Places, Everyone
38 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 months ago - ★★★★★ - 20 ratingsThrough interviews with theater and screen artists (producers, directors, actors, and writers), host Lonnie Firestone explores how creativity and industry intersect. Each episode examines a theme in the life and career of a working artist.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Episodes
Barry Manilow, Bruce Sussman, and the Cast of Harmony, Live at The Streicker Center
January 25, 2024 21:56 - 32 minutes - 30.2 MBThis episode was recorded live at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center on January 8, 2024. It is an interview with Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman whose 50+ year collaboration has produced hit songs as well as the Broadway musical, Harmony. This episode also includes an expanded conversation with nine members of the Harmony cast: Chip Zien, Danny Kornfeld, Zal Owen, Sean Bell, Eric Peters, Steven Telsey, Bruce Landry, Julie Benko, and Kayleen Seidl. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy...
The Broadway Musical "Harmony" - A Live Interview at JCC Manhattan
October 30, 2023 23:24 - 36 minutes - 33.5 MBThis episode was recorded live at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan on October 9, 2023. It is a conversation with creative and cast members of the Broadway musical, Harmony. They include book writer and lyricist Bruce Sussman, and performers Chip Zien, Julie Benko, Sierra Boggess, and Danny Kornfeld. The narrative of Harmony is set in the 1920s and 30s in Germany, a deeply unsettling time in history, and still the central characters found harmony, not only in the melodic sense but also as a...
A Conversation Between Co-Directors of Exploring Black Narratives
September 12, 2023 16:16 - 27 minutes - 25.6 MBThree years ago, I founded a curricular theater program called Exploring Black Narratives, situated in Jewish schools and grounded in the work of acclaimed Black playwrights. One of the most exciting facets of the program has been helping students develop their interview skills in preparation to meet a professional actor who has performed in the play that we've studied. One such actor whom I was lucky to meet is Ron Emile, who starred in a production of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by August Wils...
Conversations on A Strange Loop - Continuing with Jason Veasey and Nemuna Ceesay
November 26, 2022 18:25 - 41 minutes - 230 MBPart II of an extended interview with Jason Veasey and Nemuna Ceesay about their formative roles in developing the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Strange Loop for its Broadway production where it won a Tony Award for Best Musical. Picking up on our live interview event at JCC Harlem, Jason – an original cast member for A Strange Loop who plays Thought 5, and Nemuna – Associate Director for the Broadway production, talk about the show’s ideas ranging from family to religion to self-acceptan...
Conversations on A Strange Loop - Live at JCC Harlem
November 26, 2022 18:25 - 25 minutes - 139 MBAt a live interview event at JCC Harlem on October 24, 2022, I spoke with two artists who were integral to the Broadway production of A Strange Loop, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical by Michael R. Jackson. These artists – Associate Director Nemuna Ceesay and original cast member Jason Veasey – spoke about the show’s development and themes . This episode includes highlights from the live event. For more information on A Strange Loop, visit strangeloopmusical.com, and follow Nemuna and Jas...
Ma Rainey - Interview with Michael Potts
May 14, 2021 18:28 - 31 minutes - 35.5 MBThis is the second of two episodes focusing on August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and its recent film adaptation on Netflix. Today’s interview is with actor Michael Potts who starred in the Netflix film as Slow Drag, the bass player in Ma Rainey’s blues band. When I watched Michael Potts as Slow Drag, I saw something recognizable: the way his character can convey so much with a glance or a knowing look. It is the tendency to observe rather than jump into action. To see a situatio...
Ma Rainey - History, Play, & Netflix Film
May 14, 2021 17:46 - 32 minutes - 36.8 MBIn April, I had the pleasure of leading an evening event about August Wilson, specifically his play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. This event was hosted by the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Maryland, where the program I co-direct, Exploring Black Narratives, first took off. This conversation includes background on Wilson’s life and the Great Migration in America, as well as a comparative discussion on the script of Ma Rainey and the Netflix film adaptation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.co...
