Ring Reduced Remembered

It’s the Podcast’s 18th birthday! Austin Tichenor, Reed Martin, and Adam Long celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Ring Reduced, the RSC’s 1994 film for Britain’s Channel 4 which compressed Wagner’s epic opera Der Ring des Nibelungen into a brief and palatable 24 minutes. Adam, Austin, and Reed share their favorite fun facts about Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung; reveal their inspiration from Anna Russell; speculate on comic directions not taken; confirm that the Reduced Shakespeare Company is completely and utterly responsible for the success of Ted Lasso; disclose how they created the most expensive and complicated gag of the entire shoot; and marvel how for one brief shining moment, they were the Rhinemaidens of all media. (Length 29:09)

Drawing On Shakespeare

Drawing on Shakespeare is a 16-episode webseries hosted by Austin Tichenor and the ridiculously talented Gary Andrews, where we talk about Shakespeare with witty, wonderful, and wise people while Gary draws what we’re talking about. As a possible second season/series gets closer, Gary and Austin remember how Drawing on Shakespeare began, discuss how different actors bring new meaning to a character; how every conversation leads to new insights about a play; how Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be like Keith Richards; and how audience figures are staggering into the several. (Length 17:40)

The Devil’s Work

Demons and witches and ghosts, oh my! As we reach our 666th podcast, it seems like the perfect time to talk about how the Devil has influenced (or hasn’t) the work of the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor discuss Faustian bargains; Satan being cut from The Complete History of America (abridged); rewriting The Music Man; Adam Long’s tribute to two legends in his one-man show Satan Sings Mostly Sondheim; the fear of mockery; our Kerfuffles in Northern Ireland; making friends in Louisiana; stories for another time; how times have changed; celebrating the Devil’s opposite in The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged); making up for missed opportunities with episode 420; and hopefully soon-to-be requited love for our book How The Bible Changed Our Lives (Mostly For The Better). (Length 21:55)