Rachel Bonds joins The Present Stage to share about the creation of her new play Jonah. The conversation explores writing bodies onstage, navigating how audiences respond to a twist, and collaborating with the play's star Gabby Beans in the rehearsal room.

Shayok Misha Chowdhury joins The Present Stage for a fascinating exploration of his play Public Obscenities. Our conversation delves into creating hyper-realism onstage, constructing a bilingual English/Bengali play, and the intersection between queerness and language in the work. Our guest also reveals how approaching the writing process as a director informs the creation of a new play.

For The Present Stage's 25th episode, Rebekah Greer Melocik and Jacob Yandura join the podcast to dive into their Broadway debut, How to Dance In Ohio, a groundbreaking new musical that focuses on seven autistic characters, all played by autistic performers also making their Broadway debuts. The conversation explores the collaborators' journey adapting the show from a 2015 documentary, working with the late director Hal Prince, navigating their own responsibilities as non-autistic creators,...

UK playwright Sophie Swithinbank joins the podcast to share the journey of her play Bacon from Soho to Soho, from the early development at London's Soho Theatre to the current production at New York's Soho Playhouse. The conversation delves into the play's unusual structure of dual narrators and overlapping memories, the evolution of the play's themes throughout its dozen drafts, and the contrasts between UK and US new play development. Please note that this episode contains references to...

"I have no artistic restraint/Everything I see I paint/In the image of myself/I am the vine." Composer and librettist Heather Christian joins The Present Stage to talk about her latest choral stage work, Terce: A Practical Breviary at the 2024 Prototype Festival. Tune in to hear her talk about the nature of bliss, her composing and artistic community-building process, and the female mystics whose words inspired this work.

Dive into Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors with Gordon Greenberg, the show's director and co-playwright. What were the myriad comedy influences that inspired this madcap adaptation? What did the creators learn from re-imagining their work as an audio play in the early months of the pandemic? And what's so funny about bloodthirsty vampires?

When director Leigh Silverman asked playwright Hansol Jung to write her a lesbian sex farce, Jung turned first to Restoration comedy for inspiration. Jung joins the podcast to share her multiplicity of sources for Merry Me, what's special about dedicating a play-in-progress to its future director, and how she's built a community of performers who continue to interpret her work.

The Great Gatsby entered the public domain in 2021: two years later, a new musical adaptation storms into New Jersey, premiering at Paper Mill Playhouse. In this episode, bookwriter Kait Kerrigan sits down with The Present Stage to explain the origin story of this production, the inner workings of her collaboration with lyricist Nathan Tysen and composer Jason Howland, the challenges and freedoms of writing on commission, and the lens she brings to retelling this classic 20th century American...

Nathan Alan Davis joins the podcast to go behind the scenes at The Refuge Plays, the epic trilogy that opens Roundabout's 2023-2024 season. Tune in to hear about what it's like to sustain story and characters over three and a half hours of theater and how Davis came to tell this multi-generational, surrealist tale.

Playwright, novelist, and translator Jeremy Tiang joins the podcast to talk about his new play Salesman 之死, which tells the story of Arthur Miller's 1983 directorial debut: a Chinese-language production of Death of A Salesman in Beijing. The conversation explores the the play's creative twists on translation and multilingualism, the deep research that revitalized the stories of the real-life characters onstage, and the possibilities and limitations of cross-cultural theater-making.

Making her Broadway debut as a playwright, Jocelyn Bioh joins the podcast to talk about bringing the women of a Harlem braiding shop to the stage in Jaja's African Hair Braiding. What's the secret to revision? What do we really mean when we talk about the value of representation onstage? How can a collaboration with hair and wig designers shape a script's development? (And what's the latest on the Once On This Island movie?) In a wide-ranging conversation, Jocelyn Bioh answers all these...

In Mary Gets Hers, Emma Horwitz reinvents Abraham, a 10th-century play by the little-known canoness Hrosvitha of Gandersheim. Horwitz talks about discovering and adapting Hrosvitha's complex work, putting the play in conversation with queerness, and adding smiley face emoticons to dialogue.

Writing the score of a new musical is never an easy task, especially when your book writer is William Shakespeare. Hear from Benjamin Velez what it was like to craft the songs for his new adaptation of The Tempest, write for Hamilton star Renée Elise Goldsberry in the role of Prospero, and learn from the members of the community who make up the dozens-strong ensemble of Shakespeare in the Park's free Public Works summer programming. The isle is full of noises — so stream ours on The Present...

