”Austin Tichenor and Reed Martin host the first ever Reduced Shakespeare Company podcast! Featuring a look back at the history of the company and a look ahead at exciting things to come. (MP3. Length 19:56)
Podcast: Download (22.9MB)
Author Ian Doescher wrote William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope and others in the Quirk Books Pop Shakespeare series (The Taming of the Clueless, Much Ado About Mean Girls, Get Thee Back to the Future), which imagine popular movies adapted into plays as they might have been written by William Shakespeare. Ian discusses his Jane Austen/zombie inspiration; how his bar idea transformed into an actual best-selling series; figuring out how Yoda speaks in Elizabethan English; his personal connection to Shakespeare; how film action translates to the stage; the delight of inserting deep cut Easter eggs into the narrative; and the huge fun of embracing limitations and visualizing theatricality. (Length 20:54) (Skywalker Hamlet image by Nicolas Delort.)
Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actor Michael Chiklis returns to discuss some of the roles he's played and some of the roles he'd like to play. Michael shares his pride in doing The Thing (not to be confused with 'the thing'); the downside of success in a specific kind of role; his love of music and performing live; how he deals with critics; receiving praise from Stan Lee; the importance of reinvention; which Shakespeare roles he'd like to tackle next; and his arguments for the person he thinks wrote Shakespeare's plays. (For those wanting an authoritative refutation of the various Authorship Theories, download the free PDF, Shakespeare Bites Back: Not So Anonymous, written by Shakespeare scholars – and RSC Podcast guests – Paul Edmondson and Sir Stanley Wells.) (Length 22:40)
Director Jemma Levy discusses The Taming of the Shrew, now in rehearsal at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and opening this week. Jemma shares her thoughts about this famously complicated play and reveals that she considers it a feminist romantic comedy; how she emphasizes its themes of performance and the shifting relationships of masters and servants; her belief that Shakespeare’s women are always the smartest people on the stage; how we watch Katherine and Petruchio's first "meet-cute," then fall in love and learn each other’s moves in real time; the theatrical and thematic value of including the audience; the fun of putting a bar onstage; and how Shrew compares with another complicated Shakespeare “comedy,” The Merchant of Venice. (Length 20:45)
2 Comments
austin · July 16, 2016 at 6:34 am
Hi Megan —
Great question! Here’s the link to episode 449, and you can follow the Older Posts link at the bottom of the page to find previous episodes. There’s supposed to be a link where you can find episodes by YEAR, but I can’t find it! I’ll keep looking! http://www.reducedshakespeare.com/category/podcasts/page/11/
Megan N Westbrook · July 14, 2016 at 8:35 am
Hi RSC,
I was wondering to see how to download the beginning portion of the RSC podcast on itunes before episode 450. I have episodes 450-500 downloaded on itunes because that’s all that’s showing so far. I know on the RSC website, you have the podcasts you’ve guys done.
Thanks