”LIVE! From the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, we read excerpts from Reduced Shakespeare: The Complete Guide For The Attention-Impaired (abridged), The Complete History of America (abridged), The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged), and All The Great Books (abridged). Featuring RSC bits as you’ve never heard them, a raucous crowd, and a highly caffeinated introduction. (MP3. Length 23:44)
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Chicago-based actor Dee Dee Batteast (above) plays the title role in Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s at the Studio Theatre in Washington DC and she discusses the wild tonal swing between this role and her previous role as Scrooge's niece in the Goodman Theatre's A Christmas Carol. Dee Dee shares how much she loves monsters (both watching them and playing them); how she's doing the devil’s work; how she navigates dizzying extremes; the possibilities of redemption; how freedom looks different for different characters; some strange lobby encounters; insightful mob boss comparisons; the power of playing elemental forces and the fun of playing a badass; and the differences – and surprising similarities – between Clyde’s and A Christmas Carol. (Length 21:43)
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)
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