KPFA - Bay Area Theater

This podcast was originally posted on December 11th, 2016.

The Christmas presentation for Berkeley Rep during the winter of 2015 to 2016 was Kneehigh Theatre’s production of 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, which was adapted and co-directed by Emma Rice, who at the time of this interview had recently left her position as Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London,

Currently in November 2020, she is artistic director of the theatre company Wise Children in Bristol England. During the pandemic, Wise Children has gone digital. Its next production, in association with Kneehigh and Bristol Old Vic is The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, which will be streamed live December 3rd through 5th from England, with a starting time of 11:30 am Pacific.

Emma Rice, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Emma Rice is  director/co-adaptor of “946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips,” a Kneehigh production which ran at Berkeley Rep through January 15th, 2016. For several years, Emma served as Artistic Director of Kneehigh, where she was also director of several shows that came through Berkeley Rep, including “Tristan and Yseult,” “The Wild Bride,”  and “Brief Encounter.” Her work is known internationally for its unconventional story-telling and staging.

“The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips,” based on a popular children’s book by Michael Murpurgo, who joined with Emma in co-adapting his story, tells of a girl named Lily in 1944 and her search for her missing cat in an English village overrun with American soldiers preparing for the D-Day invasion. “946” refers to a tragic event that actually happened in the seas off Slapton and was excised from history for fifty years.

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

Pam MacKinnon, Artistic Director of A.C.T., American Conservatory Theatre, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Now in her third season as Artistic Director, Pam MacKinnon has had to rearrange her life (which was already in flux, still learning about her new home town of San Francisco) and the work of her organization in order to survive the complete shutdown of live theatre in America.

A noted theatre director before joining A.C.T., Pam MacKinnon won an Obie and then was nominated for a Tony on Broadway for Clybourne Park. A leading director of the works of Edward Albee, she won a Tony Award in 2013 for a revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. In the Bay Area, most notably, she directed Albee’s Seascape for ACT during the 2018-2019 season, and before that, directed the musical Amelie at Berkeley Rep.

In this interview, she discusses the changes A.C.T. was forced to make to deal with the shutdown, the rise of streaming, working with other companies, and coming up with new ways to survive the pandemic, including a host of streaming options at act-sf.org.

Front photo of A.C.T.’s Geary Theatre, from their website.

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Stephen Greenblatt, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky about his book Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, recorded in 2005.

Stephen Greenblatt is a literary historian and an expert on Shakespeare. Among his other books on Shakespeare are  Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England, Hamlet in Purgatory, Shakespeare’s Freedom, and most recently Tyrant: Shakespeare in Politics, set in motion by his feelings about the Trump presidency.

Host Richard Wolinsky interviewed Stephen Greenblatt twice afterward, for his award-winning best-seller, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, and in 2016 for The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve.

Will in the World focuses on William Shakespeare’s life, and how that life and the events in his world affected his work. The interview looks at, among other plays, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, MacBeth and Richard III and gives a brief overview of London in the waning days of the 1500s.

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Bill Irwin, creator and performer of “On Beckett,” which was performed at A.C.T.’s Strand Theatre through January 22, 2017, is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky.

Bill Irwin won the Tony Award for his portrayal of George opposite Kathleen Turner’s Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” on Broadway. He performed as both Lucky and Vladimir in productions on Broadway of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” and performed in A.C.T.’s recent production of Beckett’s “Endgame.” A veteran of several TV shows and films,  currently he appears regularly on the TV show “Law & Order: SVU” and appeared previously on “Sleepy Hollow,” and “Legion,” and will appear in the upcoming film “Lust Life Love.”

A founder of the legendary Pickle Family Circus, he has also appeared in San Francisco and New York in the shows “Fool Moon” and “Old Hats.”

Bill Irwin’s interest in Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) goes back to college and his performances of Beckett not only include the mentioned plays but other works as well.

The interview was recorded January 9, 2017 in a dressing room at the Strand Theatre in San Francisco. Special thanks to Carey Perloff and Kevin Kopjak for making this possible.

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Gamal Abdel Chasten, the artistic director of “The Breath Project,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Gamal Abdel Chasten is co-founder of the project, along with Marieke Gaboury.

“The Breath Project” focuses on several short works of 8 minutes and 46 seconds in length, the time it took George Floyd to die at the hands of the Minneapolis Police, which focus on social issues seen from the perspective of people of color.

Twenty-four of those works can be seen in sequence on Saturday October 24, 2020 at 2 pm and 5 pm Pacific, and Sunday October 25 at 5 pm Pacific and the entire collection of  pieces can all be heard on demand on the website, thebreathproject2020.com.

Gamal Abdel Chasten is an actor, musician, playwright and poet, and co-founder of Universes Theatre ensemble. “The Breath Project” is sponsred by a host of theatre companies, including Marin Theatre Company and Palo Alto Children’s Theatre in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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