Explore every episode of the podcast Theatre · The Creative Process: Acting, Directing, Writing & Behind the Scenes Conversations
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do good deeds offset bad deeds? How do our families shape who we become?- Highlights - DAN FUTTERMAN & ADAM RAPP | 12 Apr 2024 | 00:11:07 | |
"S. E. Hinton, Susie Hinton wrote The Outsiders when she was 15 and 16. It was published when she was 17. She was told by one editor in particular that she couldn't have any swear words, so she was sort of forced to write about these very big, intense, love-and-death operatic themes where there's a boy who dies by suicide by cop. There's a boy who dies from a fire. So it's about grief. His parents die in a car crash prior to all that. There's this hugely stacked deck of grief that exists in the novel. But when you read the novel, there's a very sweet and loving tone to it. So when I started working on it, I recall childhood in Joliet, Illinois. My mom was a single parent, and she raised three kids on her own on a nurse's salary. So I had to give myself permission to take her great dark themes and actions that are in her novel and like give language to it that was also from an adult world. Right now, live theater is probably much different than looking at a screen. It's much different than looking at your computer or your Game Boy or whatever. I see grown men on the subway playing video games on their phones. And we're not even looking at each other on the subways anymore. We're like deep in our in a screen. And I wonder what that's done. And so I think theater actually has a powerful ability to rewire us to the human experience. And maybe because of it, maybe we can find more empathy or more capacity toward kindness." Dan Futterman is creator, executive producer, and writer of Amazon Prime's American Rust, the acclaimed crime drama starring Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, and David Alvarez. Previously, Dan has written screenplays for Capote, Foxcatcher, In Treatment, and Gracepoint. He served as executive producer on The Looming Tower. Dan is also an actor, director, and two-time Oscar nominee. Adam Rapp is the executive producer and writer of American Rust. He has written plays, films, and series, including Red Light Winter, The Sound Inside, In Treatment, Blackbird, The Looming Tower, and Dexter: New Blood. His latest novel is Wolf at the Table. He recently wrote the book for the new Broadway musical, The Outsiders. www.imdb.com/name/nm0001246 www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| The Outsiders Musical & American Rust w/ ADAM RAPP & DAN FUTTERMAN - Award-winning Writers | 12 Apr 2024 | 00:39:11 | |
What role do the families we’re born into or the traumas we experience shape the people we become? Do good deeds offset bad deeds? How can the arts increase our capacity for empathy, understanding, and kindness? Dan Futterman is creator, executive producer, and writer of Amazon Prime's American Rust, the acclaimed crime drama starring Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, and David Alvarez. Previously, Dan has written screenplays for Capote, Foxcatcher, In Treatment, and Gracepoint. He served as executive producer on The Looming Tower. Dan is also an actor, director, and two-time Oscar nominee. Adam Rapp is the executive producer and writer of American Rust. He has written plays, films, and series, including Red Light Winter, The Sound Inside, In Treatment, Blackbird, The Looming Tower, and Dexter: New Blood. His latest novel is Wolf at the Table. He recently wrote the book for the new Broadway musical, The Outsiders. "S. E. Hinton, Susie Hinton wrote The Outsiders when she was 15 and 16. It was published when she was 17. She was told by one editor in particular that she couldn't have any swear words, so she was sort of forced to write about these very big, intense, love-and-death operatic themes where there's a boy who dies by suicide by cop. There's a boy who dies from a fire. So it's about grief. His parents die in a car crash prior to all that. There's this hugely stacked deck of grief that exists in the novel. But when you read the novel, there's a very sweet and loving tone to it. So when I started working on it, I recall childhood in Joliet, Illinois. My mom was a single parent, and she raised three kids on her own on a nurse's salary. So I had to give myself permission to take her great dark themes and actions that are in her novel and like give language to it that was also from an adult world. Right now, live theater is probably much different than looking at a screen. It's much different than looking at your computer or your Game Boy or whatever. I see grown men on the subway playing video games on their phones. And we're not even looking at each other on the subways anymore. We're like deep in our in a screen. And I wonder what that's done. And so I think theater actually has a powerful ability to rewire us to the human experience. And maybe because of it, maybe we can find more empathy or more capacity toward kindness." www.imdb.com/name/nm0001246 www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Highlights - DAVID BYRNE'S THEATER OF THE MIND - Stories of Impact - Nicholas Bruckman, John Tracey, Ian Moubayed | 25 Oct 2023 | 00:13:28 | |
Q: Who is David Byrne? David Byrne: ...I have no idea. Most people know me through music, but when I was in high school I saw science and the arts as being equally creative fields. More recently, I just started taking an interest in how the brain works, and there's been this explosion of literature. As much as I love reading about neuroscience, I realize that experiencing some of the phenomena is just on a different level. I wanted to create an experience that shows us we're not who we think we are. Theater of the Mind is an immersive Science Theater project. With this show, I've tried to marry a narrative to the experience of different scientific phenomena that reveal how malleable our perception memory, and identity really are. To make a production like this work, it's a big invisible team. There's actors, lighting designers sound designers, technical people so it's a really complicated system. This is the Theater of the Mind. How do we operate in a world where we're not sure what's real and what's not. If things are unreliable, then what do we trust? People think of science as being intimidating, but it also doesn't mean that you can't understand it or can't enjoy it. Our emotions, our sense of self, our relationship to other people is all connected to our perception, that you can't separate one of these things from another. They all work together to make us what we are. What is consciousness? The mind produces thoughts, sensations, perception, emotions. How can these inner felt experiences be produced within the darkness of the human skull? Nicholas Bruckman is founder and CEO of People's Television, a production studio and creative agency that produces independent films, and video storytelling for brands. Collaborating with the The Simons Foundation through their 'Science Sandbox' Initiative, he directed Theater of the Mind, which takes audiences into the creative inner workings of Musician and Artist David Byrne’s brain, showcasing Byrne’s immersive theater performance, which attempts to conceptualize the idea of our sense of self and how malleable the mind truly is. He directed the award-winning healthcare justice documentary Not Going Quietly, executive produced by Mark and Jay Duplass. John Tracey is Program Director of Science, Society and Culture projects at the Simons Foundation whose mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences to unravel the mysteries of the universe. The foundation champions basic science through grant funding, support for research and public engagement. Ian Moubayed started his career as a cinematographer, collaborating with Emmy, Peabody, and Oscar-winning filmmakers. His work includes Netflix’s The Great Hack, NBC Peacock’s The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show, and HBO’s The Vow. www.youtube.com/@sciencesandbox www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| DAVID BYRNE'S THEATER OF THE MIND - Stories of Impact produced by Simons Foundation & People’s TV | 25 Oct 2023 | 00:46:07 | |
What is consciousness? The mind produces thoughts, sensations, perception, emotions. How can these inner felt experiences be produced within the darkness of the human skull? Nicholas Bruckman is founder and CEO of People's Television, a production studio and creative agency that produces independent films, and video storytelling for brands. Collaborating with the The Simons Foundation through their 'Science Sandbox' Initiative, he directed Theater of the Mind, which takes audiences into the creative inner workings of Musician and Artist David Byrne’s brain, showcasing Byrne’s immersive theater performance, which attempts to conceptualize the idea of our sense of self and how malleable the mind truly is. He directed the award-winning healthcare justice documentary Not Going Quietly, executive produced by Mark and Jay Duplass. John Tracey is Program Director of Science, Society and Culture projects at the Simons Foundation whose mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences to unravel the mysteries of the universe. The foundation champions basic science through grant funding, support for research and public engagement. Ian Moubayed started his career as a cinematographer, collaborating with Emmy, Peabody, and Oscar-winning filmmakers. His work includes Netflix’s The Great Hack, NBC Peacock’s The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show, and HBO’s The Vow. Q: Who is David Byrne? David Byrne: ...I have no idea. Most people know me through music, but when I was in high school I saw science and the arts as being equally creative fields. More recently, I just started taking an interest in how the brain works, and there's been this explosion of literature. As much as I love reading about neuroscience, I realize that experiencing some of the phenomena is just on a different level. I wanted to create an experience that shows us we're not who we think we are. Theater of the Mind is an immersive Science Theater project. With this show, I've tried to marry a narrative to the experience of different scientific phenomena that reveal how malleable our perception memory, and identity really are. To make a production like this work, it's a big invisible team. There's actors, lighting designers sound designers, technical people so it's a really complicated system. This is the Theater of the Mind. How do we operate in a world where we're not sure what's real and what's not. If things are unreliable, then what do we trust? People think of science as being intimidating, but it also doesn't mean that you can't understand it or can't enjoy it. Our emotions, our sense of self, our relationship to other people is all connected to our perception, that you can't separate one of these things from another. They all work together to make us what we are. www.youtube.com/@sciencesandbox www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Highlights - Actress CATHERINE CURTIN (Orange is the New Black) & Artistic Director KATE MUETH (Director, Educator, Choreographer) | 25 Aug 2023 | 00:18:11 | |
