Second Stage Podcast

It’s October, at last! Second Stage is a show dedicated to… resurrecting the long-forgotten plays of times gone by. And this month, who better to teach us those esoteric mystical ways than Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus? It's an awfully relevant play in an age of cavalier tech billionaires, intrusive data mining and surveillance, and limitless (unchecked) power for the one percent.

In this episode, I call out to my own sources: a theater professor who put on his own university version of the play, a high school sophomore of mine who loves the story, and a co-worker and fellow reader who knows a thing or two of theological consequences. Together, we agree that this overlooked parallel (or contrast!) to Shakespeare deserves a place in our classroom.

Read it. Watch it. Just be careful what you wish for.

Second Stage is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find it and our other podcast, With Honors, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brotherly podcast with Coach Haston, A Deadman’s Books. He’s also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

This episode’s music features “Caught in the Middle” by Amarent as well an excerpt of “Danse Macabre” performed by Chloe Trevor and Johnathan Tsay, and a reader’s theater performance of Doctor Faustus posted to YouTube in 2025 by Wahdat: The School of Sufi Studies. All are used here for educational purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. No rights are claimed. All rights lie with their respective owners.

Should the play Twelve Angry Men be required reading for high school students, or for law students? The world has moved on from the 1950s and the 1990s, but as we say in my class: people are people are people. What do other teachers today think about adding a play like Twelve Angry Men to our curriculum?

Second Stage is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find it and our other podcast, With Honors, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brotherly podcast with Coach Haston, A Deadman’s Books. He’s also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

This episode’s music features “Caught in the Middle” by Amarent, “Free Jazzy” by PulseBox, “Detective Music” from Board games and game Night!, “Dirty Dog” by Beat Mekanik, and “Flea Bop” by Mr. Smith, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

This episode also includes brief excerpts from Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose. These excerpts are included for purposes of discussion, commentary, criticism, and education. Twelve Angry Men and its music are the property of their respective copyright holders. No ownership of these materials is claimed or implied.

All copyrighted works featured in this episode remain the property of their respective creators and rights holders.

Hadestown is Anaïs Mitchell’s 2006 musical, and it has been stirring up fires onstage. The play revolves around the ancient Greek myths of two couples: Orpheus and Eurydice, and Hades and Persephone. It reimagines the ancient Greek myths of these two couples in a post-apocalyptic, Great Depression-inspired setting: a train station juke joint between the world above and the mining town below. Her composition for the show blends folk music, indie rock, and traditional New Orleans jazz. The musical arrived in 2006 as a DIY community theater project in Vermont. Ten years later, it debuted off-Broadway in 2016. It opened on Broadway in 2019, garnered eight Tony Awards, and was filmed for movie release.

This week, we hear from a variety of my students and our school’s drama teacher about the merits of bringing Hadestown to the high school classroom.

Second Stage is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find it and our other podcast, With Honors, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brotherly podcast with Coach Haston, A Deadman’s Books. He’s also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

This episode features “Caught in the Middle” by Amarent and “Flea Bop” by Mr. Smith, used under their respective Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licenses. All rights remain with the original artists and copyright holders.

This episode also includes brief excerpts from Hadestown, music, lyrics, and book by Anaïs Mitchell. These excerpts are included for purposes of discussion, commentary, criticism, and education. Hadestown and its music are the property of their respective copyright holders. No ownership of these materials is claimed or implied.

All copyrighted works featured in this episode remain the property of their respective creators and rights holders.

This week, we wrap up our July series for America's 250th with American Son, Christopher Demos-Brown’s gripping 2018 drama. The play features two parents (a black mom and a white father) desperately searching for answers after their teenage son Jamal goes missing following a traffic stop. What starts as a search for information spirals scene after scene into a relentless and unsolvable argument about race, rights, family, identity, and the complicated ways we experience America.

Second Stage is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find it and our other podcast, With Honors, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brotherly podcast with Coach Haston, A Deadman’s Books. He’s also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

This episode’s music features “Caught in the Middle” by Amarent and “Flea Bop” by Mr. Smith, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

This is our 3rd week of July 2026, celebrating America’s 250th on the stage, and we’re rewinding to 1985 and Tony Kushner’s groundbreaking play, Angels in America, Part 1: Millennium Approaches.

Second Stage is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find it and our other podcast, With Honors, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brotherly podcast with Coach Haston, A Deadman’s Books. He’s also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

This episode’s music features “Caught in the Middle” by Amarent and “Flea Bop” by Mr. Smith, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

As America celebrates 250 years of its promise, A Raisin in the Sun asks us to consider whose dreams have been realized, whose remain deferred, and what that disparity reveals about the American experience today.

Second Stage is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find it and our other podcast, With Honors, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brotherly podcast with Coach Haston, A Deadman’s Books. He’s also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

This episode’s music features “Caught in the Middle” by Amarent and “Flea Bop” by Mr. Smith, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

For the 4th of July, we’re taking it back to the founding fathers and reconsidering the educational and literary merits of teaching Lin-Manuel Miranda’s insanely successful musical, Hamilton.

Second Stage is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find it and our other podcast, With Honors, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brotherly podcast with Coach Haston, A Deadman’s Books. He’s also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

This episode’s music features “Caught in the Middle” by Amarent and a brief excerpt of the instrumental “You’ll Be Back” from Lin-Manuel Miranda’ Hamilton, used for commentary and educational discussion. All music remains the property of its respective creators and rights holders. No ownership of the music is claimed by this podcast.

Mark Creter teaches at Tennessee Tech University, and for years he himself was the Theater department. Mark and his wife Jennifer Dotson-Creter have dedicated much of their adult lives to theater, dance, and the performing arts in the Upper Cumberland. This week, he took time out of his day to sit down with me, his former student, and discuss this play that is coming to mean so much to me and my class this year.

Second Stage is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find it and our other podcast, With Honors, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brotherly podcast with Coach Haston, A Deadman’s Books. He’s also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

This episode’s music features “Caught in the Middle” by Amarent and “Flea Bop” by Mr. Smith, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

This year I assigned The Importance of Being Earnest for summer reading. And I’m approaching the play as most of our students will: knowing little to nothing about the play, the writer, or what significance we’re expected to get out of it. I'll read it, watch it, annotate it, and then—and only then—do I get to look up some stuff about it. And also meet up with a friend who also read the play to discuss our findings.

Second Stage is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find it and our other podcast, With Honors, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brotherly podcast with Coach Haston, A Deadman’s Books. He’s also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

This episode’s music features “Caught in the Middle” by Amarent and “Flea Bop” by Mr. Smith, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

It’s the 1st of June, and June is the month for marrying. Join us for a wedding as we reconsider Robert Harling's 1987 play Steel Magnolias.

Second Stage is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find it and our other podcast, With Honors, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brotherly podcast with Coach Haston, A Deadman’s Books. He’s also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

This episode’s music features “Caught in the Middle” by Amarent and “Flea Bop” by Mr. Smith, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.