KPFA - Bay Area Theater

This is the fourth in a series of interviews about theatre companies during the year of Covid.

Bill English is the Artistic Director and co-founder (with Susi Damilano) of San Francisco Playhouse, which had to shut down its theater near Union Square, in the Kensington Park Hotel on Post Street, in March while ready for tech rehearsals for their next show.

Since then, the company has had to come up with ways to stay alive — and as with most companies, turned to streaming, first with a series of interviews about theatre, and then with Zoomlets, short plays heard as readings every Monday. Both interviews and most zoomlets are now available on the SF Playhouse website.

More recently, SF Playhouse has devised three-play virtual seasons, one in the winter (The Jewelry Box with Brian Copeland closes December 25, 2020 and Songs for a New World closes December 31, 2020) and the next, featuring world premieres comes on line in sequence in February, 2021.

The post Theatre in the Time of Covid: Bill English, San Francisco Playhouse appeared first on KPFA.

This interview was first posted in a different form as a Radio Wolinsky podcast on November 27, 2018.

 Taylor Mac, writer/performer/co-director of “Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce” which ran at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco in late November/early December, 2018. In 2020, Taylor Mac has taken elements from that show and created a streaming show that ran live on December 12, 2020 and runs On Demand through the Curran website until January 3, 2021.

The year 2018 was a good one for performer and playwright Taylor Mac. Winner of a MacArthur Genius Grant, he was also a finalist for his performance piece A 24-Decade history of Popular Music. His play Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, starring Nathan Lane, Kristine Nielsen and Julie White, which is discussed in this interview, reviewed mixed reviews (raves and pans) and officially opened on Broadway on April 21, 2019, and closed on June 16, 2019 after 45 previews and 65 performances.

Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce … Pandemic! has set design and costumes by his long-time collaborator Machine Dazzle. The 2018 production was co-directed by Niegel Smith, the artistic director of the Flea theatre company in New York.

The post Taylor Mac: “Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce ,,, Pandemic!” appeared first on KPFA.

Han Ong is a playwright whose play  “Grandeur,” was produced at the Magic Theater in San Francisco in June, 2017. He was interviewed by KPFA theater critic Richard Wolinsky. The interview was posted on June 12, 2017,

Han Ong has written several plays since the 1990s, and two novels, including the well-reviewed “Fixer Chao” in 2001. This is his second play following a twelve-year absence. “Grandeur” concerns a meeting between a journalist and the late poet and writer Gil Scott-Heron in 2010 upon the release of the album “I’m New Here,” and a year before the poet’s death.

Han Ong was born to Chinese parents and spent his first sixteen years in the Philippines before moving to Los Angeles and getting involved in the theater world. A high school dropout who received a MacArthur Genius Award, he is well known for his plays about dislocation and alienation.

Magic Theatre website.

The post Playwright Interview: Han Ong, 2017 appeared first on KPFA.

Third in a series of interviews about how theatre companies are coping with the Corona Virus shutdown.

Evren Odcikin, the Associate Artistic Director of Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon discusses how OSF dealt with the shutdown due to Covid-19, followed by the Black Lives Matter movement engendered by the murder of George Floyd, and then the September fires which burned parts of Ashland, as well as the nearby towns of Phoenix and Talent. Hosted by Richard Wolinsky.

Evren’s latest directorial effort is This Is Who I Am by Amir Nizar Zuabi, a co-production of PlayCo and Woolly Mammoth, in association with OSF and other theatre companies, which is performed and broadcast live from December 5, 2020 through January 3, 2021.

Evren Odcikin, prior to joining OSF in 2019, was part of the creative team of Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco, and has directed several plays around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival is a theatre company founded in 1935, which presents five plays, in repertory at the same time, from February through October each year. The company is located in Ashland, Oregon, just off Route 5 north of the California border.

Photo: Kim Budd

The post Theatre During Covid: Evren Odcikin, Oregon Shakespeare Festival appeared first on KPFA.

Second in a series of interviews about how Bay Area theatres are coping with the Corona Virus shutdown.

John Fisher, Executive/Artistic Director of Theatre Rhinoceros, based in San Francisco, “The Longest Running Queer Theatre in the World,” since 2003, discusses how his company has managed to survive and move into the digital realm as live theatre, on stage with an audience, vanishes from the American scene.

While the subscriber base keeps the company alive, Theatre Rhino now boasts a weekly one-man show from John Fisher, created in his home and sometimes on his bike, on Zoom and Facebook Live, and has begun a digital season that is intended, whenever it happens, to return to the stage.

Included in this interview is a five-minute piece focused on the Thanksgiving Battle of Saratoga, written and performed for this podcast and radio show by John Fisher.

The post Theatre During Covid: John Fisher, Theatre Rhinoceros appeared first on KPFA.