"I grew up in New York City. And when I was like 13, I'd sneak downtown on the subway and I'd go see shows at like La MaMa and Wooster Group and all of these sort of heavy-hitting, really alternative theaters. And theater was, for me, my first love. And I feel like in some ways, we've lost touch with that because we exist in a world that has become so fast moving. And I'm not sure that's a gain, a bonus, but there always has to be a check-in, and I find working with Kate, I've always felt that I never had to fear that my process was taking a long time. There was never a sense of like, what have you got? Show it right now. Do it, show it, show it! What have you got? Okay. Oh, you haven't got it. It's like there's a sense of, with Kate, it's like you're being wrapped in this enormous teddy bear of artistic freedom and care. Because I do do enough TV and film. Sometimes the bigger the budget, you know, sometimes... (gestures as though to say 'the quality doesn't always increase'). So, I'm always glad to just relax in the creative process, and I'm always very grateful for that. I think it's why I do so much indie film because it's really fun." -Catherine Curtin Why do we make art? What can the performing arts teach us about how to engage in dialogues to overcome conflict and division? Our guests today are actress Catherine Curtin and artistic director Kate Mueth. Curtin is known for her roles on Stranger Things, Homeland, and Insecure. She played correctional officer Wanda Bell in Orange Is the New Black, and for this role she was a joint winner of two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. Mueth is the Founder and Artistic Director of the award-winning dance theater company The Neo-Political Cowgirls that seeks to deepen and challenge the ways in which audiences experience stories and awaken their human connection. Based in East Hampton, New York they have performed to audiences in America and Europe. www.imdb.com/name/nm0193160/ www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Actress CATHERINE CURTIN (Stranger Things) & Artistic Director KATE MUETH (Neo-Political Cowgirls) | 15 Aug 2023 | 00:57:16 | |
Why do we make art? What can the performing arts teach us about how to engage in dialogues to overcome conflict and division? Our guests today are actress Catherine Curtin and artistic director Kate Mueth. Curtin is known for her roles on Stranger Things, Homeland, and Insecure. She played correctional officer Wanda Bell in Orange Is the New Black, and for this role she was a joint winner of two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. Mueth is the Founder and Artistic Director of the award-winning dance theater company The Neo-Political Cowgirls that seeks to deepen and challenge the ways in which audiences experience stories and awaken their human connection. Based in East Hampton, New York they have performed to audiences in America and Europe. "I grew up in New York City. And when I was like 13, I'd sneak downtown on the subway and I'd go see shows at like La MaMa and Wooster Group and all of these sort of heavy-hitting, really alternative theaters. And theater was, for me, my first love. And I feel like in some ways, we've lost touch with that because we exist in a world that has become so fast moving. And I'm not sure that's a gain, a bonus, but there always has to be a check-in, and I find working with Kate, I've always felt that I never had to fear that my process was taking a long time. There was never a sense of like, what have you got? Show it right now. Do it, show it, show it! What have you got? Okay. Oh, you haven't got it. It's like there's a sense of, with Kate, it's like you're being wrapped in this enormous teddy bear of artistic freedom and care. Because I do do enough TV and film. Sometimes the bigger the budget, you know, sometimes... (gestures as though to say 'the quality doesn't always increase'). So, I'm always glad to just relax in the creative process, and I'm always very grateful for that. I think it's why I do so much indie film because it's really fun." -Catherine Curtin www.imdb.com/name/nm0193160/ www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Highlights - JANE ALEXANDER - Tony & Emmy Award-Winning Actress, Conservationist, Author | 12 Jun 2023 | 00:10:09 | |
Jane Alexander is an actress, writer, and conservationist. She chaired the National Endowment for the Art from 1993-1997. A Tony Award winner and member of the Theatre Hall of Fame, Alexander has performed in more than a hundred plays. Her long film career includes four Academy Award nominations, for The Great White Hope, All The President’s Men, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Testament. She has been honored with two Emmys, for Playing for Time and Warm Springs. Alexander was a Trustee of the Wildlife Conservation Society, a board member of the American Bird Conservancy, the American Birding Association, and a Commissioner of New York State Parks. She sits on the board of the National Audubon Society, the Global Advisory Group of Bird Life International, and the Conservation Council of Panthera. In 2012 the Indianapolis Prize inaugurated the Jane Alexander Global Wildlife Ambassador Award, with Alexander as its first recipient. · www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| JANE ALEXANDER- Tony & Emmy Award-Winning Actress, Conservationist, Author | 12 Jun 2023 | 01:01:12 | |
Jane Alexander is an actress, writer, and conservationist. She chaired the National Endowment for the Art from 1993-1997. A Tony Award winner and member of the Theatre Hall of Fame, Alexander has performed in more than a hundred plays. Her long film career includes four Academy Award nominations, for The Great White Hope, All The President’s Men, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Testament. She has been honored with two Emmys, for Playing for Time and Warm Springs. Alexander was a Trustee of the Wildlife Conservation Society, a board member of the American Bird Conservancy, the American Birding Association, and a Commissioner of New York State Parks. She sits on the board of the National Audubon Society, the Global Advisory Group of Bird Life International, and the Conservation Council of Panthera. In 2012 the Indianapolis Prize inaugurated the Jane Alexander Global Wildlife Ambassador Award, with Alexander as its first recipient. · www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY - Writer/Director - Doubt starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams - Moonstruck - Highlights | 29 Apr 2023 | 00:15:20 | |
"I knew Philip Seymour Hoffman for several years. We went on vacation together. He produced a play of mine. Before we did Doubt, we worked in the same theater company together, and he was, you know, very committed to excellence. And so he could become impatient with anybody who was not committed to excellence, and that could make him a volatile person to deal with. Phil cared. He cared a great deal. And he worked really hard. You can't get trapped in your head when you're a playwright, or probably any kind of real artist. You have to find your center, which involves your spirit and your emotions, and some intellect. I think that that is a problem that we're enduring, experiencing now in film and theater. It's because of the politicization of media that you see like if you're going to cast a part of a guy with one leg, you have to hire a guy with one leg. And that's exactly what theater isn't. Theater is you take a pot from your kitchen and put it on your head and say, 'I'm the King of England!' And if you believe it, I'll believe it. And that frees all the one-legged people to be Fred Astaire, to do whatever they want. If they believe it, I'll believe it. So that kind of literalism is, I think, inhibiting to everyone." John Patrick Shanley is from The Bronx. His plays include Prodigal Son, Outside Mullingar (Tony nomination), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, Italian-American Reconciliation, Welcome to the Moon, Four Dogs and a Bone, Dirty Story, Defiance, and Beggars in the House of Plenty. His theatrical work is performed extensively across the United States and around the world. For his play, Doubt, he received both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In the arena of screenwriting, he has ten films to his credit, most recently Wild Mountain Thyme, with Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, and Christopher Walken. His film of Doubt, with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis, which he also directed, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay. Other films include Five Corners (Special Jury Prize, Barcelona Film Festival), Alive, Joe Versus the Volcano (which he also directed), and Live From Baghdad for HBO (Emmy nomination). For his script of Moonstruck he received both the Writers Guild of America Award and an Academy Award for best original screenplay. In 2009, The Writers Guild of America awarded Mr. Shanley the Lifetime Achievement In Writing. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY - Tony & Academy Award-winning Writer/Director - Doubt starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams - Moonstruck | 29 Apr 2023 | 00:47:29 | |
