After a pandemic-related programming pause, Chicago's Tony-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company returns with a new season of programming, including their current production of Circus Quixote, based on Miquel de Cervantes's novel. Longtime LTC ensemble member and newly appointed artistic director Kasey Foster discusses how Lookingglass managed to survive the pandemic; how they created a much more welcoming presence on Michigan Avenue; how she's gone from being a performer to being a classic actor-manager; and most importantly, how Lookingglass offers the sort of performance spectacle you can only get in a live theatre experience. (Length 19:25)

Veteran Shakespearean actor Geoffrey Barnes joins the Reduced Shakespeare Company to play Yorick and Ophelia's mother in the regional theatre premiere of The Comedy of Hamlet! (a prequel). The RSC's 11th stage show marks the company's seventh appearance at Merrimack Repertory Theatre, as well as MRT's 300th production, and Geoffrey discusses how his many years at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and Oregon Shakespeare Festival – as well as his background in musical theatre and experience performing RSC scripts at CSC – serve him well in this comic prequel to Shakespeare's greatest tragedy. Geoffrey reveals the value of a comedian not thinking he’s funny; how he finds the rhythms and music of the language, whether it’s Shakespeare, vaudeville, or August Wilson; and the importance of letting the music and the jokes serve the characters and the story. (Length 21:05)

Playwright David Blixt talks about Eve of Ides, his play and new audio drama which imagines the relationships between the main characters of Julius Caesar. David reveals the ways in which Eve of Ides is both a sort of prequel and a sequel to Shakespeare's play; how he was introduced to Roman history as a child from a Colleen McCullough audiobook; how he borrowed from Shakespeare in the same way Shakespeare borrowed from Plutarch; why Shakespeare never explores the most important relationship in the play; how Shakespeare reclaimed and completely redefined the reputation of Brutus; and how the fall of the Roman Empire – and how the physical design of Washington DC – offers a scary prediction for America. (Length 19:00)

Author Nicole Galland returns to the podcast to discuss her page-turning new historical novel Boy, a story of young love, political intrigue, and cross-dressing both onstage and off in Shakespeare’s London. Nicole reveals how she discovered that the separate characters she was imagining belonged in the same book; how the historical Alexander Cooke differs from her fictional creation; how she's able to so brilliantly describe the streets of 16th-century London; the art of reverse-engineering Shakespeare's characters to create the actor who might have played them; why Nicole’s a novelist and not a playwright; and how there’s nothing better than a literary three-way. (Length 23:04)

RSC artistic directors Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor discuss their return to Merrimack Repertory Theatre with the company's 11th show, The Comedy of Hamlet! (a prequel) as MRT's 300th production. Reed and Austin reveal the RSC's deep connections to New England; how this will be the RSC's third show to premiere at MRT (after The Complete World of Sports (abridged) and The Ultimate Christmas Show (abridged) and seventh visit overall; and share insights into the creation of the show and why they changed the title; how the show's roll-out and script development got interrupted by the pandemic; what milestone anniversary will be celebrated by our first MRT performance; and how creating a prequel to Shakespeare's greatest play brought unexpected emotional connections to the characters. (LENGTH 18:24)

Candice Handy, associate artistic director of Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, discusses her production of Lanie Robertson's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill at Merrimack Repertory Theatre, and reveals how she first connected to the material and how the play lands differently now. Candice shares her background as both an actor and musician; Billie Holiday’s connection to Lowell; how actors are doctors to the soul; the wonder of discovering things you didn’t know you knew; the danger of silencing artists; the value of art in troubled times; and the importance of giving a play the grit it requires to deliver the transcendence it deserves. (Length 24:05)

Successful playwrights and television writers (and married couple) Barbara Wallace and Tom Wolfe are playing successful playwrights (and married couple) Charlotte and Arthur Sanders in the Waterfront Playhouse production of Paul Slade Smith's The Angel Next Door through February 8, 2025. Friends of the pod Barb and Tom make their first joint appearance to talk about their return to the stage as “eccentric artists” playing eccentric artists; being directed by Waterfront Playhouse artistic director Patrick New; help from Chicago actor (and friend of the pod) Laura T. Fisher and the LineLearner app; the importance of reading a script’s “funny type;” a possible new play called Terror at Four Feet; finding out one’s musical chops are out of tune; and how much acting is actually involved for two successful writers playing two successful writers. (Length 21:06)

Perennially one of the most-produced playwrights in America, Lauren Gunderson returns to discuss A Room in the Castle, her new play based on the women of Hamlet now having its world premiere at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and Folger Theatre in Washington DC. Lauren talks about the evolution of her play and reveals how it became more focused on Gertrude, rather than Ophelia; an excellent reason why artists should lunch with other artists; how there is always another story going on; how young people in love are dumb; what her next play will focus on; the definitive answer to the question of Gertrude’s complicity in King Hamlet’s murder; and how the women of Denmark survive in a world (much like ours) where “patriarchy’s gonna patriarchy.” (Length 24:13) (PICTURED, above: Sabrina Lynne Sawyer and Oneika Phillips in the world-premiere of “A Room in the Castle” based on the women of “Hamlet,” by Lauren M. Gunderson, directed by Kaja Dunn, co-produced with Folger Theatre playing January 24-February 9, 2025 at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. Photo by Mikki Schaffner. Below, Lauren Gunderson and Austin Tichenor, San Francisco, 2025. Selfie by Austin Tichenor.)