Want to inject a little more of The Play Company spirit into your daily commute? From the stage to food to society to journalism, listen to some of our favorite podcast episodes (links are in the titles) and share your own with us on social media (@playco)! We’ll collect and feature your recommendations in a future post.
Offscript: “heatre Architecture, Disgraced in China
(On this week’s podcast, we interview Alison Friedman of Ping Pong Productions, which regularly takes American productions to China. Plus the editors discuss Hedy Weiss, ‘Julius Caesar,’ and the history of theatre architecture.)
This American Life: “Episode 218: Act V“
(We devote this entire episode to one story: Over the course of six months, reporter and This American Life contributor Jack Hitt followed a group of inmates at a high-security prison as they rehearsed and staged a production of the last act—Act V—of Hamlet.)
Working: “How does a Theatre Dog Work?”
(In this week’s episode, we were joined by Bill Berloni, who has been training and managing theatrical animals since the 1970s. Berloni talked to us about Bowdie, a dog he’s been training to play the title role in a musical adaptation of Because of Winn-Dixie. Drawing on examples from Bowdie’s daily life, Berloni helps us understand how a performing pup learns to put on a show and how it behaves when it’s offstage.)
The Subtext: “Carla Ching”
(In this episode (after Brian gets over his anxiety), he and Carla Ching discuss her coming into her own as a New Yorker, despite being raised in Los Angeles. Carla talks about staying true to her identity regardless of outside pressure and the amorphous thing called “success.”)
The Moth: “More Women in the World<”
(In this hour, more stories from women across the world. A group of daughters bear the weight of a family death; a young girl is told to keep her religion quiet; a doctor struggles to stay afloat; and a woman experiences a fairytale romance.)
Sporkful: “These Chefs Want You To Talk Politics At Dinner”
<(This week on The Sporkful, we’re featuring two chefs who are using food to spread political messages. For Tunde Wey (above), food is a tool for exploring the intersection between food, politics, and identity. Then later in the show, Chef Sean Sherman< (from The Sioux Chef — above) tells us why it’s important to bring back the food cultures of indigenous people throughout North America (including his Lakota ancestors).)
The NYPL Podcast: “Masha Gessen and The Stories of a Life”
(On this week’s episode, journalist Masha Gessen delivers the Library’s Robert B. Silvers lecture. Perhaps best known for her political criticism, both of Putin’s Russia and Drumpf’s America, Gessen’s lecture was unexpectedly intimate and personal, tracing the story of her own life as a sequence of choices and exploring how notions of choice affect ideas about immigration, identity, and purpose.)
Rough Translation: “Ukraine v. Fake News”
(Fake news from Russia helped spark a real war in Ukraine. What can Ukraine’s fight against fake news teach the US?)