John Patrick Shanley is from The Bronx. His plays include Prodigal Son, Outside Mullingar (Tony nomination), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, Italian-American Reconciliation, Welcome to the Moon, Four Dogs and a Bone, Dirty Story, Defiance, and Beggars in the House of Plenty. His theatrical work is performed extensively across the United States and around the world. For his play, Doubt, he received both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In the arena of screenwriting, he has ten films to his credit, most recently Wild Mountain Thyme, with Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, and Christopher Walken. His film of Doubt, with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis, which he also directed, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay. Other films include Five Corners (Special Jury Prize, Barcelona Film Festival), Alive, Joe Versus the Volcano (which he also directed), and Live From Baghdad for HBO (Emmy nomination). For his script of Moonstruck he received both the Writers Guild of America Award and an Academy Award for best original screenplay. In 2009, The Writers Guild of America awarded Mr. Shanley the Lifetime Achievement In Writing. "I knew Philip Seymour Hoffman for several years. We went on vacation together. He produced a play of mine. Before we did Doubt, we worked in the same theater company together, and he was, you know, very committed to excellence. And so he could become impatient with anybody who was not committed to excellence, and that could make him a volatile person to deal with. Phil cared. He cared a great deal. And he worked really hard. You can't get trapped in your head when you're a playwright, or probably any kind of real artist. You have to find your center, which involves your spirit and your emotions, and some intellect. I think that that is a problem that we're enduring, experiencing now in film and theater. It's because of the politicization of media that you see like if you're going to cast a part of a guy with one leg, you have to hire a guy with one leg. And that's exactly what theater isn't. Theater is you take a pot from your kitchen and put it on your head and say, 'I'm the King of England!' And if you believe it, I'll believe it. And that frees all the one-legged people to be Fred Astaire, to do whatever they want. If they believe it, I'll believe it. So that kind of literalism is, I think, inhibiting to everyone." www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Highlights - JOY GORMAN WETTELS - Exec. Producer “UnPrisoned”, “13 Reasons Why”, "Home Before Dark”, “Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground” | 10 Mar 2023 | 00:11:16 | |
“I watched things with my grandparents, and I read books with my grandmother. And my mother was obsessed with Sondheim and Neil Simon, and she took me to standing-room-only Broadway shows for $5. And she held me during A Chorus Line. So the lyrics I was singing when I was four years old were very inappropriate. We did community theater, and my mom had this incredible network of gorgeous gay men who would drink coffee and eat biscotti and listen to show tunes in my tiny one-bedroom apartment. I think that I was surrounded by storytellers and hams and charming, charismatic people who sang beautifully. I still can hear my mom's friend Bobby Cipolla's voice. I hear him playing the leading player in Pippin in our community theater production of Pippin, and my sisters and I all sang. So we were very theatrical for a bunch of girls who shared a couple of bedrooms in an apartment in Yonkers. But my mother also just always showed us how New York City was only 10 miles away, and like greatness was attainable. And you can do fabulous, cool, fun things. You didn't have to be rich to do them. And she would walk me around the Columbia campus and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and we would go to the nosebleed seats to the ballet. And so I think the storytelling came from a combination of that exposure to the arts and closeness to New York City. Brian Yorkey is my dear friend. We went to college together. Brian and Tom Kitt wrote Next to Normal, which was the very first Broadway show that dealt with mental health and mental illness. I had a grandmother who was bipolar and institutionalized, and when Brian told me when we were like 21 years old that he was writing a musical about electro-shock therapy, I was like, great idea! 10, 12 years later, and many iterations and workshops later with Tom and Brian, the show went to Broadway and got the Pulitzer and 11 Tony nominations, and it was groundbreaking.” Joy Gorman Wettels is the founder of Joy Coalition, an impact producing venture with a focus on creating purpose-driven film and television content for a global audience. She executive-produced the newly-released UnPrisoned, and is currently working on a multi-part storytelling ecosystem inspired by landmark civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize. Her body of work includes, notably, the critically acclaimed series Home Before Dark, the influential 13 Reasons Why, created by Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright Brian Yorkey and directed by Oscar-winner Tom McCarthy (Spotlight). Other works include The Meddler, named Vanity Fair's #1 film of 2016, and the forthcoming adaptation of Little House on the Prairie. She serves on the Advisory Council for UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers and the Advisory Board for Hollywood, Health and Society at USC. As part of their commitment to social change, Joy Coalition works in collaboration with the Office of the Surgeon General in response to the youth mental health crisis. She’s accepted a Sentinel Award, Television Academy Honors for advancing social change, and the 2018 Mental Health America Media Award. www.joycoalition.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| JOY GORMAN WETTELS - Exec. Producer “UnPrisoned” starring Kerry Washington, “13 Reasons Why”, Founder of Joy Coalition | 10 Mar 2023 | 00:48:15 | |
Joy Gorman Wettels is the founder of Joy Coalition, an impact producing venture with a focus on creating purpose-driven film and television content for a global audience. She executive-produced the newly-released UnPrisoned, and is currently working on a multi-part storytelling ecosystem inspired by landmark civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize. Her body of work includes, notably, the critically acclaimed series Home Before Dark, the influential 13 Reasons Why, created by Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright Brian Yorkey and directed by Oscar-winner Tom McCarthy (Spotlight). Other works include The Meddler, named Vanity Fair's #1 film of 2016, and the forthcoming adaptation of Little House on the Prairie. She serves on the Advisory Council for UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers and the Advisory Board for Hollywood, Health and Society at USC. As part of their commitment to social change, Joy Coalition works in collaboration with the Office of the Surgeon General in response to the youth mental health crisis. She’s accepted a Sentinel Award, Television Academy Honors for advancing social change, and the 2018 Mental Health America Media Award. “I watched things with my grandparents, and I read books with my grandmother. And my mother was obsessed with Sondheim and Neil Simon, and she took me to standing-room-only Broadway shows for $5. And she held me during A Chorus Line. So the lyrics I was singing when I was four years old were very inappropriate. We did community theater, and my mom had this incredible network of gorgeous gay men who would drink coffee and eat biscotti and listen to show tunes in my tiny one-bedroom apartment. I think that I was surrounded by storytellers and hams and charming, charismatic people who sang beautifully. I still can hear my mom's friend Bobby Cipolla's voice. I hear him playing the leading player in Pippin in our community theater production of Pippin, and my sisters and I all sang. So we were very theatrical for a bunch of girls who shared a couple of bedrooms in an apartment in Yonkers. But my mother also just always showed us how New York City was only 10 miles away, and like greatness was attainable. And you can do fabulous, cool, fun things. You didn't have to be rich to do them. And she would walk me around the Columbia campus and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and we would go to the nosebleed seats to the ballet. And so I think the storytelling came from a combination of that exposure to the arts and closeness to New York City. Brian Yorkey is my dear friend. We went to college together. Brian and Tom Kitt wrote Next to Normal, which was the very first Broadway show that dealt with mental health and mental illness. I had a grandmother who was bipolar and institutionalized, and when Brian told me when we were like 21 years old that he was writing a musical about electro-shock therapy, I was like, great idea! 10, 12 years later, and many iterations and workshops later with Tom and Brian, the show went to Broadway and got the Pulitzer and 11 Tony nominations, and it was groundbreaking.” www.joycoalition.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Intimacy Coordinator & Movement Director ITA O’BRIEN on Intimate Storytelling - Highlights | 22 Mar 2024 | 00:12:52 | |
"For years, people spoke about how awkward or embarrassing it was to perform the intimate content. And what they're speaking about is feeling horrible. If something's awkward, that squirm, that ring in the body, it feels embarrassing. That's actually an emotion that is not professional. That is not allowing the actor to stay feeling listened to, heard, empowered, autonomous. And so that they can just get on without any of those concerns and do their job to their best ability. And that's the awareness that we brought. So, we're saying, it is not suitable in our workplace for anybody to feel harassed or abused. The awareness in the industry, with acknowledging the injury from all those who came forward around the Weinstein allegations is the injury of when someone's coerced into doing something or that their career being threatened is emotional, psychological injury. It's really clear if you've got a stunt and someone's going to be jumping from roof to roof, they might fall down the cracks and break an ankle. Of course, the producers need to mitigate that risk and put in place everything so that the risk that you can perceive might happen is mitigated." Ita O’Brien is the UK’s leading Intimacy Coordinator, founder of Intimacy on Set (and author of the Intimacy On Set Guidelines). Her company, set up in 2018 provides services to TV, film, and theatre when dealing with intimacy, and is a SAG-Aftra accredited training provider of Intimacy Practitioners. Intimacy on Set has supported numerous high-profile film and TV productions including Normal People & Conversations With Friends (BBC3/Hulu), Sex Education 1&2 (Netflix), I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO), It’s A Sin (Channel 4), (Neal Street Prods / Searchlight Pictures). www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Highlights - ANNA ABRAHAM - Author of “The Neuroscience of Creativity” - Director of Torrance Center for Creativity | 17 Feb 2023 | 00:11:29 | |
