Annalisa Dias!

It's finally here: Season 2! Woohoo! I'm celebrating with a little Barbados rum, I highly encourage all of my listeners to celebrate in their own unique ways. Though, what better way is there to celebrate than find out more about an Annalisa Dias based project! This Monday, September 28th, the Women of Welders 2.0 have a featured presentation at the Kennedy Center on the Millenium Stage. It would be awesome if you could attend! If not, check out the facebook page of the DC Coalition for Theatre and Social Justice, founded by Annalisa or keep tabs on what she is doing on her very own website. 

Season 2!!!!! #LetsDoThis

Danielle Mohlman! (Again!)

I am so excited to wrap up season one of Exit the Stage Door with Danielle Mohlman. There's just a great symmetry to it. It's a shame that we are doing it under the circumstances: Danielle is moving to Seattle, so she can enrich the theatre scene in the Pacific Northwest, among other reasons, and it will be great to keep an eye and an ear out for what she is up to out there.

In the meantime, you've got this wonderful conversation, which probably could have gone on for a helluva lot longer. We chat a bit about Birdman Or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance and it's horrible treatment of women. We talk a whole lot about Danielle's collaboration with dog & pony dc's playground piece about privilege, Squares, which I was lucky enough to see that very day, so it was ultra fresh for our conversation together. We had a list of a whole bunch of things to talk about and we did but I didn't keep the list, so I can't remember what else we got up to. I guess you'll just have to listen.

But it'll be fun. I promise. No, really. Check it out.

Catherine Rodriguez and Gavin Witt!

I've been away, living the jet-setting life of walking hundreds of kilometers and not washing clothes in search of spiritual enlightenment or whatever, and that's a shame really. It's a shame because it deprived y'all of the timely release of a fantastic conversation I had with friend of the podcast, Catherine Rodriguez and Gavin Witt. Catherine is a dramaturgical dynamo whose time as a fellow with Center Stage is rapidly approaching its end and she is always incredible to talk to, especially if you've seen Troll 2 (available now on Amazon Prime, so why haven't you, I mean really?). But don't take my word for it, you can find her at several of the remaining Dramaturgy Open Office Hours happening this summer. You can find the full schedule down below (alright, here). Catherine also managed to convince Center Stage Associate Artistic Director and Director of Dramaturgy Gavin Witt to join our little chat and it was such a blast. We got to talking about art, dramaturgy, challenging plays, fun, creative programs that Center Stage is a part of (like Write-Right Now - the City Paper write up) and Toast Bars. Please check those out, I know that I will be doing that, stat. We actually got to rap a bit about Chuck Mee's play, The Glory of the World as well, the mindbender of a piece that Les Waters directed for Humana Festival this year, which was a nice bow on my visit to that festival. 

There is a Play Lab for Carey Perloff's Waiting for the Flood at Center Stage on Monday, June 29th at 7 PM (of course, there will be a Toast Bar, so please RSVP). And I can't forget those Dramaturgy Open Office Hours (Facebook and some deets), which are June 24th with Annalisa Dias at Redline from 4 PM to 7 PM, July 1st (with Gavin!) again at Redline from 4 PM - 7 PM, and July 8th with LaRonika Thomas (the LMDA rep for the region) at Dooby's. Check out Jeremy Stoller's work on #OpenDramaturgy in New York and perhaps how you can be a franchisee as well. Hooray to LMDA for the grant that let's Catherine give her guest an honorium for their awesome time. I will be joining them at some point because Penn Quarter is my DC work home (what up, Sydney Harman Hall!) and you should as well. 

Halvorsen!

It was a great pleasure to finally meet Lauren Halvorsen, who I should have met years ago. You'll hear all about it in the podcast, don't you worry. Lauren and I talked about a ton of stuff, especially Houston, Pittsburgh, online dating and our digital portraits, what it's like in the Studio Theatre House Manager's office, how to end up in a great career on accident (the best way!) and a bit about the Barbie Grotto. Yeah, it was awesome.

