One of the things we enjoy doing on this podcast is talking to people fighting the good fight around the country. Now, you might have heard that there’s some turmoil in the Washington, D.C. arts scene — understatement of the year! It started with the sabotage of the Kennedy Center by the Trump administration, and now another institution is crumbling: the Washington Post recently decided it didn’t need critics or an arts editorial staff, and slashed that desk. Those who were swept away included theater critic Naveen Kumar and theater editor Zachary Pincus-Roth.

So what happens when the local legacy newspaper stops covering the local theater? In this episode we talk to Nicole Hertvik and Eric Colchamiro, who are editor in chief and board chair, respectively, of DC Theater Arts — which now finds itself propelled to the forefront of theater coverage in the DMV (DC-Maryland-Virginia) area.

Tune in as we discuss where local companies stand, the challenges and rewards of covering D.C. in the Trump era, and of course that Lesbian “Othello” everybody — OK, just Richard Grenell of the Kennedy Center — is talking about.

Some reading:

Nicole Hertvik’s live report from the Kennedy Center Honors.

Her reaction to the Kennedy Center closing and the WaPo layoffs.

And you can connect with their socials here:

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This episode’s guest is Susannah Flood, from the play “Liberation” — one of the best-reviewed Broadway shows of 2025 (you can read Elisabeth’s glowing take for The New York Times here).

The show mostly takes place during meetings of a feminist consciousness-raising group in 1970s Ohio. Susannah takes on two roles: Lizzie, who founded the group, and Lizzie’s daughter, who’s narrating the story. She talked to us about getting into theater, working with the playwright Bess Wohl and the director Whitney White (check her out on the pod here!), and what doing this specific play has meant to her.

Of course we also talked about other shows on Susannah’s C.V., like Anne Washburn’s now-iconic “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play.”

But wait, there’s more: Susannah plays the lead character’s mother in Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut, “The Chronology of Water,” and talked about that project as well. Don’t say we don’t spoil you!

With Broadway recovering from its holidays binge and rehearsing for its next batch of shows, January on New York City stages means one thing: festivals!

These days the dominant one is Under the Radar, which has overcome many odds to celebrate its 21st season with its biggest slate yet. We’re delighted to welcome founder Mark Russell, now the fest’s director (with co-creative directors Meropi Peponides and Kaneza Schaal).

Russell leads us through UTR’s ups and downs, its challenges and triumphs, the fest’s embarrassing inaugural name, and how the NYC avant and experimental scene has changed over the decades. It’s a story of survival in a tough environment that keeps getting tougher: less money, changing venues, logistical issues (often having to do with visas).

And lest you think this is just a boon for NYC audiences: UTR overlaps with the annual conference by the Association of Presenting Arts Professionals (APAP) and a lot of programmers use the opportunity to check out shows that may eventually appear at stages around the country.

Check it out: Elisabeth picked a few shows from this year’s selection for the NY Times (gift link).

Thanks to Christian Huygen for our theme music.

Just the two of us, we can make it if we try…and so we did! Peter and Elisabeth rocked this episode on their own and managed to cover quite a bit of ground. They started off with Peter’s report from his recent trip to the Divine Comedy festival in Krakow, Poland.

Then they remained behind the Iron Curtain for a chat about the recently departed Tom Stoppard (who was born in the former Czechoslovakia, as this podcast’s listeners may know).

Finally, they went over some of their favorite shows of the year, with a focus on Off Broadway productions that may have garnered less press — though Elisabeth’s favorite, “Weer,” was one of the fall’s hits, and here’s a gift link to her profile of its creator, Natalie Palamides.

Thanks to Christian Huygen for our theme music.

The musical “Revolution(s),” which recently concluded its premiere run at the Goodman Theater, in Chicago, comes with an impressive and à propos pedigree. The score was pulled from the songbook of Tom Morello, best known as the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave and many other projects. The book is by Zayd Ayers Dohrn, a playwright who carries quite the legacy: His parents, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, were leaders of the far-left Weather Underground in the early 1970s. It is not a coincidence that the musical is about two generations of radical activists: a couple we see in 1989 and their two sons, whom we meet in 2016.

In this episode, Dohrn, who is the director of the MFA program in Writing for Screen and Stage at Northwestern University, talks about the inspiration for the show, what it was like to do this particular story in Chicago when the city was facing militarized federal forces, and how he approaches political theater.

Some sources:

Elisabeth’s interview with Tom Morello (gift link).