From Noel Coward to Mel Brooks, Sandy Rustin shares the comedic influences that she and her collaborators have channeled in shepherding The Cottage to Broadway. The discussion dives deep into the experience of watching directors and actors re-imagine the physical comedy on the page for the stage. Listen to discover how Sandy Rustin brings her acting background to the creation of each character she writes and what it's like to see her play land on Broadway after a decade of regional productions.

Bringing President Dwight D. Eisenhower to life through a two-hour, one-man play was no easy challenge: playwright Richard Hellesen breaks down his research, his process of writing and rewriting, and the collaborations that contributed to bringing Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground to the stage. It's a riveting conversation about how we remember and retell history and why the dramatization of historical figures still matters.

How does a one-man poem become a seven-actor play? In this fascinating conversation with playwright and poet Inua Ellams about The Half-God of Rainfall, we'll dive into the expansive possibilities of text in performance, what it means to create myth, and why Ellams claims poetry is the "most pathetic" (yet still godly) of all the arts. Please note that this episode contains discussion of sexual assault, one of the central themes of the play.

Shall we go for it? For the first time ever, writer-director Tye Blue and writer-star Constantine Rousouli retell the origin story of Titanique: Une Parodie Musicale from EACH OTHER'S perspectives! Discover the kooky crazy path that Titanique took to its extended run off-Broadway. (And good news: Marla Mindelle's still alive!)

How can you sensitively tell a story that's not your own? Dexter Flanders joins the podcast to talk about Foxes, his play about closeted queerness in London's Black community. Flanders shares how he navigated the responsibility of crafting a narrative outside of his own experience and what he hopes audiences will take away from this love story.

To stream or not to stream? Hint: Stream this one to hear this fascinating exploration with playwright James Ijames of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Fat Ham, now playing on Broadway. From adapting Shakespeare's Hamlet into a story of Southern, queer, Black identity to revising the play for Broadway, Ijames breaks down this sizzling new work for listeners.

Join playwright and lyricist David Lindsay-Abaire for a "Great Adventure" through the process of adapting his play 2001 play Kimberly Akimbo into the 5-time Tony-winning Broadway musical! Lindsay-Abaire breaks down his acclaimed collaboration with composer Jeanine Tesori, his evolving approach to depicting chronic illness onstage, and his personal passion for anagrams. Don't miss The Present Stage "This Time" around!

What is Shylock's legacy? Edward Einhorn joins the podcast to talk about his new play, "The Shylock and the Shakespeareans," a dramatic response to Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." Is Shakespeare's original play antisemitic or an indictment of antisemitism? Einhorn takes a strong stance in his play, and he gamely enters into a wide-ranging conversation (and a little bit of debate) about the historical impact of Shakespeare's play and the process of reanimating Shakespeare's characters...

How do you crack open an moment of American history onstage? Tori Sampson joins the podcast to talk about This Land Was Made, her play that offers a solution to a 50-year-old mystery involving Huey Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, in late-60s Oakland. Don't miss this fascinating deep dive into Sampson's creative process, from how she developed This Land Was Made as a graduate student at the Yale School of Drama to why she always watches her play from a seat with an...

Where do sports and theater intersect? Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph joins the podcast to talk about these two world in this wide-ranging conversation about his new basketball-focused play King James. From exploring craft — how to write a two-hander, how to navigate a six-year time jump, how to imbue stage directions with emotional power — to reflecting on life as a Cavs fan, Joseph weaves together two of his great passions throughout the episode.

What's in a name? Diane Exavier joins the podcast to talk about the web of inspirations behind her new play Bernarda's Daughters. On the eve of a special performance for Haitian Flag Day, our conversation delves into the play's explorations of grief, home & homeland, and the power of naming to remember the dead. Listen to learn more about the play's circuitous pandemic-era pathway to the stage: before you book your tickets, you can still call the Bernarda's Daughters hotline!

On the third episode of The Present Stage: Conversations with Theater Writers, Pulitzer Prize and Tony winner David Auburn (Proof) joins the podcast to dive into Summer, 1976, his third Broadway production with Manhattan Theatre Club and a meditation on friendship. We explore where this play fits into Auburn's larger body of work, how collaborations with actors Laura Linney and Jessica Hecht and director Daniel Sullivan bring a script with no stage directions to life, and which playwright's...