Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast

Jeffrey Sweet, the author of Something Wonderful Right Away, returns to the podcast to discuss the brand-new second edition of this granddaddy of all improv books. Jeff shares how his book had an impact over and above what he ever imagined; how the second edition features new interviews with Keegan-Michael Key and the founding mother of improv Viola Spolin; how improvisation shares so much with games; his many inspirations (including TJ and Dave and Lanford Wilson); and the similarities between improvisation and playwriting. (Length 18:35) The post Something More Wonderful appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Novelist Jessica Martin returns to her fictional town of Bard’s Rest, NH, for her second Shakespearean romcom, The Dane of my Existence. Her first book, For The Love of the Bard, focused on the character of Miranda Barnes, but the new book focuses on Miranda’s sister Portia, a high-powered lawyer who’s about to land the role of her dreams: becoming the youngest managing partner in her law firm’s history. But during her summer sabbatical at her family’s annual Shakespeare festival in Bard’s Rest, she encounters hunky hotshot developer Benjamin Dane, and hilarity, romance, and legal hijinks ensue. Jessica talks about how a single book has become a series; the importance of puppies in romantic fiction; how to construct a compelling romance while adding a soupçon of John Grisham; the difference between enemies and rivals; how fully fleshed-out all the supporting characters are, and which ones may get their own books; unintentional echoes of Taming of the Shrew; adjusting the amount of steam and the danger of writ

Don’t know your Bacons from your Marlowes, your deVeres from your Rutlands? Fear not. We addressed the so-called "Authorship Question" in our 2006 book, Reduced Shakespeare: The Complete Guide for the Attention-Impaired (abridged), outlining all the major candidates and computing the odds that someone other than Shakespeare actually wrote his keen plays and nifty sonnets. The answer may surprise you! This episode features the entire text of Chapter Five, "Who Wrote This Stuff?", and offers iconoclasm and mischief-making, scandalous scholarship, wild supposition, equally unlikely possibilities, and a little thing we like to call "logic." (Length 29:34) The post Who Wrote Shakespeare? appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Matthew C. Yee (above) wrote the book and score for Lucy and Charlie's Honeymoon, and plays one half of the titular couple in the Lookingglass Theatre world premiere. Joined by co-star Rammel Chan, the two actors discuss the show's origins; how they walk its tricky tonal lines; how a script with humble college beginnings became a full-fledged country western musical; the ways in which the characters are both inside and outside the law; the challenge of being not just the author and composer, but also an actor and musician; wonderful and unintended similarities to Harpo Marx; and the lasting questions of why there aren’t more country western musicals? (Length 19:58) The post Asian American Renegades appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Actor, improviser, and playwright Dee Ryan has written Broadguess, her one-person comedy in which a hard-boiled Elsinore detective gets too close to some mysterious deaths amongst the Danish royal family and gets transferred to...Verona. As Detective Broadguess discovers murders most foul in Italy and Scotland, she uncovers the sick mind responsible and investigates what kind of man creates this level of carnage. Ryan, a Jeff nominated Second City alum, talks about the origins of the piece; how it was inspired by her Shakespeare book club; its debut as part of Flatwater Shakespeare Company's "UnShaken Festival;" how she's recreating Shakespeare’s connection to a broad (!) audience; her gratitude to Jeff Award-winning director Barb Wallace; and how her very funny comedy is a dee-construction of both Shakespeare’s canon and Shakespeare the Man. (Length 20:04) The post Dee Ryan’s ‘Broadguess’ appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Braden Abraham, the new artistic director of Chicago’s Writers Theatre, just announced the theater's 31st season, the first one he's programmed since joining the company. Braden talks about what goes into planning a season (and how that thinking never really ends); how a theatre season is like a great album; the importance of being in a learning and discovery phase; remaining in conversation with various overlapping communities; how programming a show in one city leads to a different show in another; the challenge of making each show an event; finding the right balance of scale and intimacy; and the value of bring some west coast energy to the north shore. (Length 19:18) The post Meet Braden Abraham appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

The About Face Theatre world premiere production of Gender Play, or what you Will is a tour-de-force for its co-creator and star Will Wilhelm, who transforms their own story as a nonbinary actor into a funny and powerful evening that's part seance and part dance party. Will shares their journey of discovery and how this play began as a thrown gauntlet; how Shakespeare’s plays are fundamentally queer, and how Will found themself in them; the difficulty of parsing gender identity, gender performance, and cross-dressing; the importance of creating easy on-ramps to appreciating Shakespeare; and how Gender Play will continue to be a gift to future queer performers who can make it their own. (Length 25:20) The post Will’s Gender Play appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

