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Come backstage and to the opening night party of our production of The Ultimate Christmas Show (abridged) at Merrimack Repertory Theatre. Featuring tongue fumbles, lap catches, second-act letdowns, fond appraisals, more great Christmas music from guitarist Eric Essix, answered prayers, early critical appraisal, opening night rituals, walking the line between reverent and irreverent, and a little Rippy Diddley. (Length 26:17)
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He's fooled Penn & Teller three times, and now Ondřej Pšenička is fooling audiences every week at the Chicago Magic Lounge in his new show 52 Lovers. Ondřej reveals surprising secrets (but not all of them!) about how he builds his tricks; the difference between being a manipulator and being a conductor; how comedy can enhance the magic when it doesn’t accidentally ruin it; how his theatre background made him a better magician; the crucial importance of audience management; and magic’s inherent promise to bring audiences back to a place of wonder. (Photo by Martin Vecera.) (Length 21:24)
For his final production as thirty-year artistic director of Chicago's Tony-winning Court Theatre, Charles Newell transforms Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead into an unexpectedly joyful celebration of legacy and theater. Newell reveals his lengthy relationship with not only Stoppard's plays but with the man himself, and shares how he cast two halves of a whole; how he chose to respond instinctively to what was happening in rehearsal rather than adhere to an intricate plan; and how he embraced the counterintuitive and seemingly-oxymoronic phrase “joyful requiem.” (PICTURED: Erik Hellman and Nate Burger as Guildenstern and Rosencrantz in the Court Theatre production of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, directed by Charles Newell. Photo by Michael Brosilow.) (Length 20:20)
Michelle Ephraim – a Professor of English and (with Caroline Bicks), the cohost of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast and the co-author of Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas – joins us this week to talk about her frank and funny new book, Green World: A Tragicomic Memoir of Love & Shakespeare. Michelle reveals she discovered Shakespeare surprisingly late; how “fun” is a a perfectly fine description of her sometimes fraught memoir; the shared curse of meeting hero Stephens; how Shakespeare became a source of both pain and solace in the wake of a parent’s death; how her relatively cushy job became surprisingly hazardous; and, finally, how Shakespeare – a dead European white man – became a very relatable force for inclusion. (Length 19:31)
1 Comment
Jeffrey Fox · November 30, 2011 at 7:08 am
Hey! That’s my mother who said it was “irreverent without being sacrilegious.” Yeah, it was an outstanding show. Our party had an age range of 7 to 77, and we all found something to love. I nearly hyperventilated from laughing so much during the Panto section (and really saw more of Reed than I ever need to again).
Thanks again for another great show, and an interesting view backstage at the RSC.