”It’s summer vacation, yet podcast we must! What’s it like to work while everybody else is on holiday? Tales of on-the-road Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year’s, St. Patricks’ and Independence Day celebrations. Featuring a special appearance by Carol Smith from Class 95 in Singapore and an exclusive excerpt from the new musical Mercy Madonna of Malawi. (MP3. Length 17:05)
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Artist and author Gary Andrews (Finding Joy; Daisy the Littlest Zombie) has created the new holiday classic Hot Santa and the Twelve Days of Christmas, his “sumptuously illustrated novella” which sends his incredibly buff St. Nick on a time-traveling quest to gather all the items mentioned in the famous song. Gary reveals the origins of his Hot Santa character via his #DoodleADay diary; the benefits of finding sleep incredibly overrated; his brilliant contribution to the canon (which explains how Santa’s able to get around the world in just one night; a possible crossover sequel; and how making the most of our one crack at life is an wonderfully meaningful holiday message. (Length 19:04)
In a delightfully macabre bit of counter-programming, Northlight Theatre is producing the classic Dial M For Murder, which has already been extended into 2024 and whose director Georgette Verdin talks about why it's the perfect kind of play for the holiday season. Georgette reveals the fantastic run of mystery-thrillers she's been on; the opportunity and payoff of leaning into genre programming; the fundamental need for catharsis; how the theatre industry struggles to market new work and reach new audiences (and sometimes succeeds); and the powerful beauty of finding light in the darkness. (Length 17:47)
Larry Yando (left, above) discusses playing the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in the Goodman Theatre production of A Christmas Carol with his "Alternate Scrooge," the Reduced Shakespeare Company's own Austin Tichenor. The two actors talk about the challenge of being haunted by the Ghost of Productions Past; how Dickens’s story continues to percolate in the off-season; how they navigate script changes, especially the little annoying ones; how Scrooge compares to some of the other great roles Yando’s played (such as Scar in The Lion King, Prospero, Roy Cohn in Angels in America); how seeing another actor play “your” role can sometimes act like “an undigested bit of beef;” why the story stays relevant year after year; the value of staying on your toes; how and why Scrooge chooses Marley over Belle; and how if A Christmas Carol ended 20 minutes earlier, it’d be King Lear. (Length 21:48)
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