"Pipeline" - Nya
April 15, 2021 19:17 - 24 minutes - 27.7 MBThis episode is one of two classroom interviews with 11th grade students at Shalhevet high school in Los Angeles, CA. As part of the Exploring Black Narratives program, we studied Dominique Morisseau's play "Pipeline" and interviewed actors who starred in productions around the US. Today's interview is with Andrea Harris Smith who played Nya at the Studio Theatre production of "Pipeline" in Washington, D.C. Pipeline centers on a public high school teacher named Nya whose own teenage son, Om...
"Pipeline" - Jasmine
April 15, 2021 18:47 - 30 minutes - 35.4 MBThis episode is one of two classroom interviews with 11th grade students at Shalhevet high school in Los Angeles, CA. As part of the Exploring Black Narratives program, we studied Dominique Morisseau's play "Pipeline" and interviewed actors who starred in productions around the US. Today's interview is with Heather Velazquez who played Jasmine at the world-premiere production of "Pipeline" in 2017 at Lincoln Center Theatre in New York. Pipeline centers on a public high school teacher named ...
The Power of Speech
January 13, 2021 03:56 - 49 minutes - 56.7 MBIn Will Arbery’s play Heroes of the Fourth Turning, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize last year, a group of 20-something friends, all of whom are Catholic and politically conservative, gather for a party to toast their college professor who has become the president of their Catholic university. One of these friends is a young woman named Theresa whose right-wing views cross into alt-right territory. When I watched this play, I found the character of Theresa fascinating, particularly...
Classix
December 22, 2020 19:15 - 43 minutes - 49.7 MBClassix is a team of theatermakers and scholars who provide universities, theater companies, publishers, and readers with resources to expand their exploration of classic Black playwrights. As founder Awoye Timpo says, the intention is "creating access to the plays for the widest possible audience but really by centering Blackness." Awoye and her teammates - Dominique Rider, Arminda Thomas, Brittany Bradford, and A.J. Muhammad - bring a wide array of skills to their work, including directin...
School Girls Series: The New Girl Who Seems to Have it All
December 15, 2020 16:45 - 23 minutes - 26.6 MBI'm excited to share a series of conversations with actresses who starred in Jocelyn Bioh's play, School Girls: Or the African Mean Girls Play. These interviews were recorded with students at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Maryland. This fall, I developed a program for Jewish high schools, which are majority white spaces, to explore plays by Black playwrights, to read and watch those plays, discuss the themes, expand the art they love, and perhaps most importantly, to interview Bla...
School Girls Series: Embodying the Queen Bee
November 25, 2020 02:06 - 23 minutes - 27.3 MBI'm excited to share a series of conversations with actresses who starred in Jocelyn Bioh's play, School Girls: Or the African Mean Girls Play. These interviews were recorded with students at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Maryland. This fall, I developed a program for Jewish high schools, which are majority White spaces, to explore plays by Black playwrights, to read and watch those plays, discuss the themes, expand the art they love, and perhaps most importantly, to interview Bla...
School Girls Series: Delivering Laughs Amid Dramatic Themes
November 09, 2020 16:34 - 21 minutes - 24.1 MBI'm excited to share a series of conversations with actresses who starred in Jocelyn Bioh's play, School Girls: Or the African Mean Girls Play. These interviews were recorded with students at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Maryland. This fall, I developed a program for Jewish high schools, which are majority White spaces, to explore plays by Black playwrights, to read and watch those plays, discuss the themes, expand the art they love, and perhaps most importantly, to interview Bla...
Musical Videos in Quarantine
June 18, 2020 12:56 - 32 minutes - 37.1 MBSince theaters shut down this spring, a certain type of performance has gained traction online – the compilation video, in which multiple performers, each in their own space, record their part of a musical number that is compiled into one cohesive performance. One of those compilation videos that has been widely circulated features the Broadway revival cast of “A Chorus Line” doing the famous opening dance number. I reached out to Jeffrey "Shecky" Schecter, who starred in that production and...
