”In honor of the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”: Rare archival footage of Reed Martin, Dee Ryan, and Austin Tichenor singing ‘Gay!’ from the RSC’s original 1998 production of The Complete Millennium Musical (abridged) at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre. (Special thanks to Twitter follower @khedwar for the idea!) (m4v. Read more…
Podcast: Download (22.9MB)
”Just in time for the holidays comes this weird new classic. From Twisted Christmas Live in Santa Rosa, California, Reed Martin reads David Templeton’s dark holiday tale The Most Dangerous Christmas. Featuring an excerpt from The Reduced Shakespeare Company Christmas and rain on the rooftop! (MP3. Length 18:58)
Podcast: Download (17.4MB)
”A good ensemble can make a theatre production great and a World Series champion. Reed Martin celebrates the victory of his beloved San Francisco Giants as we compare long-shots, underdogs, dynasties, and never-wases. Featuring logical superstitions, bandwagon fans, some third-grade humor, emotional investment, and lifelong dreams fulfilled. (MP3. Length 20:07)
Podcast: Download (18.5MB)
Well, almost. Don’t miss Tri-State Premiere of “Complete World of Sports (abridged)” in Princeton! One night only – Saturday, October 9 at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, NJ. For tickets, click here! Be there or fuhgeddaboudit! Tickets >
There has been an amazing buzz surrounding Reduced Shakespeare Company debut of “The Complete World of Sports (abridged).” No, not Buzz Lightyear. Not even Buzz Aldrin. It’s been the buzz from the press which has called SPORTS (abridged) “deeply funny,” “absolutely hilarious,” and “both merciless and affectionate!” Click here for Read more…
”The Complete World of Sports (abridged) had its official RSC premiere this weekend at Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell, MA, so we kept the microphone on backstage, during our walk home, and at the cast party. Featuring tongue fumbles, theatrical tricks, mild nausea, and expert testimony as to how stage Read more…
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”It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame, so we finish rehearsal by heading off to watch the Lowell Spinners struggle against the Tri-City ValleyCats. Yes, it’s one minor league squad enjoying the other. Featuring fantastically bad play by play, an excerpt from The Complete World of Sports (abridged), a special appearance Read more…
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”We take a break from rehearsing The Complete World of Sports (abridged) to recall our various moments of sporting glory…and some moments of humiliation as well. Featuring last-minute victories, unexpected emotion, a special appearance from Modern Family‘s Eric Stonestreet, and a brief quote from Bill Cosby. (If you spot it, Read more…
Podcast: Download (19.9MB)
”The actors in the RSC’s newest show The Complete World of Sports (abridged) – Matt Rippy, Reed Martin, and Austin Tichenor – take a break from rehearsing (in this magnificent structure) to discuss how the new show is shaping up so far. Featuring cautious optimism, fear and trepidations, shout-outs to our predecessors, an outbreak of song, and our first bilingual celebrity blurb! (MP3. Length 20:09)
Podcast: Download (18.5MB)
”The meaningless Sport vs. Game debate continues! Sportswriter and fantasy sports expert AJ Mass interviews us for his new book The Thrill of Vicarious Victory and shares with us his four categories of athletic competition. Featuring insight into how fantasy sports can make you a better person, previews of the sketches Read more…
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”Waiter. Temp. Circus Clown. Assistant Factotum. We’ve all had to take survival jobs to feed our theatre habit, and this week we discuss the worst ones we’ve endured. Featuring tales of long hours, professional incompetence, disgruntled customers, personal humiliation, on-the-job embarrassment, and the tiny triumphs of finally leaving a job for Read more…
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The Reduced Shakespeare Company went national on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” last week. The response was so overwhelming it crashed our site – not something we should shout about – but way cool! In case you missed it, you can catch the Reduced gang – Reed Martin, Austin Tichenor Read more…
Woodward & Bernstein uncovered Watergate – now the Washington Post discovers Reducedgate! The Reduced Shakespeare Company launched the premiere of Completely Hollywood (abridged) in our nation’s capital this week at the Kennedy Center to overwhelming response. Hollywood is this week’s Editor’s Pick at the Washington Post. Critic Celia Wren reports Read more…
(This offer’s now expired, but take a look and see what you missed!)