“In the case of improv, where it's physical, it might be a slightly different experience as well compared to someone sitting in front of a page and trying to write because like those physical embodiments, whether it's in a sporting arena or any sport or where you're trying to improvise in front of a group of people... And verbally, of course, if it's standup comedy or that kind of improv, you are in a collective space. Creative confidence is something that really can't be taught. And you can tell people 'you should be more confident,' but it's something that they have to...that can be cultivated by the person themselves. But usually what you see is this enormous confidence. Sometimes they'll say it with these sort of destiny kind of words. Like 'I was put here for this reason. I know that I have a purpose in life and that is...' And that stems from a sort of profound confidence about what they have to offer the world and what lies within them. And so I would say those two features are perhaps the things that those sorts of people embody.” Anna Abraham, Ph.D. is the E. Paul Torrance Professor and Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia (USA). She investigates the psychological and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying creativity and other aspects of the human imagination, including the reality-fiction distinction, mental time travel, social and self-referential cognition, and mental state reasoning. She is the author of the 2018 book, The Neuroscience of Creativity (Cambridge University Press) and the editor of the multidisciplinary volume, The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination (2020). https://coe.uga.edu/directory/torrance-center www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/elements/elements-in-creativity-and-imagination www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| ANNA ABRAHAM - Author of “The Neuroscience of Creativity” - Director of Torrance Center for Creativity & Talent Development | 17 Feb 2023 | 00:54:47 | |
Anna Abraham, Ph.D. is the E. Paul Torrance Professor and Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia (USA). She investigates the psychological and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying creativity and other aspects of the human imagination, including the reality-fiction distinction, mental time travel, social and self-referential cognition, and mental state reasoning. She is the author of the 2018 book, The Neuroscience of Creativity (Cambridge University Press) and the editor of the multidisciplinary volume, The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination (2020). “In the case of improv, where it's physical, it might be a slightly different experience as well compared to someone sitting in front of a page and trying to write because like those physical embodiments, whether it's in a sporting arena or any sport or where you're trying to improvise in front of a group of people... And verbally, of course, if it's standup comedy or that kind of improv, you are in a collective space. Creative confidence is something that really can't be taught. And you can tell people 'you should be more confident,' but it's something that they have to...that can be cultivated by the person themselves. But usually what you see is this enormous confidence. Sometimes they'll say it with these sort of destiny kind of words. Like 'I was put here for this reason. I know that I have a purpose in life and that is...' And that stems from a sort of profound confidence about what they have to offer the world and what lies within them. And so I would say those two features are perhaps the things that those sorts of people embody.” https://coe.uga.edu/directory/torrance-center www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/elements/elements-in-creativity-and-imagination www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Highlights - Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Creator of "Words That Move" | 18 Jan 2023 | 00:10:45 | |
"I enjoy dancing, but I would not call myself a dancer by any means compared to the people I'm working with here who are so wonderful at it. I worked with a lot of in this piece, especially immersive theater actors and dancers. So there's a show called Sleep No More in New York, which is like an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. It's immersive theater. You walk through the room and all these different actors have these interactions with the people as they're moving through this entire building. And I love immersive theater so much, and I was really glad to work with these very talented, immersive theater actors as I just think they're such good captures of humanity, and they tend to be very good dancers as well. There's a lot of dance in those shows. Then Sleep No More and Then She Fell are both just truly spectacular immersive theater programs. And Taylor Myers, Isabel Umali, Jonothon Lyons, and Rachel Berman, they were all part of those shows, and they worked with me on the Aliens piece and on Subway Love." Max Stossel is an Award-winning poet, filmmaker, and speaker, named by Forbes as one of the best storytellers of the year. His Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move takes the audience through a variety of different perspectives, inviting us to see the world through different eyes together. Taking on topics like heartbreak, consciousness, social media, politics, the emotional state of our world, and even how dogs probably (most certainly) talk, Max uses rhyme and rhythm to make these topics digestible and playful. Words That Move articulates the deep-seated kernels of truth that we so often struggle to find words for ourselves. Max has performed on five continents, from Lincoln Center in NY to the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney. He is also the Youth & Education Advisor for the Center for Humane Technology, an organization of former tech insiders dedicated to realigning technology with humanity’s best interests. www.humanetech.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Creator of "Words That Move" | 18 Jan 2023 | 00:50:57 | |
Max Stossel is an Award-winning poet, filmmaker, and speaker, named by Forbes as one of the best storytellers of the year. His Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move takes the audience through a variety of different perspectives, inviting us to see the world through different eyes together. Taking on topics like heartbreak, consciousness, social media, politics, the emotional state of our world, and even how dogs probably (most certainly) talk, Max uses rhyme and rhythm to make these topics digestible and playful. Words That Move articulates the deep-seated kernels of truth that we so often struggle to find words for ourselves. Max has performed on five continents, from Lincoln Center in NY to the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney. He is also the Youth & Education Advisor for the Center for Humane Technology, an organization of former tech insiders dedicated to realigning technology with humanity’s best interests. "I enjoy dancing, but I would not call myself a dancer by any means compared to the people I'm working with here who are so wonderful at it. I worked with a lot of in this piece, especially immersive theater actors and dancers. So there's a show called Sleep No More in New York, which is like an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. It's immersive theater. You walk through the room and all these different actors have these interactions with the people as they're moving through this entire building. And I love immersive theater so much, and I was really glad to work with these very talented, immersive theater actors as I just think they're such good captures of humanity, and they tend to be very good dancers as well. There's a lot of dance in those shows. Then Sleep No More and Then She Fell are both just truly spectacular immersive theater programs. And Taylor Myers, Isabel Umali, Jonothon Lyons, and Rachel Berman, they were all part of those shows, and they worked with me on the Aliens piece and on Subway Love." www.humanetech.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Highlights - Dickie Landry - Composer, Musician, Photographer, Artist | 28 Nov 2022 | 00:12:47 | |
"Einstein on the Beach, it's a masterpiece. America, in 1976, was to be celebrating its 200th year of existence, and Michel Guy, the French Minister of Culture, came to New York to offer a commission to Philip Glass and Robert Wilson to write an opera. This was the gift that France would give for America's two-hundredth anniversary. That was the first time I met Robert Wilson." For nearly half a century, Richard “Dickie” Landry was at the center of the New York avant-garde. Born in the small Louisiana town of Cecilia in 1938, he began making pilgrimages to the city while still in his teens in search of the city’s most cutting edge gestures in jazz, and relaxed there not long after, falling in with a close knit community of artists and composers like Keith Sonnier, Philip Glass, Joan Jonas, Gordon Matt Clarke, Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg, Nancy Graves, Lawrence Weiner, Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, and Robert Wilson. https://unseenworlds.com/collections/dickie-landry Music on this episode courtesy of Dickie Landry: E-mu & Alto Saxophone composed by D.L. for Robert Wilson's production of "1433 The Grand Voyage" based on the story of Zheng He. Premier National Theater Taipei, Taiwan 2009 Philip Glass’"Einstein on the Beach”. Original recording on Tomato Records 1977. D.L. on flute “Home of the Brave” on the Late Show with Laurie Anderson www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Dickie Landry - Composer, Musician, Photographer, Artist | 28 Nov 2022 | 01:13:56 | |
For nearly half a century, Richard “Dickie” Landry was at the center of the New York avant-garde. Born in the small Louisiana town of Cecilia in 1938, he began making pilgrimages to the city while still in his teens in search of the city’s most cutting edge gestures in jazz, and relaxed there not long after, falling in with a close knit community of artists and composers like Keith Sonnier, Philip Glass, Joan Jonas, Gordon Matt Clarke, Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg, Nancy Graves, Lawrence Weiner, Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, and Robert Wilson. "Einstein on the Beach, it's a masterpiece. America, in 1976, was to be celebrating its 200th year of existence, and Michel Guy, the French Minister of Culture, came to New York to offer a commission to Philip Glass and Robert Wilson to write an opera. This was the gift that France would give for America's two-hundredth anniversary. That was the first time I met Robert Wilson." https://unseenworlds.com/collections/dickie-landry Music on this episode courtesy of Dickie Landry: E-mu & Alto Saxophone composed by D.L. for Robert Wilson's production of "1433 The Grand Voyage" based on the story of Zheng He. Premier National Theater Taipei, Taiwan 2009 “Gloria” for Robert Wilson’s “Oedipus Rex” Philip Glass’"Einstein on the Beach”. Original recording on Tomato Records 1977. D.L. on flute "Are Years What" Phillip Glass. Composed for D.L. playing 3 soprano saxophones. On his lp "North Star”,1977 Swing Kings 1965, D.L. on flute “Home of the Brave” on the Late Show with Laurie Anderson "Taideco" Zydeco, for Wilson's production of "1433" Cedric Watson, Jermain Prejean, D.L. “Ghosties” from “Dickie Landry Solo” "It Keeps Rainin'", Robert Plant with Lil' Band O' Gold Photo: Dickie Landry in Robert Wilson’s “1433—The Grand Voyage”, Music by Ornette Coleman, Dickie Landry, Chih-Chun Huang www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Highlights - Gloria Pacis - Artist | 25 Nov 2022 | 00:14:24 | |
