Places, Everyone

Sam Gold, the Tony-Award winning director of  Fun Home , wants to eliminate all barriers between the audience and the story. To that end, he removes any element that actors might use as a crutch in their performance, like an unnecessary set piece, and he utilizes the physical theater space to bring the actors as close as possible to the audience. In many of Sam’s productions including  Hamlet ,  Look Back in Anger , and  Glass Menagerie , he creates what he calls “a theater with no stage”. Of course, there is a stage, it just blends into the audience’s physical space and therefore into their emotional experience. As he says, “I like putting actors in the architecture that is perfect for the piece we’re making.” This spring Sam will direct  Three Sisters  at New York Theatre Workshop starring Oscar Isaac and Greta Gerwig. Sam’s emphasis is always on the actors – and he’s worked with some of the best in the business including Laurie Metcalf, Adam Driver, and Glenda Jackson. Combining skilled actors, an architectural approach to directing, and the belief that theater is inherently up for interpretation has made Sam one of the most in-demand directors working today.

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This episode is all about nostalgia and how we experience it through art. Any art form can have nostalgic effects, but I think there’s something unique and specific about music: the way hearing an old song you love transports you back in time to a younger version of yourself. Tony award-winning Broadway producer Eva Price has lots of musical nostalgia: she’s been drawn to pop music and Broadway musicals forever and in the past year she lead-produced two Broadway shows that are deeply nostalgic for audiences - Oklahoma!, a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, beloved since 1943, and Jagged Little Pill, a new musical based on Alanis Morissette’s eponymous album that invigorated listeners in 1995 and has stayed popular ever since. But here’s the thing: Eva’s not going to give you exactly what you expect. One of her skills as a producer is developing shows that disrupt nostalgia by merging beloved songs and stories with an honest and sometimes piercing awareness of our current moment. How does Eva convince investors and audiences that the way to honor nostalgic work is to dust it off and make it new?

Links:

https://www.maximumcompany.com/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/leeseymour/2019/04/22/meet-eva-price-broadways-powerhouse-entrepreneur/#6114b11a2142

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Branden Jacobs-Jenkins writes some of the most challenging plays I’ve read and seen. That’s partially due to the fact that his plays are each distinct in form, namely the way each play is delivered is as important as the story itself. Branden is a writer who is fascinated by the history of storytelling, from the Greeks to the Middle Ages, and within American drama, from the Civil War through the 20th century. In our interview, we talked about how he draws on old plays to examine how we experience the same themes today.

Branden’s plays, which include Neighbors, Appropriate, An Octoroon, Gloria, War, Everybody, and Girls, have won a host of awards including the MacArthur Fellowship. Branden is also a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a theater professor, and a consulting producer on the HBO series Watchmen.

Talking to Branden was a true pleasure. He is scholarly, perceptive, and genuine. If you haven’t seen or read Branden’s plays, I encourage you to check them out. His work will challenge you in the best way.

Links:

https://www.macfound.org/fellows/958/

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/05/28/branden-jacob-jenkins-on-his-play-neighbors/

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In this episode, I look at the ways in which church and gospel music can shape an artist like my guest, Ephraim Sykes, a veritable triple threat of acting, singing, and dancing. As a kid and teenager, Ephraim had a natural affinity for dance and music, and his outlet was Sunday worship. Joining the gospel choir wasn’t a conscious decision, Ephraim says. “It was just what we did.” Since getting his BFA in dance, Ephraim has performed with the Alvin Ailey company, danced and acted in the original cast of Hamilton, and won over audiences as Seaweed in NBC’s Hairspray Live! He is now the star of Ain’t Too Proud, a Broadway musical about the iconic Motown group The Temptations. To play the group’s showman David Ruffin, Ephraim gives his voice a raspy quality that he borrows directly from church pastors. He knows how significant the show is for audience members: the homage it pays to black history and the way it speaks openly and directly about God. It’s all familiar territory for Ephraim. 