”Facts both silly and true highlight our reduced knowledge of the immortal bard in this podcast inspired by a recent London Times article. Featuring audio footnotes; excerpts from our “Complete Guide to London (abridged)”, the Reduced Shakespeare Radio Show, and Reduced Shakespeare: The Complete Guide for the Attention-Impaired (abridged); special appearances Read more…
Podcast: Download (19.7MB)
Folks refer to San Diego as America’s Finest City. We plan to change all that. That’s right – despite popular demand, we’ll be performing The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) revised] for two weekends – June 11-13 and 18-20 – at San Diego Repertory Theatre in beautiful downtown San Read more…
If you thought Washington DC was dysfunctional before, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The people have spoken and The Reduced Shakespeare Company is returning to the Kennedy Center in Washington DC from June 22 – July 11 with our newest show Completely Hollywood (abridged)! It’s hard to imagine anything funnier Read more…
Join us on a backstage tour of the New Victory Theatre in New York City, and go behind, below, and above the scenes. Featuring a rundown of the theater’s glorious and checkered history, mysterious tales of the “phantom of the New Victory”, some bodacious putti, and a special appearance by the Read more…
Podcast: Download (19.3MB)
”It’s another edition of “My Coffee With Reed and Austin,” who discuss the recent South Park controversy and the RSC’s stumbles into offensive territory. Featuring authentic cafe ambience, dressing room debates, excerpts from Western Civilization: The Complete Musical (abridged), feedback feedback, and the advantages of losing your hearing. (MP3. Length Read more…
Podcast: Download (19.6MB)
”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 Read more…
Podcast: Download (21.8MB)
”Austin Tichenor and Reed Martin are writing The Complete World of Sports (abridged), which the Reduced Shakespeare Company will premiere in September 2010. But they’re in rehearsals now, directing a non-RSC production in California. They talk about this unusual process, and about the wisdom of playwrights directing their own work. Read more…
Podcast: Download (18.5MB)
”We walk to our performances at the New Victory Theatre in New York City along one of most famous thoroughfares in the world – Broadway. Featuring honking horns, massive crowds, steady drizzle, mistaken identities, reduced reviews, unexpected encounters, and huge delight at being at the center of the theatrical universe. Read more…
Podcast: Download (18.1MB)
”The old codgers from Hollywood mark the return of a beloved – but cut – character from our America show. Featuring other recycled characters from previous shows, further improvements to the first act of Hollywood, a frustrating tease about the Sports show, and information about the publication of the Hollywood Read more…
Podcast: Download (17.2MB)
”A post-performance run-down of how the filming of Lost Reduced went and how it came to be. Featuring spoilers about special effects, the various entendres of “brands in hands“, special appearances from both Adrian Scarborough from Gavin and Stacey and Sophie Jones from Sky-TV, and how a hot and bright reduced Read more…
Podcast: Download (19.0MB)
”Flying from California to Dallas shouldn’t be this fraught with excitement and adventure. But oy, was it fraught. Fraughter than we thought. An extra day’s rehearsal goes down the drain as we struggle and fail to avoid a weather system in Phoenix, the likes of which nobody’s ever seen before. Read more…
Podcast: Download (16.8MB)
Wanna be there?! The final series of Lost starts on ABC on February 2nd in the US, and on Sky1 and Sky1 HD on February 5th in the UK. To celebrate, we’re condensing the last 5 seasons into less than 10 minutes and performing it in front of a live Read more…
press release LOST REDUCED – Watch it here! FIVE SEASONS OF LOST IN TEN MINUTES Reduced Shakespeare Company Perform world premiere London, 28th January BY INVITATION ONLY With the hotly anticipated sixth and final season of LOST launching on February 5th, Sky1 HD is proud to announce LOST REDUCED – Read more…
Completely Hollywood (abridged) Feb 10 – Santa Rosa Junior College Feb 12 & 13 – Sebastiani Theater This just in: We have added three performances of Completely Hollywood (abridged) to our Winter 2010 tour. On February 10, 2010, we’ll be performing a benefit performance at and for the Santa Rosa Read more…
”Starting 2010 off right by keeping our New Year’s Resolution of more regularly-timed video podcasts! So this week: some old footage we found from the original production of The Complete Millennium Musical (abridged) (now known as Western Civilization! The Complete Musical (abridged)). This performance at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre features Read more…
Podcast: Download (18.8MB)