"I've always been fascinated by the interaction of people and why they say and do the things they do. And I could see how theater impacted my work because actually, I have a broad brush when I paint, mainly. And it gets kind of fuzzy as you get close, but as you go further, you see things. That's the discipline of the theater. You're painting up close, but for an image that can be seen from a distance, from the last chair in the theater. So that's kind of my thing. I've got to say, I'm particularly interested in murder mysteries myself. Because murder mysteries, more than any other story, they answer the question: why did this guy do this? And that's what I like, to answer the questions of why people act the way they do it. Now you can find that regardless of what the theatrical production is about. I tend to like classic stuff, but I can't imagine a more fascinating topic than people and what moves them. What makes them act the way they do? I just can't think of anything more interesting. And the goal of my work in particular is to make people just stop enough to look at it and then be reminded of themselves a little bit in what they're looking at, regardless of what they look like compared to the image. And that's it. Sometimes I'm just sitting at a coffee shop, watching people and trying to invent stories. It's just a fascination for me." Gloria Pacis is a painter dividing her time between New York City and Hoboken, where she has her studio. She received her BFA from the University of Washington in 1976. She credits her years working as a set designer and scene artist for the dramatic, character-based elements of her paintings. She has participated in exhibitions at public institutions and universities, including Wing Luke Museum, Mana Contemporary, University of Washington, Henry Art Gallery, Monroe Arts Centre, Seattle University, Act Theatreand Seattle Center Art Museum, where her work was chosen to showcase International Women’s Day. She has designed sets for many leading theatres, including notable productions of A Christmas Carol, Hamlet, The Doctors Dilemma, Hedda Gabler, and Salome. IG @gloriapacis Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast Image: Men, Acrylic on Canvas, Gloria Pacis | |||
| Gloria Pacis - Artist | 25 Nov 2022 | 00:38:03 | |
Gloria Pacis is a painter dividing her time between New York City and Hoboken, where she has her studio. She received her BFA from the University of Washington in 1976. She credits her years working as a set designer and scene artist for the dramatic, character-based elements of her paintings. She has participated in exhibitions at public institutions and universities, including Wing Luke Museum, Mana Contemporary, University of Washington, Henry Art Gallery, Monroe Arts Centre, Seattle University, Act Theatreand Seattle Center Art Museum, where her work was chosen to showcase International Women’s Day. She has designed sets for many leading theatres, including notable productions of A Christmas Carol, Hamlet, The Doctors Dilemma, Hedda Gabler, and Salome. "I've always been fascinated by the interaction of people and why they say and do the things they do. And I could see how theater impacted my work because actually, I have a broad brush when I paint, mainly. And it gets kind of fuzzy as you get close, but as you go further, you see things. That's the discipline of the theater. You're painting up close, but for an image that can be seen from a distance, from the last chair in the theater. So that's kind of my thing. I've got to say, I'm particularly interested in murder mysteries myself. Because murder mysteries, more than any other story, they answer the question: why did this guy do this? And that's what I like, to answer the questions of why people act the way they do it. Now you can find that regardless of what the theatrical production is about. I tend to like classic stuff, but I can't imagine a more fascinating topic than people and what moves them. What makes them act the way they do? I just can't think of anything more interesting. And the goal of my work in particular is to make people just stop enough to look at it and then be reminded of themselves a little bit in what they're looking at, regardless of what they look like compared to the image. And that's it. Sometimes I'm just sitting at a coffee shop, watching people and trying to invent stories. It's just a fascination for me." IG @gloriapacis Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast | |||
| Highlights - Ty Jones, Producing Artistic Dir., Classical Theatre of Harlem - Allen Gilmore | 08 Jul 2022 | 00:13:53 | |
The Classical Theatre of Harlem provides theatrical productions, educational and literary programs for free or at little cost to Harlem residents, organizations, and all who seek Harlem as a cultural destination. Its productions have received a Drama Desk, OBIE, and New York Times Critics Pick Awards. From July 5th to 29th they bring an Afrofuturistic take on Twelfth Night to Marcus Garvey Park. NAACP and OBIE Award Winner, Ty Jones is Producing Artistic Director responsible for creating the Uptown Shakespeare in the Park series and other community initiatives. Allen Gilmore has played Othello, Iago, and created the role of James Hewlett in The African Company presents Richard The Third at the Public Theater. He makes his CTH debut in Twelfth Night. “I believe that these plays are living arguments and that when you actually read the full text, not cut down versions of them, but the full text, you'll see that Shakespeare was commenting on the ruling class, and for some reason, he found a way to comment on the workings of folks who make decisions in society. Now, I think what's tended to happen over the years is that the ruling class has essentially taken over how we see these plays… We hope that we can move people, and we hope that these are the kind of plays that ignite discourse. I hope that at the end of seeing that piece of art, their hearts begin to beat in sync. I believe all progress begins with a conversation.” www.cthnyc.org www.cthnyc.org/dt_team/ty-jones-producing-artistic-director-cth-actor www.cthnyc.org/twelfth-night www.allengilmore.com Twelfth Night photo credit: Richard Termine www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Ty Jones, Producing Artistic Dir. of Classical Theatre of Harlem - Allen Gilmore, Actor | 08 Jul 2022 | 00:53:43 | |
The Classical Theatre of Harlem provides theatrical productions, educational and literary programs for free or at little cost to Harlem residents, organizations, and all who seek Harlem as a cultural destination. Its productions have received a Drama Desk, OBIE, and New York Times Critics Pick Awards. From July 5th to 29th they bring an Afrofuturistic take on Twelfth Night to Marcus Garvey Park. NAACP and OBIE Award Winner, Ty Jones is Producing Artistic Director responsible for creating the Uptown Shakespeare in the Park series and other community initiatives. Allen Gilmore has played Othello, Iago, and created the role of James Hewlett in The African Company presents Richard The Third at the Public Theater. He makes his CTH debut in Twelfth Night. “I believe that these plays are living arguments and that when you actually read the full text, not cut down versions of them, but the full text, you'll see that Shakespeare was commenting on the ruling class, and for some reason, he found a way to comment on the workings of folks who make decisions in society. Now, I think what's tended to happen over the years is that the ruling class has essentially taken over how we see these plays… We hope that we can move people, and we hope that these are the kind of plays that ignite discourse. I hope that at the end of seeing that piece of art, their hearts begin to beat in sync. I believe all progress begins with a conversation.” www.cthnyc.org www.cthnyc.org/dt_team/ty-jones-producing-artistic-director-cth-actor www.cthnyc.org/twelfth-night www.allengilmore.com Photo credits: Lia Chang, Jill Jones www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Intimacy Coordinator ITA O’BRIEN on Crafting Safe Spaces in Theatre, Film & Television | 22 Mar 2024 | 00:52:46 | |
How can intimate scenes be brought to the screen in ways that respect the emotional well-being and privacy of the artists themselves? How do we make sure that we can create a story about abuse without anyone being abused in the process? Ita O’Brien is the UK’s leading Intimacy Coordinator, founder of Intimacy on Set (and author of the Intimacy On Set Guidelines). Her company, set up in 2018 provides services to TV, film, and theatre when dealing with intimacy, and is a SAG-Aftra accredited training provider of Intimacy Practitioners. Intimacy on Set has supported numerous high-profile film and TV productions including Normal People & Conversations With Friends (BBC3/Hulu), Sex Education 1&2 (Netflix), I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO), It’s A Sin (Channel 4), (Neal Street Prods / Searchlight Pictures). "For years, people spoke about how awkward or embarrassing it was to perform the intimate content. And what they're speaking about is feeling horrible. If something's awkward, that squirm, that ring in the body, it feels embarrassing. That's actually an emotion that is not professional. That is not allowing the actor to stay feeling listened to, heard, empowered, autonomous. And so that they can just get on without any of those concerns and do their job to their best ability. And that's the awareness that we brought. So, we're saying, it is not suitable in our workplace for anybody to feel harassed or abused. The awareness in the industry, with acknowledging the injury from all those who came forward around the Weinstein allegations is the injury of when someone's coerced into doing something or that their career being threatened is emotional, psychological injury. It's really clear if you've got a stunt and someone's going to be jumping from roof to roof, they might fall down the cracks and break an ankle. Of course, the producers need to mitigate that risk and put in place everything so that the risk that you can perceive might happen is mitigated." www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| (Highlights) SEAN CURRAN | 01 Apr 2022 | ||
