Local with Laura Ekstrand

Kicking off Local Season 4, Laura sits down with actor and singer Stephanie Windland. Stephanie received her BA in Musical Theater and Communication Studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, and currently lives and works in New York City. Vivid Stage audiences will remember her from the 2018 main stage production of Dead and Buried. Stephanie tells Laura what drives her to continue pursuing an artistic life and career—particularly after considering leaving it behind during the pandemic. Stephanie's energy and wit radiate throughout this conversation, and we're so thrilled to share it.

To learn more about Stephanie check out - www.stephaniewindland.com/about

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Music by Jeff Ertz & John Todd

On the season finale of Local, Laura chats with the incredibly talented Joe Sutton. They talk about his return to New Jersey, his native New Yorker bias against the Garden State, and overcoming the Jersey stigma to fall in love with Montclair. Joe went to grad school as a director, but almost immediately realized that artistic opportunities were greater as a playwright. Within years of leaving grad school, he was writing plays professionally and seeing them produced. Laura and Joe then dive deep into the art and craft of playwriting. Joe talks about putting his own personal life and psychology into his work, from the more extreme to the more realistic, and the relationship between stage directions and the visual world of the play. Also, what to do about those plays in the drawer...

On the April podcast we're joined by Dreamcatcher Rep company member Daria M. Sullivan — the M is important, don't forget the M! Laura and Daria talk about how they first met, racism in the acting industry, the audition grind, and the challenges and triumphs of discovering your voice as an artist. Don't miss Daria this month in Everything is Super Great: A Comedy, opening April 29, 2021, and as Madame 6 in the ongoing webseries Together Apart.

This month on Local, Laura talks with Dreamcatcher Rep company member Jason Szamreta. In this fun, light-hearted interview, they get deep into what makes Jason tick and what makes him fulfilled — including his enthusiastic eating. Jason discusses his decision to enter the field of social work in addition to acting, and how the two fields inform each other. They remember some favorite moments working together at Dreamcatcher, and look ahead to Jason's role as Lil Nephew Balki in Dreamcatcher's forthcoming web series Together Apart.

Local is back! And to kick off the new year, Laura sits down with Dreamcatcher Rep's resident Sound Designer Jeff Knapp. In this fascinating and intimate interview, Jeff talks his college radio DJ days, being a theater student at a school without a theater, and his infamous appearance in The Sound of Music as "Captain Von Knapp." He goes on to talk being a theatre sound designer in the pandemic — from his foley work in Ways to Be Happy, to recording in-studio for the upcoming cabaret Kindred Spirits.

Jessica F. Baskerville is a playwright based in New Jersey. She joins Laura for a fascinating and wide-sweeping conversation, covering the personal, political, and the life and work of a young creative whose work thus far has been intimately focused on community and sotries in New Jersey. Jessica tells Laura about attending Whitney Houston Academy in East Orange where she was a middle school drama major, making her way with determination back to New Jersey for college after attending high school in Maryland, and some of the projects she's produced since graduating from Montclair State University. Jessica has delved into history and themes of community, culture, and race, her work has been produced at Luna Stages, Montclair's Undoing Racism Committee, and in December she premieres a one-act play part of Dreamcatcher's Holiday Bites. This conversation is not to be missed, and Jessica F. Baskerville is a name and a voice that we're so pleased to get to know.

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Music by Jeff Ertz and John Todd

In this episode, Laura is joined by playwright and educator David Lee White. A longtime friend and frequent Dreamcatcher collaborator, David has worked with theatres and theatre programs across the New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania area. And this month with Dreamcatcher, we're thrilled to be virtually premiering David Lee White's audio play Ways to Be Happy.

David and Laura share a warm and lively conversation—socially distanced on the Dreamcatcher stage—about the challenge of trying to write the current moment, how he first started writing Ways to Be Happy in grad school and how it was developed since, the welcome respite of taking a laugh break, and what his 10-year-old son thinks of his life and work as a playwright. We're so happy to share this conversation with the wonderful David Lee White—and we invite you to join the conversation and tell us what you do to recharge and find happiness.

Find out more about David Lee White at davidleewhite.net

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Music by Jeff Ertz and John Todd

In this first episode of Season 3, actor, singer, arts administrator, and advocate Deonté Griffin-Quick joins Laura. Hear Deonté discuss how he made his way into arts administration, how he uses his voice to advocate for diversity and equity in the arts, and how important it is for him to continue flexing his creativity as a performer.

We're so excited to share this conversation between Laura and Deonté. Learn more about Deonté Griffin-Quick here.

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Music by Jeff Ertz and John Todd

In the final episode of season 2, Laura is joined via Zoom by George Marriner Maull, Artistic Director of the Discovery Orchestra. Maestro Maull is a conductor, violist, television host, and music educator.

Laura and Maestro Maull have an illuminating conversation on a range of topics, including how he founded the Discovery Orchestra and why the orchestra is so committed to teaching audiences the listening skills to viscerally connect to classical music. They touch on the history of recorded music, the current state of live performance, and their hopes for the future. You can learn more about George and the Discovery Orchestra at https://discoveryorchestra.org/

In this episode of Local, Laura turns to Zoom for a conversation with her college pal Steve Harper.

Steve is a producer on the CBS show God Friended Me, a co-producer on the HBO Max series Tell Me Your Secrets, and writer and creator of the original web series Send Me.

They discuss his work acting, writing, networking, and building connections and brand. They delve deep into the differences between writing for TV and writing for the stage, and discuss his side passion for life coaching.

Learn more about Steve at http://www.harpercreates.com

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Music by Jeff Ertz & John Todd