Eradicating Racism in the Theater
June 11, 2020 13:42 - 48 minutes - 88.9 MBKelley Girod, a playwright and the founder of The Fire This Time festival, spoke with me about racism in the American Theater. We talked about the statements that many theater companies put out as protests began around the country. To Kelley and many Black artists and other artists of color, these statements in support of the Black community felt hollow. They followed years of diversity and inclusion initiatives that were deemed to lack depth, intention, and real commitment. Kelley pointed t...
Mother’s Day Episode: Strength of Character
May 15, 2020 15:10 - 47 minutes - 87.3 MBOn Mother's Day, I spent the evening speaking with the very talented actress Karen Pittman. Every time I watch Karen perform, I notice her strength first and foremost. In this interview, we discuss three of Karen’s roles on TV and on stage that exemplify strength of character: a determined producer on “The Morning Show” (Apple TV+), a dedicated teacher in “Pipeline” (Dominique Morisseau’s play at Lincoln Center), and an ambitious lawyer in “Disgraced” (Ayad Akhtar’s play on Broadway). In eac...
How Can We Know the Dancer from the Dance?
May 12, 2020 12:45 - 36 minutes - 68.4 MBReed Luplau is a veteran dancer who has performed in Broadway shows and prominent dance companies including Lar Lubovitch Dance Company and the Sydney Dance Company. Trained in multiple forms of dance including classical ballet, modern dance, acrobatics, tap, and jazz, Reed is most interested in being a “good mover”, particularly when movement is a conduit to storytelling. In this conversation we discuss the language of movement and the way it shapes a narrative. Reed’s interest in dancers a...
Artists + Money (in a time of crisis)
April 27, 2020 06:37 - 38 minutes - 43.8 MBFinancial Advisor Bailie Slevin is a great success story. When a car accident disrupted her career as a stage manager for the theater, Bailie found her way to the financial sector and has been a champion for artists’ careers ever since. Bailie transformed a set back into a prosperous career, and when she advises her clients, many of whom are stage and screen artists, she activates that same model of pragmatism, hopefulness, grit, and flexibility. Rebounding after a crisis, like, say, a pande...
Am I Supposed to Row the Boat or Rock the Boat?
April 08, 2020 12:49 - 40 minutes - 73.9 MBPirronne Yousefzadeh is a director of all sorts. She directs plays and she has a dual position at Geva Theatre Center as the Associate Artistic Director and the Director of Engagement. She’s also a co-founder of Maia Directors, a consulting and advocacy group for artists of Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian descent. In these roles, Pirronne frequently seeks to strike a balance between the work of making theater and what she calls “disrupting” the theater community. They’re poten...
Directing is Architectural
February 05, 2020 19:45 - 45 minutes - 84.1 MBSam Gold, the Tony-Award winning director of Fun Home, wants to eliminate all barriers between the audience and the story. To that end, he removes any element that actors might use as a crutch in their performance, like an unnecessary set piece, and he utilizes the physical theater space to bring the actors as close as possible to the audience. In many of Sam’s productions including Hamlet, Look Back in Anger, and Glass Menagerie, he creates what he calls “a theater with no stage”. Of course,...
Disrupting Nostalgia
December 24, 2019 03:52 - 46 minutes - 53.5 MBThis episode is all about nostalgia and how we experience it through art. Any art form can have nostalgic effects, but I think there’s something unique and specific about music: the way hearing an old song you love transports you back in time to a younger version of yourself. Tony award-winning Broadway producer Eva Price has lots of musical nostalgia: she’s been drawn to pop music and Broadway musicals forever and in the past year she lead-produced two Broadway shows that are deeply nostalg...