“I do feel that we are infinite choice makers. You make millions of choices all the time. Make the right choice and if you make the wrong choice, understand that mistakes are great teachers. Learn from that and move on. I do have this sense of responsibility of passing something on a love of dance history that really informs my process. Speaking in old language in a new way with a contemporary accent. Seán Curran began his dance training with traditional Irish step dancing as a young boy in Boston, Massachusetts. He went on to make his mark on the dance world as a leading dancer with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. He received a New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award for his performance in Secret Pastures. A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Curran was an original member of the New York City cast of the Off-Broadway percussion extravaganza Stomp, performing in the show for four years. He has performed his solo evening of dances at venues throughout the United States as well as at Sweden’s Danstation Theatre and France’s EXIT Festival. Current and recent projects for Curran include productions of Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for The Shakespeare Theater, the twentieth anniversary production of Nixon in China and Street Scene at Opera Theater of St. Louis; choreography for the New York City Opera productions of L’Etoile, Alcina, Turandot, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Capriccio, and Acis and Galetea; the Playwrights Horizons’ production of My Life with Albertine; Shakespeare in the Park’s As You Like It. He recently made his Metropolitan Opera debut choreographing Romeo and Juliette. Curran’s work has appeared on Broadway in James Joyce’s The Dead for Playwrights Horizons and The Rivals at Lincoln Center Theater. He has created works for Trinity Irish Dance Company, American Ballet Theatre’s studio company, Denmark’s Upper Cut Company, Sweden’s Skanes Dance Theater, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Ririe Woodbury Dance Theater, and Dance Alloy, as well as for numerous college and university dance departments. · www.seancurrancompany.com | |||
| SEAN CURRAN | 01 Apr 2022 | ||
Seán Curran began his dance training with traditional Irish step dancing as a young boy in Boston, Massachusetts. He went on to make his mark on the dance world as a leading dancer with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. He received a New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award for his performance in Secret Pastures. A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Curran was an original member of the New York City cast of the Off-Broadway percussion extravaganza Stomp, performing in the show for four years. He has performed his solo evening of dances at venues throughout the United States as well as at Sweden’s Danstation Theatre and France’s EXIT Festival.Current and recent projects for Curran include productions of Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for The Shakespeare Theater, the twentieth anniversary production of Nixon in China and Street Scene at Opera Theater of St. Louis; choreography for the New York City Opera productions of L’Etoile, Alcina, Turandot, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Capriccio, and Acis and Galetea; the Playwrights Horizons’ production of My Life with Albertine; Shakespeare in the Park’s As You Like It. He recently made his Metropolitan Opera debut choreographing Romeo and Juliette. Curran’s work has appeared on Broadway in James Joyce’s The Dead for Playwrights Horizons and The Rivals at Lincoln Center Theater. He has created works for Trinity Irish Dance Company, American Ballet Theatre’s studio company, Denmark’s Upper Cut Company, Sweden’s Skanes Dance Theater, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Ririe Woodbury Dance Theater, and Dance Alloy, as well as for numerous college and university dance departments. | |||
| In Memory of TONY WALTON · 1934-2022 (Part 2) | 04 Mar 2022 | ||
“Creativity is perhaps the ultimate mystery. I veer wildly between opposing views on it and have different feelings depending on whether the creator is isolated or a collaborator. Gropius said the artist is an exalted craftsman. “In rare moments of inspiration, moments beyond the control of his will, the grace of Heaven may cause his work to blossom into art, but proficiency in his craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies the source of creative imagination." And Steve Sondheim said, "Art is craft, not inspiration." And Rilke mistrusted any artist's knowing participation in his own creative process.” Tony Walton was an award-winning director and production designer. His work was vast and stretches from Broadway productions and operas to films and television. Over the course of his long and coveted career Tony was honored with 16 Tony Award Nominations for his Broadway sets and costumes. Of those nominations he received awards for Pippin, House of Blue Leaves, and Guys and Dolls. In his television career he worked on over 20 films and received tremendous recognition for his work on Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz where he won an Oscar and Death of a Salesman where he received an Emmy. In 1991, Tony Walton was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame. Until his passing in 2022, he lived in New York City with his wife Gen LeRoy Walton. This interview was originally aired in 2019. · www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| In Memory of TONY WALTON · 1934-2022 (Part 1) | 04 Mar 2022 | ||
www.tonywalton.net www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| (Highlights) JOSH GLADSTONE | 10 Dec 2021 | ||
"Laurie Anderson, Leslie Odom Jr. from Hamilton was here a couple of years ago. It was fantastic. Judd Hirsch. I got a chance to drive in my car with Charles Durning and Jack Klugman, two character actors that I admired all my life. It was a surreal experience.When I got here, I started to do some of the Shakespeare plays, working sometimes with kids from the community and professional artists. Michael Nathanson played Hamlet with us in 2005. Alec Baldwin, Eric Bogosian, Jeffrey Tambor, Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach, who lived in East Hampton about two blocks from here. They were involved in the John Drew Theater from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Through much of their lives, they were lifetime performers at Guild Hall, always in the summer doing a little something. Eli worked up until his 90s, and he was still working, as sharp as a tack. There have been so many artists here. Two summers ago, Questlove was here interviewing Jerry Seinfield on the stage and Alec Baldwin has been our board president for a number of years. He liked the renovations. He liked the show that Harris Yulin did with Amy Irving. He loved The Glass Menagerie and he loved the renovation. So he said, I want to get involved with you guys. The Hamptons is a wonderfully welcoming place to make art. I think going back to the time of Jackon Pollock and before him the tile painters, this has been an artist colony. And I think there is still a spirit of that around." Josh Gladstone has served as Artistic Director of the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall since 2000 where most recently he directed Alec Baldwin, Blair Underwood and Rob Morrow in the comedy Stan The Man by Eugene Pack, and acted alongside Mercedes Ruehl and F. Murray Abraham in Jules Feiffer’s A Bad Friend, an evening celebrating the playwright’s 90th birthday. At the Drew he’s directed and produced such plays as Romeo & Juliet, Extinction, Steve Martin’s The Underpants, All My Sons starring Laurie Metcalf and Alec Baldwin; Clever Little Lies starring Marlo Thomas; Tony Walton’s productions of Tonight at 8:30 starring Blythe Danner, Equus starring Alec Baldwin and Moby Dick Rehearsed starring Peter Boyle; and The Glass Menagerie starring Amy Irving. Regional credits include Children’s Theatre Co.; Shakespeare Theatre, DC; and four seasons as Artistic Director of Hamptons Shakespeare Festival. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| JOSH GLADSTONE | 10 Dec 2021 | ||
Josh Gladstone has served as Artistic Director of the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall since 2000 where most recently he directed Alec Baldwin, Blair Underwood and Rob Morrow in the comedy Stan The Man by Eugene Pack, and acted alongside Mercedes Ruehl and F. Murray Abraham in Jules Feiffer’s A Bad Friend, an evening celebrating the playwright’s 90th birthday. At the Drew he’s directed and produced such plays as Romeo & Juliet, Extinction, Steve Martin’s The Underpants, All My Sons starring Laurie Metcalf and Alec Baldwin; Clever Little Lies starring Marlo Thomas; Tony Walton’s productions of Tonight at 8:30 starring Blythe Danner, Equus starring Alec Baldwin and Moby Dick Rehearsed starring Peter Boyle; and The Glass Menagerie starring Amy Irving. Regional credits include Children’s Theatre Co.; Shakespeare Theatre, DC; and four seasons as Artistic Director of Hamptons Shakespeare Festival. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| (Highlights) JOE MANTEGNA | 03 Dec 2021 | ||
"When I was growing up and studying to be an actor as a young man, I'd read plays that were most often based in New York City. A lot of the writers came out the New York writing school, per se, and while I could understand it and relate to it and growing up in Chicago it wasn't that difficult for me to somewhat decipher the nuances of that, but when I read Mamet, to me, it was almost like–Yeah! I get it. This is a language I understand. It felt very comfortable to me. And I know he has told me that he has written characters with my voice in his mind as he wrote them, and so, again how lucky for me that that's the case, so it would at least make sense that I would have a certain degree of comfort and familiarity to that kind of Mamet-speak, whatever it may be. I feel very lucky that it's worked out that way that he's the writer that I ended up hooking up with." Actor, producer, writer and director, Joe Mantegna began his career on the stage with the 1969 musical Hair. He later earned a Tony Award for portraying Richard Roma in the first American production of David Mamet's play Glengarry Glen Ross, the first of many collaborations with Mamet. Mantegna has appeared in Three Amigos, The Godfather Part III, Forget Paris, and Up Close & Personal and other films. From 2007 to 2020 he starred in the CBS TV series Criminal Minds as FBI Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi. Since 1991, he’s had a recurring role on The Simpsons as mob boss Fat Tony. He earned Emmy Award nominations three miniseries: The Last Don, The Rat Pack, and The Starter Wife. He’s executive produced for various films and TV movies, including Corduroy, Hoods, and Lakeboat, which he also directed. | |||
| JOE MANTEGNA | 03 Dec 2021 | ||
