The Quickening

Longer ago than we care to admit we sat down with Sarah DeLappe and Lila Neugebauer, who together as writer and director created the groundbreaking theatrical experience of "The Wolves.” Topics discussed and dissected: anecdotal storytelling in the rehearsal room, reading Chekhov out loud at Annie Baker’s house, ensemble plays with minimal sets, and what happens when the team behind a play about soccer join a rec league.

Getting to know Will Eno — A+, would recommend. Only if you have time. Life is short. Okay, here we go.

We talk with Clare Barron about writing, vulnerability, and sex — in theater and in life.

Ayad Akhtar is skeptical about the current role of identity politics in art. Hold on to your hats — it’s a good one.

John Collins, Scott Shepherd and Pete Simpson, members of the theater company Elevator Repair Service, talk about their different paths into ERS and the New York experimental theater scene from the 90s to the present.

Condola Rashad sits down with Fern and Matt to talk about starting out in New York. Topics include: how to audition, LA vs NYC, how to grapple with coming from a long lineage of artists, and performing in Lynn Nottage’s “Ruined.”

The Debate Society (Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen, and Oliver Butler) has been praised for making plays that are "uncannily familiar and teasingly mysterious at the same time" by The New York Times. On the kickoff episode of softFocus' The Quickening, they talk about how they started. Topics include: chili cook-off fundraising, a first production turning point, why it's important to have the fear of God in you, how you can do bad theater very well, and ASMR.