – obstacles – and audience.  (And also, while we’re at it – let’s talk about being “special” and the many pitfalls of that label.)

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to writer, composer and performer Cynthia Hopkins about her trip to the Arctic Circle and what she discovered there – also about meditation, crisis, climate change, the future, the primordial past, artistic genius, ecstatic experience, the unseen world, the divine, prayer – and the cosmos.  And Cynthia sings to us a few songs in the closet, too.  

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to designer, director and performer Jim Findlay about his work both within and without Collapsable Giraffe.  Join us as we delve into the deep love and attachment (and nostalgia) we feel for feral work and feral spaces, William Boroughs, Artaud, Werner Schroeter, centaurs, androids, prehistoric plant life, and the ultimate post-human future of the planet when machines take over!

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Gavin Quinn, director of Dublin-based Pan Pan Theatre company, about empathy and the physical presence of actors.  When you remove the actor from performance (as they do in All That Fall) -- what possibilities does that lack of an obvious physical and emotional center open up for an audience?  (Plus: we experiment for the first time with podcasting in the dark!)

Nature Theater of Oklahoma meets with choreographer/dancer/performance artist Miguel Gutierrez , who braves athsma and kittens, to explore with us the nature of stunt, risk, and personal necessity in the work.  Also, honestly – how complicated is our relationship to audience? And to museums, for that matter. (Hello, MoMA!)

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with John Collins, director of Elevator Repair Service in New York, about sleepless nights, Supreme Court oral arguments, gun control, the Newtown school shootings, benevolent dictatorships, emancipation, risk, responsibility, reason, and other things that have absolutely nothing to do with theater… or do they?

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Gideon Lester, Director of Theater Programs and Professor of Theater at Bard College, also one of the curators of the Crossing the Line Festival in New York, about becoming brave and strategies for inscribing that bravery into our cultural institutions and universities.  How should we train and cultivate a courageous new generation of artistic leaders?  (Or: Where are all our new young failures going to come from – and why do we need them more than ever?)

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to actor/director Paul Lazar of Big Dance Theater about navigating a tremendously diverse body of work. Paul has worked in everything from the Wooster Group’s Brace Up to Hollywood gangster flics, from Korean monster movies to modern dance (he’s currently working with Mikhail Baryshnikov on a new piece). And he now hosts his own radio show “Talk to Paulie” on BBOX Radio in New York – a show on which we are, also, simultaneously HIS guests. (A radio show within a radio show!)

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Eric Dyer of the Brooklyn-based performance group Radiohole about play and playfulness, artist and ensemble.  How far out, to the extreme edge of failure, are we willing to push ourselves and our work in order to try and stay “wild”?  Does our willingness to embrace failure and be more courageous hinge in part on our ability to trick ourselves into crafting a more playful relationship to the audience, curators, and funders that we hope will eventually embrace that work?

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks again with their very first OK Radio guest, playwright/director Young Jean Lee, about American celebrity culture, our capacities for violence and repression – plus lots of dancing our way around Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. (And added bonus feature: Young Jean explains the workings of the economic “Pareto” principle and how to beneficially apply it to your personal life!)

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Tony-nominated actor and Hollywood regular David Harbour about the challenges and benefits of working in the world of commercial entertainment.  Is there a Berlin-style wall that divides Broadway from the experimental theater? And, if so, can we, as another famous actor, Ronald Regan, once commanded: “tear down that wall”? (Plus special guest appearance by actress Ari Graynor!)

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Bessie Award-winning choreographer, playwright, instigator – and new parent, Karinne Keithley Syers, about crossing disciplines, changing names, and genuinely embracing experiment as a part of living and making work.

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Vallejo Gantner, artistic director of PS122 and curator of the COIL Festival in New York City about the obvious drawbacks and also surprising benefits and pleasures of working in the performing arts in America.  (Plus even more exciting conversation about sharks, snakes, spiders, dingos and native marsupials of the Australian outback!)

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Caden Manson, director of Big Art Group about watching and reading – the work, the audience, and (maybe) even American football.  Plus additional deep reflections on time, progress and The Future.

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to performer Kate Valk, one of the founding members of the Wooster Group, about her sustained commitment to the company and her evolution and transformation as an artist within it.

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to American director and writer Anne Bogart, about change, control and community.

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Nikolaus Müller-Schöll, author, professor, and theater scientist at Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt about the role of discourse and critical thinking and theory in the performing arts.  What is the role of the artist in this discourse?  Can we offer any insight into our work?  And, conversely, do those who write about theater (even 18th century theater) also need to sit in the audience or be engaged somehow in current practice?

Nature Theater of Oklahoma continues their talk with William Forsythe, this time delving more deeply into the improbable intersections of radio and dance, and the even more bizarre correlations between directing, choreography and plumbing.