Actor, producer, writer and director, Joe Mantegna began his career on the stage with the 1969 musical Hair. He later earned a Tony Award for portraying Richard Roma in the first American production of David Mamet's play Glengarry Glen Ross, the first of many collaborations with Mamet. Mantegna has appeared in Three Amigos, The Godfather Part III, Forget Paris, and Up Close & Personal and other films. From 2007 to 2020 he starred in the CBS TV series Criminal Minds as FBI Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi. Since 1991, he’s had a recurring role on The Simpsons as mob boss Fat Tony. He earned Emmy Award nominations three miniseries: The Last Don, The Rat Pack, and The Starter Wife. He’s executive produced for various films and TV movies, including Corduroy, Hoods, and Lakeboat, which he also directed. · www.joemantegna.com | |||
| (Highlights) DELIA EPHRON | 26 Nov 2021 | ||
"My mother had very powerful attitudes that she really gifted to Nora in a very extreme way. We were all talented, we all had ambition, but they were so successful, and then Nora was so successful, so I did not become a writer until I was in my early thirties, and I thought–This is really what I'm meant to do. Well, you know, the thing about your twenties is that you can just throw it away and think that you have all the time in the world, and then you hit 30, and I realized, Oh, I only have one life and I better do what I'm meant to do." Bestselling author and screenwriter Delia Ephron's most recent novel is Siracusa now being adapted into a feature film. Her other novels include The Lion Is In and Hanging Up. She has written humor books for all ages, including How to Eat Like a Child and Do I Have to Say Hello?; and nonfiction, most recently Sister Mother Husband Dog (etc.). Her films include You've Got Mail, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Hanging Up (based on her novel), and Michael. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. Her hit play Love, Loss, and What I Wore (co-written with Nora Ephron) ran for more than two years off-Broadway and has been performed all over the world. She lives in New York City. · www.deliaephronwriter.com · www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| DELIA EPHRON | 26 Nov 2021 | ||
Bestselling author and screenwriter Delia Ephron's most recent novel is Siracusa now being adapted into a feature film. Her other novels include The Lion Is In and Hanging Up. She has written humor books for all ages, including How to Eat Like a Child and Do I Have to Say Hello?; and nonfiction, most recently Sister Mother Husband Dog (etc.). Her films include You've Got Mail, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Hanging Up (based on her novel), and Michael. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. Her hit play Love, Loss, and What I Wore (co-written with Nora Ephron) ran for more than two years off-Broadway and has been performed all over the world. She lives in New York City. · www.deliaephronwriter.com · www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| The Art of Bringing Stories to Life - Highlights - LISA EDELSTEIN | 01 Mar 2024 | 00:14:22 | |
"When I did my show Positive Me, we were in the middle of a horrible crisis. The AIDS crisis was very real to me and my friends and not real to the people that I knew from New Jersey. They thought it was government hype. They didn't believe in it. And so I couldn't even fathom that. And I had taken a class with Elizabeth Swados about writing satire, and she was very encouraging in terms of what I was doing. And so maybe it was just gumption. I just thought, Okay, then this is what I'm going to do!" From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House M.D, to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse talent. Some of Edelstein's feature credits include Keeping the Faith, What Women Want, Daddy Daycare, As Good as It Gets, and Fathers and Sons. She played a Holocaust survivor and adopted mother in the drama television series Little Bird. The story centres on a First Nations woman who was adopted into a Jewish family during the Sixties Scoop, as she attempts to reconnect with her birth family and heritage. Lisa’s career began by writing, composing, and performing an original AIDS awareness musical Positive Me at the renowned La Mama Experimental Theater Club in New York City. In the wake of COVID, Lisa began to paint using old family photographs as starting points. Her incredibly detailed paintings capture intimate relationships and spontaneous moments with honesty and compassion. https://lisaedelstein.komi.io/ www.creativeprocess.info Artworks: Lisa Edelstein in the Studio | |||
| (Highlights) EIMEAR McBRIDE | 23 Nov 2021 | ||
Eimear McBride trained at The Drama Centre in London. Her debut novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing received a number of awards, including the Bailey Women’s Prize for Fiction, and the Irish Novel of the Year. She occasionally writes interviews for The Guardian, TLS, and The New Statesman. | |||
| (Highlights) HARRIS YULIN | 23 Nov 2021 | ||
“The difference between stage and screen acting is vast, but it's the same root. It's just some of the techniques are very different. I really know theater because that's where I started. I went at it in a very haphazard way. I had a very haphazard approach. It was not orderly at all. I didn't go to a proper school or anything like that. After fooling around in Europe for almost a couple of years, just because I'd gotten out of the army...and didn't really know what to do or how to do it. And so I just went and while there I did some acting, but nothing very remarkable except doing a nightclub with William Burroughs. That was great fun. I did a little bit of studying here or there...Jeff Corey (and at one class in New York) someone said something that helped me a great deal. And then I just learned by doing it.” Harris Yulin has appeared on Broadway in Hedda Gabler, The Price, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Visit, A Lesson From Aloes, and Watch On The Rhine. His off-Broadway credits include Raindance at Signature Theatre; Don Juan In Hell at Symphony Space; Steve Tesich’s Arts And Leisure at Playwrights Horizons; Tina Howe’s Approaching Zanzibar at Second Stage; Hamlet, King John, Richard III, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at New York Shakespeare Festival; and Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Hedda Gabler at Roundabout. Regional credits include Finishing the Picture at Goodman Theatre; a recent appearance in the title role of King Lear at New Jersey Shakespeare Festival; The Talking Cure at Mark Taper Forum; Tartuffe at the Guthrie and Arena Stage; Henry V at Hartford Stage; and The Tempest at Shakespeare & Co. Mr. Yulin’s directing credits include Horton Foote’s The Prisoner’s Song at Ensemble Studio Theatre; Conor McPherson’s This Lime Tree Bower at Primary Stages; Don Juan In Hell in London (Riverside Studios) and in New York (Symphony Space), Steve Tesich’s Baba Goya (Second Stage), Adele Shank’s Winter Play at Second Stage; Candida at the Shaw Festival; and The Front Page and The Guardsman at Long Wharf. His television credits include “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” “Mister Sterling,” “24,” “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Frasier” (Emmy Nomination), and “La Femme Nikita” (Emmy Nomination). His film credits include Fur, The Place Beyond the Pines, The Emperor’s Club, Training Day, The Million Dollar Hotel, The Hurricane, Looking for Richard, Murder at 1600, Multiplicity, Clear and Present Danger, and Scarface. · www.imdb.com/name/nm0950867/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 | |||
| HARRIS YULIN | 23 Nov 2021 | ||
Harris Yulin has appeared on Broadway in Hedda Gabler, The Price, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Visit, A Lesson From Aloes, and Watch On The Rhine. His off-Broadway credits include Raindance at Signature Theatre; Don Juan In Hell at Symphony Space; Steve Tesich’s Arts And Leisure at Playwrights Horizons; Tina Howe’s Approaching Zanzibar at Second Stage; Hamlet, King John, Richard III, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at New York Shakespeare Festival; and Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Hedda Gabler at Roundabout. Regional credits include Finishing the Picture at Goodman Theatre; a recent appearance in the title role of King Lear at New Jersey Shakespeare Festival; The Talking Cure at Mark Taper Forum; Tartuffe at the Guthrie and Arena Stage; Henry V at Hartford Stage; and The Tempest at Shakespeare & Co. Mr. Yulin’s directing credits include Horton Foote’s The Prisoner’s Song at Ensemble Studio Theatre; Conor McPherson’s This Lime Tree Bower at Primary Stages; Don Juan In Hell in London (Riverside Studios) and in New York (Symphony Space), Steve Tesich’s Baba Goya (Second Stage), Adele Shank’s Winter Play at Second Stage; Candida at the Shaw Festival; and The Front Page and The Guardsman at Long Wharf. His television credits include “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” “Mister Sterling,” “24,” “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Frasier” (Emmy Nomination), and “La Femme Nikita” (Emmy Nomination). His film credits include Fur, The Place Beyond the Pines, The Emperor’s Club, Training Day, The Million Dollar Hotel, The Hurricane, Looking for Richard, Murder at 1600, Multiplicity, Clear and Present Danger, and Scarface. · www.imdb.com/name/nm0950867/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 | |||
| EIMEAR McBRIDE | 23 Nov 2021 | ||
Eimear McBride trained at The Drama Centre in London. Her debut novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing received a number of awards, including the Bailey Women’s Prize for Fiction, and the Irish Novel of the Year. She occasionally writes interviews for The Guardian, TLS, and The New Statesman. | |||
| (Highlights) GREGORY JBARA | 19 Nov 2021 | ||
Gregory Jbara is a Tony award winning stage actor with a impressive career spanning over four decades . On Broadway, Gregory has stared in renditions of Chicago, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Billy Elliot, which earned him the 2009 Tony award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Since departing from the stage, Gregory has spent ten seasons alongside Tom Selick in the CBS drama Blue Bloods. | |||
| GREGORY JBARA | 19 Nov 2021 | ||
Gregory Jbara is a Tony award winning stage actor with a impressive career spanning over four decades . On Broadway, Gregory has stared in renditions of Chicago, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Billy Elliot, which earned him the 2009 Tony award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Since departing from the stage, Gregory has spent ten seasons alongside Tom Selick in the CBS drama Blue Bloods. | |||
| (Highlights) JOHN D'AGATA | 12 Nov 2021 | ||