Making The Audience Work For It
December 12, 2019 04:19 - 51 minutes - 58.9 MBBranden Jacobs-Jenkins writes some of the most challenging plays I’ve read and seen. That’s partially due to the fact that his plays are each distinct in form, namely the way each play is delivered is as important as the story itself. Branden is a writer who is fascinated by the history of storytelling, from the Greeks to the Middle Ages, and within American drama, from the Civil War through the 20th century. In our interview, we talked about how he draws on old plays to examine how we exper...
How Church and Gospel Shape an Artist
October 29, 2019 11:34 - 41 minutes - 76.7 MBIn this episode, I look at the ways in which church and gospel music can shape an artist like my guest, Ephraim Sykes, a veritable triple threat of acting, singing, and dancing. As a kid and teenager, Ephraim had a natural affinity for dance and music, and his outlet was Sunday worship. Joining the gospel choir wasn’t a conscious decision, Ephraim says. “It was just what we did.” Since getting his BFA in dance, Ephraim has performed with the Alvin Ailey company, danced and acted in the origi...
The Meaning of Accents
October 10, 2019 03:27 - 42 minutes - 77.7 MBTV and stage actress Kristen Sieh loves languages and has developed a talent for creating her characters’ voices. When Kristen nails a character’s voice, she fully inhabits her – or him as is sometimes the case. She has played Teddy Roosevelt in the play RoosevElvis, an Israeli in the musical The Band’s Visit, and a New Jersey mother in the 1940’s in the upcoming HBO adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel, The Plot Against America. Developing the sound of a character is a different process on the...
Citizenship
August 30, 2019 11:20 - 31 minutes - 58.5 MBIn this episode, I explore citizenship in the arts. Is citizenship simply about having rights and membership, or is it a more active stance that incorporates voting, advocacy, and protest? I discussed that question with director Saheem Ali, a dual-citizen himself who addresses issues of citizenship throughout his art. Saheem has become increasingly in-demand as a director in recent years and his work has been fueled by what he calls "the responsibility of citizenship". Saheem just wrapped up...
The Artist as Activist
August 07, 2019 15:38 - 33 minutes - 60.7 MBAdam Kantor, the Broadway actor known for his roles in Rent, Avenue Q, The Last Five Years, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Band’s Visit spends his time offstage tending to his other passions – food, travel, and community service. Throughout his career, Adam’s dedication to philanthropy and activism have been central and constant. Adam was a founder of Broadway in South Africa, an initiative that brought performers to South African townships to offer students resources in music and education. M...
A Full Picture of Detroit
July 26, 2019 14:03 - 46 minutes - 84.8 MBDominique Morisseau, a MacArthur “Genius”, Kennedy Prize Winner, and Tony Nominee, loved growing up in Detroit. Good friends, close relatives, and formative teachers made the city feel like a close-knit family. But as a young adult, she realized that the outside perspective was altogether different – others saw Detroit as a city in ruin. Dominique took her passions for poetry and acting and set out as a storyteller, writing plays that created a full portrait of Detroit. Her play “Skeleton Cre...
An Actor’s Physicality
June 05, 2019 11:52 - 36 minutes - 41.4 MBHow does physicality shape an actor’s work? Noah Robbins can speak to that. He was a child dancer who performed at the Kennedy Center in annual dance productions led by choreographer Debbie Allen. From there he went straight to Broadway and has been busy in theater and TV ever since. Throughout his acting career, Noah’s dance experience has been beneficial, allowing him to channel the physicality needed to clarify his characters’ movements, demeanors, and styles. In other words, dance has mad...
African Comedy Sounds Like This
May 23, 2019 16:32 - 43 minutes - 78.8 MBWriter and actress Jocelyn Bioh gets excited about African comedy. Not "The Book of Mormon" kind where Africa is the punchline, but the insider first-person kind that draws on memory, nostalgia and referential humor. As the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants, Jocelyn craved stories about West Africa that were as funny and multi-layered as her personal experiences. This past year, a particular African comedy called “School Girls: Or the African Mean Girls Play” put Jocelyn on the map and led to h...
