The Play Typer Guy

My friend Jane Jones is founder of Seattle’s Book-It Repertory Theatre, and along with co-founding Artistic Director Myra Platt, she built a company that brought world premiere adaptations of great literature to the stage for 30 years.

The pandemic silenced Book-It for a while, just like many other theatre organizations, but Book-It is back in a new form that I was happy to discuss with Jane. You can watch or listen to the podcast interview here or at my YouTube channel. While you’re over there, please subscribe!

(Jane was also in the first episode of Twin Peaks, and she shares with me some advice she received from David Lynch.)

You will hear:

• How March 2020 changed everything at Book-It Repertory Theatre
• How Jane’s discovery of her own dyslexia in adulthood lead to Book-It’s unique style of adapting literature to live theatre
• How being told she wasn’t the best dancer was actually a tremendous gift
• The future of Book-It productions
• And more!

Guest Info: 

Jane Jones is the founder and founding co-artistic director of Book-It Repertory Theatre, with Myra Platt. In her 30 years of staging literature, she has performed, adapted, and directed works by such literary giants as Charles Dickens, Eudora Welty, Edith Wharton, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Pam Houston, Raymond Carver, Frank O’Connor, Jim Lynch, Ernest Hemingway, Colette, Amy Bloom, John Irving, John Steinbeck, Daphne du Maurier, and Jane Austen. A veteran actress of 35 years, she has played leading roles in many of America’s most prominent regional theatres. She co-directed with Tom Hulce at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Peter Parnell’s adaptation of John Irving’s The Cider House Rules, Parts I and II, which enjoyed successful runs in Seattle, at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles (Ovation Award, best director) and in New York (Drama Desk Nomination, best director)...

Links:  

Book-It Website: book-it.org

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ThePlayTyperGuy
Email: [email protected]

Join  the Player Typer Guy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stephenrobinson

There’s so much I love about Thanksgiving — the food, the official kick-off of Mariah Carey Music Season, and of course, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Turkey Day marathons, which I’ve enjoyed since 1993. This magical combination of gluttony and cheesy movies are an annual treat.

Joining me on the podcast for a special tribute to MST3K is Erik Barnes, a writer, comedian, and aspiring swashbuckler. Erik is currently a script writer for the comedy news video essay show Some More News, which you should check out on YouTube.

The first Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode aired on November 24, 1988, which was Thanksgiving Day. It wasn’t intentional, but a holiday tradition began, especially once there were enough episodes to run as a marathon. It was perfect counter programming to sports and parades.

You will hear:

• How we got into MST3K back in the day
• How the show gained a following and became a Thanksgiving tradition
• MST3K helped aspiring comedians learn comedic timing and became a sort of improv practice
• Even though the movies are terrible, it is important to remember how hard it is to get a movie made at all and that all movies have inherent value
• And more!

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ThePlayTyperGuy
Email: [email protected]

Join  the Player Typer Guy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stephenrobinson

Writer Noah Berlatsky from Public Notice and Everything Is Horrible joins me as we defy the authoritarian state and frankly discuss Charlie Kirk and his posthumous deification.

You will hear:

• How the discussion around Charlie Kirk’s murder is overriding other shootings and why his supposed “good faith attempts” to cross the aisle is not what was happening at all
• Kirk was often spoken of as someone who helped the left by debating (poorly) and allowing for (better) discussions to arise, all while ignoring the fact that he helped organized an insurrection, including transporting a rioter who violently hit law enforcement in the face with a fire extinguisher
• The mainstream (right) media talks about how we should just get past corrosive politics without acknowledging that Charlie Kirk was a major contributor to those corrosive politics through blatant racism, smear campaigns, ad hominim attacks, etc.
• When people like Ezra Klein talk about “coming together” in a bipartisan way, they mean white people need to come together and subjugate everyone else around them to their way of doing things and understanding that non-white, non-cis/het people are not going to advance
• The consequences of elections and how politicians, especially Democrats, need to focus on doing the job they were elected to do and actually making a difference rather than looking to win the next election
• And so much more!

Guest Info: 

Noah Berlatsky has worked as a writer for twenty years, focusing on a wide array of topics for audiences including academics, popular audiences, high school students, and children. 

Noah’s book, Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948 was published in early 2015 by Rutgers University Press.

His reviews and essays have appeared on NPR's All Things Considered, NBC Think Online, Pacific Standard, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the LA Times, the Guardian, Media Matters, Salon, the Awl, Slate, the Chicago Reader, The Escapist, Esquire, Reason, the Dissolve, the Baffler, and many other publications. 