David A. Goodman, the former president of the Writers Guild of America currently leading the negotiations and strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), takes a break from the picket lines to explain why this existential fight is so important. David reveals what's at stake, avoids heroic hyperbole; declines to craft narratives; confides who has the real power in Hollywood; explains the gutting of the American middle-class; possesses an admirable reluctance to participate in childish banter; and expresses gratitude for the extraordinary support the WGA is getting from its sister Hollywood unions. (Length 20:18) The post Writers Guild Strike appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Actor and professor Cindy Gold remembers her friend and colleague Frank Galati, the Academy Award-nominated and multiple Tony Award-winning writer and director who died last January. At a memorial held at Steppenwolf Theatre last Monday, Galati's friends and artistic colleagues (including Mary Zimmerman, Robert Falls; Lois Smith, and Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty) remembered him as a generous and supportive artist in an event that was an inspiring celebration. Cindy shares her memories of working with Frank on his musical Loving Repeating (for which she won a Joseph Jefferson Award for playing Gertrude Stein); how Frank was a champion of the positive who had the ability to love an actor to a great performance; the joy of experiencing the “full Galati;” her talent to be a muse; and how Frank Galati continues to inspire. (Length 20:04) The post Remembering Frank Galati appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Karen Ann Daniels, Director Of Programming and Artistic Director of Washington DC's Folger Theatre, discusses her journey with Shakespeare and her goal of making the resources of the Folger Shakespeare Library open and available to more people. Karen Ann shares her love of site-specific theatre; how the Folger is renovating and improving not just its physical space, but its metaphysical space; expanding the kinds of people who get called “emerging artists;” how her early training as a musician led to a life of Shakespeare; how Bugs Bunny and Duck Tales are part of many Shakespearean origin stories; how the Folger picked the perfect time to plan its multi-million dollar renovation; and how exposure to Shakespeare can help you find your voice. (Length 17:53) The post Karen Ann Daniels appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

2023 is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's First Folio, and Chris Laoutaris, the author of Shakespeare's Book: The Story Behind the First Folio and the Making of Shakespeare, discusses his fascinating and readable account of the many people and factors that went into its creation. Chris shares how he became an expert in multiple disciplines just to write the human story behind what Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune called “one of the most crucial cultural acts in the history of Western civilization;” pushes back against the conventional wisdom that Heminges and Condell were the only ones responsible for the First Folio; whether The Winters’ Tale is somehow a tribute to Anne Shakespeare; his use of extended tree metaphors; how putting together a Folio takes a village; the many and varied historical synchronicities; how Lauren Gunderson’s The Book of Will (a fictional treatment of the same material) compares with what really happened; and how the First Folio is mostly responsible for the Shakespeare Indust

SPOILER ALERT: The penultimate episode of Star Trek: Picard's third and final season features the compelling return of Admiral Elizabeth Shelby, played by friend of the pod Elizabeth Dennehy. Shelby first appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation's classic two-part episode "The Best of Both Worlds" as a famous Borg fighter, so her return is particularly ironic. Elizabeth (Dennehy) talks about how she got the call; what it was like to step on to the bridge of The Enterprise-F; the level and specifics of her fandom; the (perhaps coincidental) power of The Twitter Machine; the ways in which her appearance was both a surprise and not; the value of an actor not knowing too much about the larger storyline; a sliver of hope that maybe Shelby has survived; how Elizabeth is connected offscreen to Miles O’Brien, Keiko O'Brien, Soji Asha; and Scott Bakula, who played Enterprise NX-01 captain Jonathan Archer; the stress of keeping Shelby’s appearance secret; how small the Star Trek casting universe is; a special appeara

Susan V. Booth, the new artistic director of the Goodman Theatre, talks about her recently-announced 2023-2024 season, the first she's programmed upon returning to Chicago. Susan reveals the challenges of not only selecting a season, but in finding the right language to talk about it; the value of diminishing “capital-I importance;” her obsession with how elastic the definition of ‘theatre’ can be; the wonderful durability of this art form; the excitement of non-traditional spaces and theatre that happens outside of theaters; how every season is a chapter in an epic theatre saga; an exclusive tip for how to avoid a reputational “sh1tshow;” and finally, the trick of curating a season while also getting out of its way. (Photo by Joe Mazza.) (Length 18:39) The post Goodman’s 98th Season appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