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”Well, most of Wisconsin. We remember the many cities we’ve played in the Cheesehead state, and also talk to high school drama teacher Kate Schultz, whose principal forbade her from staging a production of All The Great Books (abridged). Featuring insight into what rural conservatives find shocking these days, tales Read more…
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”We’ve been touring to more small towns than big cities recently so we decided to look at the differences. Featuring backstage chats about the glories of small town municipal workers, airport personnel, and motel amenities; plus our highly sophisticated and technologically advanced method for keeping track of where we’ve played. Read more…
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”Tom Gabbard is not only the President of the North Carolina Blumenthal Center for the Performing Arts but he’s also involved with the Independent Presenters Network, a consortium of for-profit and not-for-profit presenters around the US that invests in the front-end of commercial projects that often play their respective venues. Read more…
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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will present the Reduced Shakespeare Company in Completely Hollywood (abridged) June 22 – July 11, 2010 in the Terrace Theater. America’s “bad boys of abridgement” take on America’s largest cultural and economic export (well, except for weapons) in this seriously silly show biz satire. Opening night for press is scheduled for Thursday, June 24 at 7:30 p.m.
They’ve gone biblical, they’ve gone historical, now the RSC has gone completely Hollywood…abridged, of course. In Completely Hollywood (abridged), America’s best-loved comedy troupe boldly goes where few would dare – Tinseltown. Completely Hollywood (abridged) analyzes in typically reduced depth the 175 greatest films from Hollywood’s over 100 year history.
The versatile and flexible actors have received rave reviews of their performances in the witty and quick condensations of the most serious material, from Shakespeare to the history of America to the Bible.
Completely Hollywood (abridged) is written and directed by Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor with additional material by Dominic Conti. All three are also the original cast members, and will be performing their creation at the Kennedy Center.
The Reduced Shakespeare Company has been seen at the Kennedy Center in The Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged) and The Complete History of America (abridged) in 1994; The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged) in 1995; The Complete Millennium Musical (abridged) in 1999; The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) 2001, All the Great Books (abridged) in 2003 and again in 2006, when they performed in rep with The Complete History of America (abridged).
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”Romeo. Polonius. Feral Orwell. Spade Diamond. Abraham. Easter Bunny. Coach. The RSC characters created by Daniel Singer and Reed Martin are known as the Red Role (after the color of his tights for so many years), and cast member Mick Orfe talks about how he interprets this archetype across five Read more…
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”Reed Martin returns to his comedy roots with The Clown Show, which he’s written and directed for Napa Valley College. Featuring potential new bits for our upcoming Sports show, the glory of great student actors, and the important differences between talk-talk and do-do. (MP3. Length 18:47)
Podcast: Download (17.3MB)
RSC writer, actor, and managing partner Reed Martin has returned to his roots of performing in white-face and terrifying children by writing and directing “Clown Show” for Napa Valley College in northern California.In addition to graduating from University of California, Berkeley with a degree in theatre and from UC San Read more…
”Deep in the depths of writing new shows leaves us deep in the depths of researching, too. Featuring details on how The Complete World of Sports (abridged) is progressing, appearances by the most famous celebrity blurbers EVER, and highlights of sports-themed podcast episode #47, Play By Play. (SPOILER ALERT: Mostly Read more…
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”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 Read more…
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”As Major League Baseball heads into its All-Star Break, Reed Martin reminisces with Tom Knego and Terry Prescott about their days as minor-league umpires and graduates of the Bill Kinnamon Umpire School. Featuring good calls, bad calls, the secrets to minor-league success, and how dodging bullets and tobacco juice can Read more…
Podcast: Download (18.5MB)