Links:  

Everything is Horrible: https://www.everythingishorrible.net/

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ThePlayTyperGuy
Email: [email protected]

Join  the Player Typer Guy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stephenrobinson

Author and playwright Laramie Dean (Black Forest) joins me for The Play Typer Guy‘s Third Annual Halloween Special! Last year, we celebrated witchy women in media, including the weird sisters from Agatha All Along. This year, we’re discussing Laramie’s new novel, Haunt Me, Then, which he describes as “big gay Wuthering Heights.” It’s out now, and makes a swell holiday gift.

You will hear:

• Pillars of the Gothic genre
• The trouble with werewolves
• Fear, vulnerability, and losing your head in the shower
• And more!

Guest Info: 

Laramie Dean was born and raised on a ranch in northeastern Montana. He is the author of Black Forest, a novel from Inkshares, as well as several plays from Theatrefolk, including Frankenstein Among the Dead, Dracula, The Gorgon Sisters, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Finding Jo March. Currently, Laramie enjoys his dream job as the Theatre Director at Hellgate High School in Missoula, Montana.

Links:  

Laramie Dean’s website: https://www.bylaramiedean.com/

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ThePlayTyperGuy
Email: [email protected]

Join  the Player Typer Guy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stephenrobinson

Joining me today is my friend NC Barton, author of The Now In Forever, a romance set along the picturesque Oregon Coast. We discuss her process, inspirations, and how a working mom finds time to write.

You will hear:

• Nicole’s writing process and inspirations
• Some of Nicole’s favorite books and movies
• Who she would cast in a movie of her book
• Her next book, The Art of the Meet Cute released October 10, 2025 - Make sure you grab your copy!
• And more!

Guest Info: 

In 2004 NC Barton received a BFA in mixed media studio art. With a degree in the arts and no solid plan, she’s had the opportunity to hold many different jobs; video store manager, barista, photographer’s assistant, toy store clerk, and yoga instructor at a retreat in Puerto Rico, all of which have served her well as hands-on research and inspiration for her novels. 

Links:  

Nicole’s Website: https://ncbartonwrites.com/

Nicole’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ncbartonwrites/

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ThePlayTyperGuy
Email: [email protected]

Join  the Player Typer Guy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stephenrobinson

This week’s episode is the unofficial “sequel” to my interview with Thomas Beckett Kane, author of The Reckoning. Filmmaker Jessica Ellis has lived with long Covid for several years now and offers a very different perspective from Kane on the government’s management of the pandemic.

We discuss some key choices the Biden administration made back in 2021 regarding the covid vaccine, as well as the nation’s seeming desire to forget Covid ever happened and how that impacts public health. Ellis has some interesting observations about the know-nothing conspiracy theories that helped put chief know-nothing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services.

You will hear:

• Jessica’s experience with long Covid and how people’s dismissal of the virus, vaccine, and effectiveness of protocols affects her personally and others who have to deal with the effects of long Covid
• How the Biden administration’s “assurance” that once you took the vaccine everything would go back to normal killed a lot of people’s faith in anything they had to say
• The problem with both sides of the aisle trying to politicize the message around Covid rather than following the actual science led people to trust nothing, especially the science
• The danger surrounding RFK’s know-nothing approach to the nation’s health and dangerous anti-vax rhetoric 
• And more!

Guest Info: 

Jessica Ellis is a commercial and narrative production designer, art director and multi-disciplinary artist.

Jessica’s background as a painter motivates how she approaches set design and world building. Every set is an extension of painting composition, color, construction, movement, and balance. Her narrative and commercial work has been featured on popular network television, most major streaming platforms, and theaters. Her clients include brands like Adidas, Budweiser, Bosh, Doordash, Google, Madison Square Garden, Nike, The New York Rangers and The New York Knicks.

Links: 

Jessica’s Website: https://www.jessicaellisstudio.com/

Jessica’s BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/baddestmamajama.bsky.social

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ThePlayTyperGuy
Email: [email protected]

Join  the Player Typer Guy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stephenrobinson

This week I am joined by Thomas Beckett Kane, author of the book The Reckoning: A Definitive History of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Other Absurdities, releasing October 2, 2025. It’s been five years since the start of the covid pandemic, and Americans still don’t truly have a shared reality about the disease and the government’s response. Much of this is due to deliberate right-wing misinformation and absurd conspiracy theories. However, ultimately, the pandemic exposed and heightened ideological differences related to collective sacrifice versus personal freedom.

Thomas has a more libertarian-influenced perspective that doesn’t exactly align with mine. (Full disclosure, he was critical of covid lockdowns.) But he also doesn’t share the far-right insistence that Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates created covid in a secret lab as part of their diabolical plot to subjugate humanity.

Most of my readers probably agree with me on covid more than they would Kane, but I think you’ll still enjoy our discussion.