The original cast (pictured, left to right: Reed Martin, Dominic Conti, and Austin Tichenor) returns to The Complete History of Comedy (abridged) for performances this April and July of 2023 and they discuss how both the show and their performances have changed; how different people can get away with different jokes; the value of bashing away at the material; the audacity of comparing ourselves to Shakespeare; how it’s our most autobiographical show; what it’s like to act with other companies like Chicago's Goodman Theatre and San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre; fixing certain punchlines; and a special appearance from Grammy Award-winning comedian “Weird Al” Yankovic! (Length 18:49) The post Bringing Back Comedy appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Beware the Ides of March Madness! The question "What's the greatest Shakespeare play?" gets a definitive answer from director Nate Cohen, who's created a massive tournament bracket that pits Comedy v. Tragedy and History v. Romances. Nate shares how Shakespeare's plays got seeded; which plays were the hardest to match up; how a play's reputation affect its seeding; a production of As You Like It for which Barenaked Ladies wrote the songs (what??); the deep bench of Twelfth Night; tough decisions regarding Richard III; the unsurprising dominance of number one seeds; some surprising bracket-busters; a couple of heart-breaking matchups; what play would win out of ten games; and how the proof of each play's strengths come in production. A warning to our affiliates: We will go long. (Length 37:26) The post Shakespearean March Madness appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Chicago-based actor Dee Dee Batteast (above) plays the title role in Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s at the Studio Theatre in Washington DC and she discusses the wild tonal swing between this role and her previous role as Scrooge's niece in the Goodman Theatre's A Christmas Carol. Dee Dee shares how much she loves monsters (both watching them and playing them); how she's doing the devil’s work; how she navigates dizzying extremes; the possibilities of redemption; how freedom looks different for different characters; some strange lobby encounters; insightful mob boss comparisons; the power of playing elemental forces and the fun of playing a badass; and the differences – and surprising similarities – between Clyde’s and A Christmas Carol. (Length 21:43) The post Clyde’s In DC appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Author Ian Doescher wrote William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope and others in the Quirk Books Pop Shakespeare series (The Taming of the Clueless, Much Ado About Mean Girls, Get Thee Back to the Future), which imagine popular movies adapted into plays as they might have been written by William Shakespeare. Ian discusses his Jane Austen/zombie inspiration; how his bar idea transformed into an actual best-selling series; figuring out how Yoda speaks in Elizabethan English; his personal connection to Shakespeare; how film action translates to the stage; the delight of inserting deep cut Easter eggs into the narrative; and the huge fun of embracing limitations and visualizing theatricality. (Length 20:54) (Skywalker Hamlet image by Nicolas Delort.) The post Shakespeare’s ‘Star Wars’ appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actor Michael Chiklis returns to discuss some of the roles he's played and some of the roles he'd like to play. Michael shares his pride in doing The Thing (not to be confused with 'the thing'); the downside of success in a specific kind of role; his love of music and performing live; how he deals with critics; receiving praise from Stan Lee; the importance of reinvention; which Shakespeare roles he'd like to tackle next; and his arguments for the person he thinks wrote Shakespeare's plays. (For those wanting an authoritative refutation of the various Authorship Theories, download the free PDF, Shakespeare Bites Back: Not So Anonymous, written by Shakespeare scholars – and RSC Podcast guests – Paul Edmondson and Sir Stanley Wells.) (Length 22:40) The post More Michael Chiklis appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Director Jemma Levy discusses The Taming of the Shrew, now in rehearsal at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and opening this week. Jemma shares her thoughts about this famously complicated play and reveals that she considers it a feminist romantic comedy; how she emphasizes its themes of performance and the shifting relationships of masters and servants; her belief that Shakespeare’s women are always the smartest people on the stage; how we watch Katherine and Petruchio's first "meet-cute," then fall in love and learn each other’s moves in real time; the theatrical and thematic value of including the audience; the fun of putting a bar onstage; and how Shrew compares with another complicated Shakespeare “comedy,” The Merchant of Venice. (Length 20:45) The post ‘Shrew’ In Cincinnati appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Janice L. Blixt, the producing artistic director of the Michigan Shakespeare Festival, discusses the very tiny percentage of clumsy and unfortunate inquiry letters she's received, and the playfully helpful responses we wish we could send back. Blixt talks about how casting directors are genuinely rooting for every actor to be just what they’re looking for; the importance of self-direction; a Barbra Streisand example for young actors; how actors should be given opportunities to sit on the other side of the table; advice for young actors, or indeed, anyone who’s ever inquired about a job opportunity; how not to fly any unnecessary red flags; and the importance of not only learning about who you’re approaching, but not offering unsolicited advice to the person who has the power to hire you. (Length 22:56) The post ‘Dear Actor’ Letters appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.