Zayd’s award-winning podcast series about his family, the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers: “Mother Country Radicals” — Elisabeth says it's basically an audio thriller.

Thanks to Christian Huygen for our theme music.

The hit de scandale of the fall in New York is Andrew Fox and Joel Sinensky’s “Slam Frank,” an Off Broadway show that purports to be a staging of a musical about Anne Frank — except that it’s a terminally enlightened production in which she is now Anita Franco, “an ambitious LatinX teenager” surrounded by family and friends who have gone through a similar recasting process. “Slam Frank” doesn’t aim its barbs at Anne herself, though, but at the pieties of the terminally online, including pronoun use and the weaponization of identity.

Don’t worry, we are not falling prey to cheap “anti-woke” vapors! In this episode we welcome Andrew Fox, who wrote the “Slam Frank” score and currently even appears in the show. He talks about his initial inspiration (a tweet from three years ago that accused Anne Frank of white privilege) and a lot more. Fox is very informed about musical-theater history and tropes, and his score is packed with numbers that nod in the direction of “Hamilton” and “Suffs,” among current references.

Thanks to Christian Huygen for our theme music.

If you saw “The Band’s Visit” in New York, you remember Ari’el Stachel, who played Haled, the musician obsessed with Chet Baker — a big highlight was his jazzy “Song About Love,” one of David Yazbek’s loveliest numbers.

Stachel is back with his own show, the autobiographical solo play “Other,” and he dropped by our (remote) studio to talk about it. We’re happy to report that he didn’t sweat, a reference you’ll understand when you listen to the episode.

We also gave some recommendations — and they’re not all in New York!

Peter was very excited by the return of Heather Christian’s “Oratorio for Living Things,” which is at the Signature Theater on W. 42nd St until Nov. 6.

Elisabeth came back from a quick trip to Chicago, where she reported on “Paranormal Activity,” a horror play by Felix Barrett and Levi Holloway (at Chicago Shakes until Nov. 2), and “Revolution(s),” a musical featuring music by the Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello (at the Goodman until Nov. 16). Did you ever think you’d see a mention of Morello here? Neither did we.

Oh, she also loved David Cale’s new show, “Blue Cowboy” (at the Bushwick Starr until Nov. 8).

There’s much talk these days about the dire financial health of musicals on Broadway, where costs have skyrocketed — and so have ticket prices. Yet, very few of the big shows manages to turn a profit. How can this go on? Tom Kirdahy submits to some questioning about this issue, and his own work on Broadway and in the movies.

Whitney White is a busy director, and we couldn’t be happier about it — we’ve been following her career for several years now, and it’s always exciting to see what she’ll come up with next.

You can see her production of the new musical “Saturday Church” (which Elisabeth wrote about for The New York Times) at New York Theater Workshop until Oct. 24. And on Oct. 8, she’s starting previews for the Broadway run of the Bess Wohl play “Liberation” (which was at the Laura Pels Theater a few months ago).

Whitney talked to us about both of those shows, but also went back to growing up in Chicago with a mom who made sure her daughter had a broad, inquisitive mind — turns out that studying political science is not a bad way to start a career in theater — and her days working as an actress (oh, the shows she’s been in!).

We also touched on some key productions in her career, like Aleshea Harris’s “What to Send Up When It Goes Down” and Jocelyn Bioh’s “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding,” as well as her own “Macbeth in Stride,” which is part of a larger Shakespeare-themed project.

Thanks to Christian Huygen for our theme music.

Our guest this week is none other than Jinkx Monsoon, who’s killing it as Mary Todd Lincoln in “Oh, Mary!” on Broadway. Just ask Elisabeth: She’s seen the show five times with three different leading ladies.

Jinkx basically gave us a TED Talk on the art of comedy, and frankly she’s well placed to talk about that stuff — there’s even a Madeline Kahn reference, so you know we’re in good hands. Of course we talked about her recent turn in “Pirates! The Penzance Musical” and Peter gushed about Jinkx’s take on “Somewhere That’s Green” (which she performed when she played Audrey in the Off Broadway revival of “Little Shop of Horrors,” of course).

It’s impossible to avoid, so we also got into a discussion of the current climate in the U.S., and Jinkx talked about how it has weighed on some of her touring decisions — maybe not in the way you’d expect. Which reminds us: Now’s the time to buy your tickets for “The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show,” which has become a bona fide new tradition

Need some background on our guest? Here’s the profile Elisabeth wrote for the New York Times back in April.

Thanks to Christian Huygen for our theme music.