BAM and the Making of the Big Arts Venue
May 08, 2019 19:31 - 33 minutes - 61.3 MBBrooklyn Academy of Music is the oldest performing arts venue in America that is continually operating. It presents dance, theater, opera, music, and film, and its performances are known for being contemporary, experimental, global, and unusual, much like Brooklyn itself. Across the river in Manhattan, there’s a new major arts venue on the scene called The Shed - a massive structure on the west side of Manhattan with a movable glass façade that creates a shape-shifting performance space. It c...
When Personhood is Your Livelihood
April 18, 2019 23:46 - 47 minutes - 86.2 MBTony Award winner Itamar Moses is a playwright, a book writer for musicals, and a screenwriter on several TV shows. Each of these art forms is rewarding, he says, but playwriting is thus far the medium that allows him full creative control. Perhaps for that reason, it’s also the arena in which he probes the most personal subject matter. Like many novelists, screenwriters, and playwrights, Itamar draws both directly and indirectly on first-hand experience, and he admits that getting to a place...
A TV Star Blends New and Familiar
April 04, 2019 01:32 - 31 minutes - 56.8 MBMichael Zegen has acted in dozens of TV series, films, and plays over the past decade and a half, but he has recently hit a new level of celebrity playing Joel Maisel on the hugely successful series, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”. The show offers an exciting challenge for the actor – a multi-layered character that Michael admits he's still discovering. Yet the world of "Maisel" – a distinctly Jewish world – is recognizable and close to home. In this episode, Michael discusses getting into chara...
How Long-Term Roles Impact an Actor's Career
March 20, 2019 16:38 - 30 minutes - 55 MBActress Sarah Steele knows a thing or two about long-term roles: she's had one on TV (on the CBS drama "The Good Wife" and its spin-off, "The Good Fight") as well as on stage (in the award-winning Broadway play, "The Humans", whose original cast took the production to Los Angeles and London). The ability to shape a character over years and years is a great opportunity for an actress, though it comes with complications, among them concern about being typecast and rigid scheduling. In an indust...
How a Black Theater Festival Opens Doors
March 07, 2019 03:04 - 36 minutes - 67.2 MBWhat makes a theater festival successful? High-quality art, solid ticket sales, and an enthusiastic audience response. Since 2008, Kelley Girod has worked toward that goal with a festival designed to launch black writers in the early phases of their careers. Many of the festival’s alumni have since risen to prominence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How a Risk-Taker Thinks About Risk
February 13, 2019 20:50 - 34 minutes - 63.8 MBWhat does risk-taking mean in art? New York Theatre Workshop, a company in downtown Manhattan that's known for taking risks, has an advantage: an enthusiastic audience with an appetite for thought-provoking art. What might be risky at other arts venues is expected here. Which is to say, risk is subjective. In this episode, New York Theatre Workshop's managing director, Jeremy Blocker, talks about how he makes decisions about art that keep his loyal audiences on the edge of their seats. Host...
How a Theater Maker Convinces a Filmmaker
February 07, 2019 03:55 - 32 minutes - 37.1 MBA theater producer falls in love with a foreign film and wants to adapt it as a live musical. Fast forward eight years and he's accepting a Tony Award on live television for Best Musical. For that producer, Orin Wolf, and that show, The Band's Visit, the path appeared smooth but was in fact arduous and steeply uphill. With no funding or support, Orin had to get people on board: investors, theater companies, and, perhaps most importantly, the original film's director. When all you've got is a...
Welcome to Places, Everyone!
January 03, 2019 20:16 - 3 minutes - 6.31 MBWelcome to Places, Everyone: a podcast about the intersection of art and finance. Through interviews with creative people across stage and screen, this podcast explores how artists work the business side. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.