KPFA - Bay Area Theater

Hershey Felder, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, 2013. George Gershwin Alone will be performed live from Florence, Italy on Sunday September 13, 2020 at 5 pm Pacific. For tickets and information, go to Berkeley Rep or TheatreWorks Silicon Valley.

Hershey Felder has made a career of creating solo shows in which he portrays different composers performing their work on piano. His first show, George Gershwin Alone, began in 1999 at a Los Angeles workshop. He later went on to portray Leonard Bernstein, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Frederic Chopin, Claude Debussy, and Ludwig Beethoven.

This interview was recorded in the offices of Berkeley Rep on April 12, 2013, during the run of George Gershwin Alone.

Photos: Hershey Felder Presents.

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Madhuri Shekar‘s play, “In Love and Warcraft” will be seen in live performance as part of ACT’s InterAct Home Initiative, September 4-12, 2020, and then streaming September 18-25. She is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky.

“In Love and Warcraft” concerns a young woman who spends much of her time in the World of Warcraft game, and on the side writes love letters for her friends. Along the way, she discovers she has feelings for one of her clients.

Madhuri Shekar’s other plays include “House of Joy,” which played at Cal Shakes last summer, along with “A Nice Indian Boy,” “Queen,” and “Dhaba on Devon Avenue,” which was having its premiere at the New Victory Theatre in Chicago and was shut down due to the novel corona virus.

Her web TV series, “Titus and Andronicus” can be found on You Tube. She was part of the writers’ room of Joss Whedon’s new series, “The Nevers,” which will have its premiere on HBO.

Born in California, she spent most of her formative years in Chenmai, India, and currently lives in New Jersey.

The post Playwright Interview: Madhuri Shekar appeared first on KPFA.

Rachel Bonds is a young playwright whose work, Swimmers, played at at Marin Theatre Company in March 2016. She talks about the play and its development, and about her career as a playwright with host Richard Wolinsky.

Rachel Bonds website

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John Leguizamo, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded July 7, 2016 in the offices at Berkeley Rep, where Latin History for Morons had opened to rave reviews.

Growing up in Jackson Heights, New York, John Leguizamo got his start as a stand-up comedian in 1984. His earliest credit was in the TV show Miami Vice in 1988, followed by small film roles. His first major role was in the big budget Super Mario Brothers film opposite Bob Hoskins. Though critical and commercial flop, it led to a variety of interesting roles, most notably the Baz Luhrmann films Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, as the drag queen Chi Chi in To Wong Foo, thanks for everything Julie Newmar, as Vinny in Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam, and as the voice of Sid in the Ice Age animated films.

His one-man shows have won great acclaim and several of them have been filmed for HBO, including Freak, directed by Spike Lee and Ghetto Klown. His memoir, Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas and All the Rest of My Hollywood Friends: My Life, was published in 2008.

Latin History for Morons became an Netflix film in 2018 and is now available streaming.

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Nicky Silver, in conversation by phone from New York, live on the air, with host Richard Wolinsky and director John Dixon in the studio, recorded April 27, 2007.

Nicky Silver is the author of several successful plays, including “The Lyons,” which premiered on Broadway in 2012, “Beautiful Child” and “Pterodactyls.” At the time of the interview, his play ‘Past Perfect” was making its world premiere at San Francisco’s Theatre Rhino, directed by John Dixon.

Since that time, Nicky Silver has moved to London and has continued to write. His most recent play to premiere off-Broadway was “This Day Forward,” in 2016. His play “Fat Men in Skirts” was filmed in German in 1998.

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