You will hear:

• Dispelling the idea that just because Thomas was critical of the covid lockdown that he didn’t think the virus was real
• His belief that the steps taken to address the virus were an overreaction and extreme to the point of tyranny, rather than a more targeted approach to protect the most vulnerable communities instead of a blanket shutdown
• The downsides of pitting politics against science and experts where people grew more wary of expertise based on their own beliefs, rather than anything evidence-based
• Thomas' thoughts on vaccines and vaccine mandates
• The almost amnesiac response of the public five years after the pandemic where it feels like it never happened
• The nuance needed to look at the situation as a whole, rather than either side’s extreme views 
• And so much more!

Guest Info: 

In 2019, military veteran Thomas Beckett Kane found himself at the center of an impending shift in human affairs. After the Covid-19 virus arrived on American shores, L.A. experienced some of the most extreme responses imaginable. With basic freedoms ripped away, fear stoked within the population, and society plunged into chaos, he witnessed the fragility of social order and individual freedom first-hand. 

When not writing books about the decline of Western civilization, Kane enjoys working out, reading, and listening to Oasis.

Links:  

Thomas’ Website: https://thomasbeckettkane.wpcomstaging.com/

Thomas’ Book: The Reckoning: A Definitive History of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Other Absurdities

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ThePlayTyperGuy
Email: [email protected]

Join  the Player Typer Guy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stephenrobinson

Democrats are consistently winning low-turnout special elections (just as they did prior to the devastating 2024 election), but they are also falling behind Republicans in new voter registration. 

I recently spoke with friend of the podcast Cliston Brown about his take on the situation and what he thinks about the party’s long-term prospects.

You will hear:

• Why the “Never Trump” movement didn’t have as much impact on Democratic voter registration as expected and other reasons for lower voter registrations in every state
• Changes within the party’s policies and agendas that were complete turnarounds to things happening prior to 2017 and specifically since the pandemic
• The difference in how the parties look at current issues and their focus (intellectual vs. realistic) and where the average voter is personally concerned and how the party demographics have changed so significantly in the past decade
• Potential destruction of the Democratic Party
• The problem with trying to stand on moral issues that you will never be able to fix because you can’t get elected
• The airline analogy
• And more!

Guest Info: 

Cliston Brown is a political analyst and communications executive. He writes on U.S. politics at ClistonBrown.com, having previously written for the New York Observer and the California Globe. Additionally, he was a regularly scheduled weekly guest (“Listen to Cliston”) on The Hal Ginsberg Morning Show on Radio Monterey, and also has appeared on “Inside Story” on Al Jazeera English; A News (Istanbul, Turkey) with Andy Boyns, Zaviar Ahmed and Mark Mourad Hammami; India Ahead with Neha Khanna; “Left, Right, Center” with David Webb on the Sirius XM Patriot Channel; “The DeMaio Report” with Carl DeMaio on KOGO-600 AM San Diego; the CY Interview with Chris Yandek and Jay Bildstein; and “Millennial Talk” with Chelsea Krost. 

Brown began his career as a journalist in the Chicago area in 1994, covering government and politics, intellectual property law, international business issues, education, and law enforcement. He moved to Washington, D.C., in 2001, where he served for two years as director of communications, then transitioned back into the private sector as a communications professional and political analyst.

Follow Brown on Twitter: @clistonbrown

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ThePlayTyperGuy
Email: [email protected]

Join  the Player Typer Guy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stephenrobinson

My friend Emily Taylor from the Hot Feminism: Letters from South Carolina newsletter (go subscribe) returns to the podcast for a rousing discussion about the fallout from the 2024 election and how we move forward in even Republican-dominated areas like my home state.

You’ll hear:

• Catching up since Emily’s last visit to the podcast
• Can we ever have a woman candidate for president?
• Why the Harris campaign seemed to be doomed from the start
• Why people vote against their own class interests
• Weaponized hypocrisy by Republicans
• And more!

Guest Info: 

Emily Taylor is a professor at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina. She's the author of the newsletter, Hot Feminism: Letters from South Carolina, and she’s covered the fall-out from South Carolina’s post-Roe abortion ban.

Links:  

Emily’s Substack: https://substack.com/@emilytaylor

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ThePlayTyperGuy
Email: [email protected]

Join  the Player Typer Guy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stephenrobinson

My friend Lee Heidel from Neighborhood Comics in Savannah, Georgia, joins me to discuss geek kid summer with Superman and Fantastic Four movies both releasing this month.

Lee had me on his own podcast a few months ago to chat Superman, which you can check out below.

You will hear:

• How the current run of superhero movies are moving beyond the origin story
• James Gunn using unusual source material for Superman
• The world of comics is getting it’s time in the spotlight and introducing a lot of new people to the genre
• Speculation on the new Fantastic Four movie coming out
• And more!

Links:  

Neighborhood Comics Superman Episode: https://convo.neighborhoodcomics.com/p/re-discovering-superman-in-2025-with?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

Connect with Stephen:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SER1897
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ThePlayTyperGuy
Email: [email protected]

Join  the Player Typer Guy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stephenrobinson