”Be a fly on the wall (albeit one with a very bad online connection) as Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor discuss how the writing of The Complete World of Sports (abridged) is going. Featuring insights on our writing rituals, what our preliminary lists consist of, excerpts from The Complete Millennium Read more…
Podcast: Download (19.5MB)
”In this week’s EXCLUSIVE announcement, Reed Martin & Austin Tichenor reveal the title of the next RSC Stage Show. Featuring what criteria were considered in making the decision, when it’s likely to appear at a theater near you, the bits that will absolutely without-a-doubt 100% guaranteed be in the final Read more…
Podcast: Download (20.6MB)
”As Van Halen put it so eloquently, we’re hot for teachers. This week we remember the ones who influenced us the most. Featuring excerpts from the Alan Harvey Memorial Concert, a special appearance by Paul And Storm, and how to accurately measure a teacher’s greatness. (MP3. Length 20:54)
Podcast: Download (19.2MB)
Yes, Twitter is a time-sucking distraction from your real life. We don’t disagree. But it’s also the fastest and easiest way to keep up with Reduced Shakespeare Company activities in anything approaching real-time. Some RSC fans have families, jobs, other interests and demands on their time. We’re not happy about Read more…
”We interact with fans and audience members during post-show talkbacks in both Springfield, Illinois and San Diego, California. Featuring info about whether we dumb down our material (as if that were possible), whether we’ve ever adopted an audience member, two great RSC Voice Mails and a major milestone in our Read more…
Podcast: Download (9.7MB)
Just in time for Major League Baseball’s Opening Day comes our second Video Podcast.Reed Martin takes us on a tour of the Louisville Slugger Factory, and reveals the answers to such great mysteries as “Who was Dr. Dot Randolph?” and “What is a Babe Ruth?”You can watch it on the Read more…
”Just in time for Major League Baseball‘s Opening Day comes our second Video Podcast. Reed Martin takes us on a tour of the Louisville Slugger Factory, and reveals the answers to such great mysteries as “Who was Dr. Dot Randolph?” and “What is a Babe Ruth?” Apparently size does matter… Read more…
Podcast: Download (19.5MB)
”Sometimes they’re great, sometimes they ain’t. Memories this week of the best and worst places we’ve ever stayed, including the horrors of leftover nachos, the limits of what lilac-scented Fabreze will and will not cover up, and what exactly constitutes a “Casa De Awesome”. Featuring a special appearance by Rich Read more…
Podcast: Download (17.6MB)
”Doesn’t sound like us, does it? No, it’s the motto of Envision-EMI, the producer of the Presidential Youth Leadership Conference we performed at in January. Featuring what exactly we look for in future leaders, what future leaders like most in an RSC show, and how we inspire future leaders… to Read more…
Podcast: Download (19.4MB)
RSC veteran Matt Rippy is joining the UK cast of The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged) for the final five weeks of its 97-city UK tour. Matt joins Jack Bennett, Simon Cole, and William Meredith who have been performing the show since September 2008, and replaces the boldly Read more…
”Our return to Washington DC this week coincides with the inauguration of America’s 44th President, and sparks memories of previous trips to our nation’s capital. Featuring brushes with DC greatness, important White House secrets, how we’re jumping through dozens of security hoops, and the revelation of exactly how we roll. Read more…
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”Another Reduced debate which settles nothing! Matt Rippy (PC) and Michael Faulkner (Mac) hold forth on the relative merits of the different computers and operating systems. Featuring disturbing percentages, insightful Hasbro-Mattel analogies, and a startling covetous epiphany! Would you rather drive a Jaguar or a Yugo? Up to you….(MP3. Length Read more…
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”A listener’s question inspires this year-end reflection: Why do we do what we do? Reduced members muse over reasons they answered the call and chose “the biz”: was it the gratification, the glory, or the girls? We discover that a geology degree is a very useful thing when stage managing Read more…
Podcast: Download (18.7MB)
A lovely holiday ritual from a slightly different angle. Reed Martin reads Crumbs at Midnight by David Templeton as part of Twisted Christmas Live. Featuring some tough cookies, pastry wisdom, and a special appearance by Sister Mary Martha, who answers all your questions at her Ask Sister Mary Martha Blog. Read more…
Podcast: Download (24.3MB)
”We return this week to the Epsom Playhouse in England and remember the time a simple post-show game of Jenga almost caused an international incident. Featuring blatant jingoism, latent jengaism, a special appearance from UK media superstar Lauren Laverne, and a report on the RSC’s sponsorship of the UK charity ok2b. Read more…
Podcast: Download (16.7MB)