Lauren is the Associate Literary Director at Studio Theatre. They have Jumpers for Goalposts running now (extended!) and they just opened Mary-Kate Olsen is in Love. You can catch the next show that Lauren will dramaturg in September, it's called Chimerica (Chai-Merica, like China and America). Also, you and I have homework: reading Americanah. I'm about to get on that (here's a German interview with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie because I'm a nerd). You can find her Barbie Grotto photos on Instagram and you can find Lauren on Twitter.

Ryan Connelly!

Ok, I cheated just a little bit with this one. Ryan is based out of Cincinnati, OH and the real connection to the Baltimore/Washington scene is through me, EXCEPT, that he spent a season singing with Virginia Opera. It's also possible that you've seen Ryan around at MAGFest, since he makes that trek on the regular.  

Ryan Connelly is one of my oldest friends and has one of the coolest job titles of all of my friends: Ryan is an opera singer. I hit up two theatre birds with one road trip and checked in with Ryan in Cincy on my way back from Humana Festival in Louisville. We talk about that and a whole lot more (mostly video games and alcohol). It was an absolute blast to get him talking about the world of opera, a world that I don't have that much experience with. Enjoy!

We talk about Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach in this episode, this particular recording in particular with Roberto Alagna and Natalie Dessay. I think that's the recording. It's hard to tell with You should definitely read ETA Hoffmann's short stories. They are free!

Alina! And Jeanette!

I am so happy to bring you this episode, y'all. It was recorded the same day as Brittany's, which feels like a lifetime ago, and it was a great way to end a day of podcasting. Jeanette Porter and Alina Gerall were kind enough to host me in a Lansburgh dressing room and ply me with wine. Jeanette Porter is the wardrobe supervisor for Shakespeare Theatre Company and Alina Gerall is like, technically wardrobe overhire, but she works so often at STC it's hard not to think of her as part of STC. This was a total blast and not just because of the wine. Alina and Jeanette are two passionate, experienced, articulate women and they had a lot of thoughts on their careers in theatre, why they love wardrobe so much, and the strange things that reaching into people's underwear for a living can do to you.

Roc Lee!

It went down like this. I needed a place to record a chat between myself and the good people behind Field Trip Theatre, Nick Vargas and Maureen Monterubio. I had directed them to the place I knew the best in downtown Washington, DC: the Sydney Harman Center for the Arts. In the process of securing a room for our recording session, I also secured some time with my former co-worker at STC, Roc Lee, assistant sound supervisor, sound designer, and composer. A few weeks after that Field Trip Theatre convo, I was able to sit down with Roc and talk about music, musicals, and accidentally falling into theatre. It was fantastic.

Elissa Goetschius!

It all started because I dissed Carole King on Facebook. Ok, that's not quite accurate. I've been following Elissa Goetschius (@egoetschius) on Twitter almost since I arrived in DC in 2012. She was one of the first people I wanted on the podcast and I am really happy that we could find some time for this conversation (on her birthday no less!). We talk about Sarah Ruhl and meandering career paths and issues of representation for women and people of color in the region's theaters (aka #TheSummit). There was also a cat and a machine for feeding the cat. But mostly, there was the engaging, incisive, excellent Elissa Goetschius.

Jojo Ruf!

After Gwydion Suilebhan (his episode here) sang her praises, I'd been trying to hammer out a time to sit down with Jojo Ruf, the executive and creative director of the Welders and former associate executive director of the National New Play Network. We managed to make that happen after she had some time to settle in as the new Managing Director of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics (I've finally gotten the title down. It's impressive, isn't it?).

This was one of those sad times when the software handling the fancy microphones lied to my face and did not record as the blinking red light promised. But the backup came through and we still have this wonderful, and efficient, chat, just with extra background noise (mostly keys from the maintenance folk, lots of keys). Enjoy!