“For a writer of non-fiction or essayist that’s very difficult to work with because we aren’t, or at least some of us don’t consider ourselves journalists. The tools that we are working with aren’t–What your favorite color is. Where you grew up. Or what your favorite number is. If we’re writing a profile of something, the tools that we’re working with are long conversations in which people are sharing anecdotes about themselves. When I do an interview with somebody, I don’t take out a tape recorder. I don’t have a notebook. I invite them on a walk so that we can feel at least that we’re just chatting.” John D’Agata is the author of Halls of Fame, About a Mountain, and The Lifespan of a Fact, as well as the editor of the 3-volume series A New History of the Essay, which includes the anthologies The Next American Essay, The Making of the American Essay, and The Lost Origins of the Essay. His work has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, an NEA Literature Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation Fellowship. He holds a B.A. from Hobart College and two M.F.A.s from the University of Iowa, and recently his essays have appeared in The Believer, Harper's, Gulf Coast, and Conjunctions. John D’Agata lives in Iowa City where he teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa. The Lifespan of Fact was adapted into a Broadway play starring Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones, and Bobby Cannavale. · www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| JOHN D'AGATA | 12 Nov 2021 | ||
John D’Agata is the author of Halls of Fame, About a Mountain, and The Lifespan of a Fact, as well as the editor of the 3-volume series A New History of the Essay, which includes the anthologies The Next American Essay, The Making of the American Essay, and The Lost Origins of the Essay. His work has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, an NEA Literature Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation Fellowship. He holds a B.A. from Hobart College and two M.F.A.s from the University of Iowa, and recently his essays have appeared in The Believer, Harper's, Gulf Coast, and Conjunctions. John D’Agata lives in Iowa City where he teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa. The Lifespan of Fact was adapted into a Broadway play starring Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones, and Bobby Cannavale. · www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| (Highlights) JOHN BENJAMIN HICKEY | 05 Nov 2021 | ||
"If you are thinking about too much, you're probably not doing it right. Some nights you do it and you're just like, that just felt like it was ten minutes long and I just was on cloud nine. What was I doing? A great, great American actor George C. Scott had a great quote once, he said, "Every actor worth their salt has one good show a week and spends those other seven shows wondering what they did that made them so good that night." And nobody knows. If you could figure that out and if you could bottle that then, of course, everybody could do it." John Benjamin Hickey is a veteran of the stage and screen, with a Tony Award-winning performance as Felix Turner in The Normal Heart and his Emmy-nominated role as Sean Tolkey on The Big C. On stage, he’s had leading roles in Cabaret, The Crucible, The Inheritance - Parts 1 and 2, Six Degrees of Separation, and Love! Valour! Compassion! also starring in the latter’s movie adaptation. His film appearances include The Ice Storm, The Bone Collector, Flags of Our Fathers, Pitch Perfect. On television, he’s had roles in Manhattan, Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, The Good Wife, and Marvel's Jessica Jones, among others. Set to make his Broadway directorial debut this spring in a revival of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, the production was postponed due to COVID-19. · www.imdb.com/name/nm0382632/ · www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| JOHN BENJAMIN HICKEY | 05 Nov 2021 | ||
John Benjamin Hickey is a veteran of the stage and screen, with a Tony Award-winning performance as Felix Turner in The Normal Heart and his Emmy-nominated role as Sean Tolkey on The Big C. On stage, he’s had leading roles in Cabaret, The Crucible, The Inheritance - Parts 1 and 2, Six Degrees of Separation, and Love! Valour! Compassion! also starring in the latter’s movie adaptation. His film appearances include The Ice Storm, The Bone Collector, Flags of Our Fathers, Pitch Perfect. On television, he’s had roles in Manhattan, Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, The Good Wife, and Marvel's Jessica Jones, among others. Set to make his Broadway directorial debut this spring in a revival of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, the production was postponed due to COVID-19. · www.imdb.com/name/nm0382632/ · www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| LISA EDELSTEIN - From Acting to Directing, Writing & Visual Art | 01 Mar 2024 | 00:49:36 | |
How can the arts help us examine and engage with social issues? How do our families shape our views, memories, and experience of the world? From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House, to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse talent. Some of Edelstein's feature credits include Keeping the Faith, What Women Want, Daddy Daycare, As Good as It Gets, and Fathers and Sons. She played a Holocaust survivor and adopted mother in the drama television series Little Bird. The story centres on a First Nations woman who was adopted into a Jewish family during the Sixties Scoop, as she attempts to reconnect with her birth family and heritage. Lisa’s career began by writing, composing, and performing an original AIDS awareness musical Positive Me at the renowned La Mama Experimental Theater Club in New York City. In the wake of COVID, Lisa began to paint using old family photographs as starting points. Her incredibly detailed paintings capture intimate relationships and spontaneous moments with honesty and compassion. "When I did my show Positive Me, we were in the middle of a horrible crisis. The AIDS crisis was very real to me and my friends and not real to the people that I knew from New Jersey. They thought it was government hype. They didn't believe in it. And so I couldn't even fathom that. And I had taken a class with Elizabeth Swados about writing satire, and she was very encouraging in terms of what I was doing. And so maybe it was just gumption. I just thought, Okay, then this is what I'm going to do!" "I had the first ever lesbian makeout scene on network television on a short-lived show called Relativity. That was another role where I felt really honored to be asked to do that, having been in and around the gay community my whole adult life. In the club scene, it was like all my friends were gay. So I was really happy to represent doing that." https://lisaedelstein.komi.io/ www.creativeprocess.info Photo credit: Mitch Stone | |||
| ANA CASTILLO | 04 Nov 2021 | ||
Latest ARTS interview from The Creative Process’ MAIN CHANNEL. To listen to more of our interviews across the arts, visit tinyurl.com/thecreativepod, tinyurl.com/thecreativespotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This THEATRE podcast focuses on interviews about theatre and the performing arts, but you can find hundreds more conversations across the arts, culture, society & the environment on our main channel. We hope you’ll check it out! “One of the things of the things that is dying is our planet. We hear these sirens every single day. We’re being warned daily by experts and concerned people how vast that squandering is going. It’s a case of urgency and it’s astounding and a very sad, a very pathetic comment on modern life that most people are ignoring those signs. As a poet, it seems to me that one of the tasks that the poet takes on, it’s a vocation that’s born with it, it’s this consciousness, this serving as witness.” Xicana activist, editor, poet, novelist, and artist Ana Castillo, was born and raised in Chicago. She is known for coining the term “xicanisma” which is defined in her book the Massacre of the Dreamers as, “a sociopolitical movement in the United States that analyzes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersection of Mexican American women that identify as Chicana.” The term cross bred Chicana feminism, which came to include the indigenous ancestry of Mexican Americans, unifying us with our sisters on the other side of the border. · www.anacastillo.net | |||
| (Highlights) EMMA WALTON HAMILTON | 29 Oct 2021 | ||
EMMA WALTON HAMILTON is a best-selling children’s book author, editor, producer, and arts educator. She has co-authored over thirty children’s books with her mother, Julie Andrews, seven of which have been on the New York Times best-seller list, including The Very Fairy Princess series (#1 NY Times Bestseller), Julie Andrews’ Collection Of Poems, Songs And Lullabies; Julie Andrews’ Treasury: Poems and Songs to Celebrate the Seasons; the Dumpy The Dump Truck series; Simeon’s Gift; The Great American Mousical and THANKS TO YOU – Wisdom From Mother And Child (#1 New York Times Bestseller). She serves as the Editorial Director for The Julie Andrews Collection publishing program, dedicated to quality books for young readers that nurture the imagination and celebrate a sense of wonder. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| EMMA WALTON HAMILTON | 29 Oct 2021 | ||
EMMA WALTON HAMILTON is a best-selling children’s book author, editor, producer, and arts educator. She has co-authored over thirty children’s books with her mother, Julie Andrews, seven of which have been on the New York Times best-seller list, including The Very Fairy Princess series (#1 NY Times Bestseller), Julie Andrews’ Collection Of Poems, Songs And Lullabies; Julie Andrews’ Treasury: Poems and Songs to Celebrate the Seasons; the Dumpy The Dump Truck series; Simeon’s Gift; The Great American Mousical and THANKS TO YOU – Wisdom From Mother And Child (#1 New York Times Bestseller). She serves as the Editorial Director for The Julie Andrews Collection publishing program, dedicated to quality books for young readers that nurture the imagination and celebrate a sense of wonder. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| (Highlights) PAULO SZOT | 12 Oct 2021 | ||
“All the themes are very contemporary. I think what moves this story is the search for instantaneous celebrity. That’s what the girls are all about, Roxie and Velma. They want to be famous. Of course everything that you cited, corruption, crimes, the press focusing on sensational stories–it’s all there. And I think that’s why the public relates so much to it.” Paulo Szot won the Tony as Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his Broadway debut at Emile de Becque in the 2008 Tony-winning revival of South Pacific. This performance also netted him Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Theatre World awards. Szot’s opera credits include performances at the Metropolitan, Scala di Milano, Paris Opera, Carnegie Hall, and others. He’s currently starring as Billy Flynn in Chicago, the longest-running American musical in Broadway history. · chicagothemusical.com/cast/#cast-gallery-3 | |||