KPFA - Bay Area Theater

This podcast was first posted on April 15, 2018. Head Over Heels opened on Broadway at the Hudson Theater on July 28, 2018 and closed on January 6, 2019, after 36 previews and 164 performances. An  original cast album was released on October 12, 2018.

Michael Mayer, director of “Head over Heels,” a new musical with a pre-Broadway tryout at the Curren Theatre through May 6, 2018, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Michael Mayer won the Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical in 2007 and has been nominated three times for a musical, for You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, Thoroughly Modern Millie and most recently, for Hedwig and the Angry Itch. He was also nominated as director for the 1998 production of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge. He directed and wrote the book for American Idiot and the recent reconfiguring of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. He directed the film version of Michael Cunningham’s A Home at the End of the World. His latest film is an adaptation of Chekhov’s The Sea Gull, starring Annette Bening and Soursie Ronin, which will be released later this year.

In this interview, he discusses the show at the Curran, and delves into elements of his career.

Curran Theatre website

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This podcast was originally posted on May 30, 2018.

Sheryl Kaller, director, and Pamela Gray, playwright of “A Walk on the Moon,” a world premiere musical which played at A.C.T. Geary Theatre, June 9-July 1, 2018, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

“A Walk in the Moon” is based on the 1999 film with a screenplay by Pamela Gray. The show deals with life in a Jewish bungalow colony in the Catskills during the summer of 1969, and the sexual awakening of a mother and daughter.

Sheryl Kaller is a Tony-nominated director whose most recent Broadway play was “Mothers & Sons” by Terence McNally in 2014. And among Pamela Gray’s other screenplays are “Music of the Heart” and more recently, “Megan Leavey.”

A second production of “A Walk on the Moon”  was scheduled for the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey for April 21 – May 17, 2020, but was cancelled due to the Covid pandemic.

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This podcast was originally posted on June 8, 2018.

Playwright David Henry Hwang and composer Jeanine Tesori discuss their latest project, an original musical titled “Soft Power,” which played at the Curran Theatre June 20-July 8, 2018, with host Richard Wolinsky.

After the run at the Curran, the show was retooled and opened at New York’s Public Theatre on September 19, 2019 and closed following a limited run on November 17, 2019. The show was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, was nominated (but didn’t win) for eleven Drama Desk Awards, and did win four Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Best Off-Broadway Musical in 2020.

“Soft Power” starts with a play and turns into a musical, about a reverse “King and I” created in China and produced fifty years in the future, concerning the relationship between a Chinese envoy and Hillary Clinton, which brings up questions regarding cultural appropriation and what is called “soft power,” the power of culture to influence society. Elements of the play, as noted in the interview, are taken from events that happened in David Henry Hwang’s life.

David Henry Hwang is a Tony winning playwright, the author of, among other works, “M. Butterfly”, “Chinglish” and “Yellow Face,” along with a recently reworked “Flower Drum Song.” He is also on the writing staff of the Showtime TV show “The Affair.”

Jeanine Tesori is a Tony winning composer. Among her works are “Caroline, or Change,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “Violet” (to be seen in a Bay Area Musicals production next season) and “Fun Home.

Photo: Richard Wolinsky. Recorded in the offices of the Curran Theatre in San Francisco.

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Encore podcast originally posted June 18, 2018

Octavio Solis, whose play “Quixote Nuevo” was performed at at California Shakespeare Theatre in June 2018, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Author of over 20 plays, Octavio Solis is considered by many to be one of the most prominent Latino playwrights in America. With works that both draw on and transcend the Mexican-American experience, he is a writer and director whose style defies formula, examining the darkness, magic and humor of humanity with brutal honesty and characteristic intensity. His imaginative and ever-evolving work continues to cross cultural and aesthetic boundaries, solidifying him as one of the great playwrights of our time.

This play updates the Cervantes story of an elderly man who believes himself to be a medieval knight, taking it to the border of Mexico and Texas, in the El Paso area, and giving the would-be Quixote the backstory of a professor going through the stages of Alzheimer’s.

Octavio Solis website

Scenes from “Quixote Nuevo”:

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This podcast was originally posted on January 30, 2017 as a Radio Wolinsky podcast.

Fun Home: Alison Bechdel and Jeanine Tesori, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Alison Bechdel is the author of the graphic novel “Fun Home,” and Jeanine Tesori is the composer of the musical adaptation of “Fun Home”. Originally opening at New York’s Public Theatre, “Fun Home” moved to Broadway and won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Musical. Jeanine Tesori shared the Tony for Best Original Score with lyricist and librettist Lisa Kron.

“Fun Home” is based on a graphic memoir detailing how Alison Bechdel came out of the closet to her parents, and discovered her father was gay, and the tragedy that came afterward.

Alison Bechdel is also the author of the comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For” and the graphic novel “Are You My Mother.” Jeanine Tesori has written the music for four other musicals: “Violet,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie”, “Shrek: The Musical” and, with Tony Kushner, “Caroline or Change.” She has also written scores for four animated films, including “Shrek The Third,” and is currently working on a new opera with Tony Kushner about the later life of Eugene O’Neill.

The touring company of “Fun Home” played at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre through February 19, 2017. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley produced “Fun Home” during its 2018 season.

Fun Home Wikipedia page  Alison Bechdel  Jeanine Tesori

Recorded in the offices of the Curran Theatre. Special thanks to Jaron Jones.

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