Links:

https://www.instagram.com/ephsykes/?hl=en

https://www.ainttooproudmusical.com/

 

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TV and stage actress Kristen Sieh loves languages and has developed a talent for creating her characters’ voices. When Kristen nails a character’s voice, she fully inhabits her – or him as is sometimes the case. She has played Teddy Roosevelt in the play RoosevElvis, an Israeli in the musical The Band’s Visit, and a New Jersey mother in the 1940’s in the upcoming HBO adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel, The Plot Against America. Developing the sound of a character is a different process on the set of a TV series than it is onstage. And Kristen says it’s not just about getting the region right; it’s also about finding those idiosyncrasies of a certain place and time period that feel authentic and recognizable. Kristen and I talked about landing the voices and styles of characters who are visibly different from her. Different gender, different ethnicity. What are the situations when that feels out of bounds? And what discoveries has she made in her many transformations? 

More about Kristen:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/theater/100000002522251/in-performance-roosevelvis.html

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2734920/

http://theteamplays.org/about/core-company/kristen-sieh/

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In this episode, I explore citizenship in the arts. Is citizenship simply about having rights and membership, or is it a more active stance that incorporates voting, advocacy, and protest? I discussed that question with director Saheem Ali, a dual-citizen himself who addresses issues of citizenship throughout his art. Saheem has become increasingly in-demand as a director in recent years and his work has been fueled by what he calls "the responsibility of citizenship". Saheem just wrapped up “The Rolling Stone” at Lincoln Center Theater and will soon debut his revival of Anna Deavere Smith’s acclaimed play “Fires in the Mirror” at Signature Theatre. In these productions, Saheem compels audiences to ask what we owe our fellow citizens and what it means to belong. 

https://www.saheemali.com/

https://www.signaturetheatre.org/shows-and-events/Productions/2019-2020/Fires-in-the-Mirror.aspx

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Adam Kantor, the Broadway actor known for his roles in Rent, Avenue Q, The Last Five Years, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Band’s Visit spends his time offstage tending to his other passions – food, travel, and community service. Throughout his career, Adam’s dedication to philanthropy and activism have been central and constant. Adam was a founder of Broadway in South Africa, an initiative that brought performers to South African townships to offer students resources in music and education. More recently, he co-founded StoryCourse, a curated dining program that advocates for storytelling through cooking, with an emphasis on immigrant and LGBTQ chefs. Adam’s core idea is the question, “How does food tell a story?” And his core mission is finding a delicious, clever way to make the marginalized feel seen.

 

Links:

https://www.storycoursenyc.com/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/style/showbiz-passover-seder.html

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Dominique Morisseau, a MacArthur “Genius”, Kennedy Prize Winner, and Tony Nominee, loved growing up in Detroit. Good friends, close relatives, and formative teachers made the city feel like a close-knit family. But as a young adult, she realized that the outside perspective was altogether different – others saw Detroit as a city in ruin. Dominique took her passions for poetry and acting and set out as a storyteller, writing plays that created a full portrait of Detroit. Her play “Skeleton Crew”, about Detroit’s auto industry, has become among the most produced plays in America in recent years. Her work “Detroit ’67” won the prestigious Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama which honors plays about American history. And her current Broadway musical, “Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations” garnered her first Tony nomination. Detroit is one of those cities that conjures immediate associations, from American cars to Motown music. But what does a full portrait of the city look like? That’s today’s episode. 

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How does physicality shape an actor’s work? Noah Robbins can speak to that. He was a child dancer who performed at the Kennedy Center in annual dance productions led by choreographer Debbie Allen. From there he went straight to Broadway and has been busy in theater and TV ever since. Throughout his acting career, Noah’s dance experience has been beneficial, allowing him to channel the physicality needed to clarify his characters’ movements, demeanors, and styles. In other words, dance has made Noah a better actor, and it shows in his work on Amazon’s “Forever”; Netflix’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”, and the play “Clarkson” which ran this past season in New York. So how does dance inform the physicality of an actor? That’s today’s episode. 

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Writer and actress Jocelyn Bioh gets excited about African comedy. Not "The Book of Mormon" kind where Africa is the punchline, but the insider first-person kind that draws on memory, nostalgia and referential humor. As the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants, Jocelyn craved stories about West Africa that were as funny and multi-layered as her personal experiences. This past year, a particular African comedy called “School Girls: Or the African Mean Girls Play” put Jocelyn on the map and led to her becoming a writer on two hit Netflix shows, “Russian Doll” and Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It”. Jocelyn intends to clarify all of your misconceptions about Africa, but she plans to do it with humor. So, what is the sound of African comedy? That’s today’s episode.  

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