The Present Stage: Conversations with Theater Writers
Dan Rubins
86 episodes
1 month ago
Hosted by Dan Rubins, theater critic at Slant Magazine, The Present Stage: Conversations with Theater Writers celebrates the extraordinary playwrights (plus lyricists, librettists, and composers!) currently featured on New York stages. Each episode spotlights the writer(s) of a new play or musical running in New York City, inviting each guest to explore the genesis and development of the script, the transition from page to stage, and the questions that animate each work. With its focus on plays and musicals still running in New York, The Present Stage offers listeners a closer look at current theater and provides audience members with the opportunity to take a deeper dive into the creation of a show they've just seen.
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Hosted by Dan Rubins, theater critic at Slant Magazine, The Present Stage: Conversations with Theater Writers celebrates the extraordinary playwrights (plus lyricists, librettists, and composers!) currently featured on New York stages. Each episode spotlights the writer(s) of a new play or musical running in New York City, inviting each guest to explore the genesis and development of the script, the transition from page to stage, and the questions that animate each work. With its focus on plays and musicals still running in New York, The Present Stage offers listeners a closer look at current theater and provides audience members with the opportunity to take a deeper dive into the creation of a show they've just seen.
Pulitzer Prize winner James Ijames returns to the podcast to talk about his new musical Saturday Church, based on the 2017 film of the same title. What was it like to reimagine the film alongside the original screenwriter and director Damon Cardasis? How did he incorporate the musical's all-Sia playlist in collaboration with the pop star? And how does it feel to be the fifth most produced playwright in America?
HERE SHE IS, BOYS! HERE SHE IS, WORLD! TikTok theater critic Joe Weinberg rejoins the podcast to preview dozens of upcoming shows both on Broadway and off in the 2025-2026 season! Follow this current/upcoming theater season from south to north in a geographic tour of New York City's theater venues! It's an epic journey through NYC theater large and small — who knows what you'll discover?
Playwright Sophie McIntosh joins the podcast to talk about her new plays Road Kills. Hear why she co-founded The Good Apples Collective, how she strikes a balance with introducing an audience to shockingly gory stagecraft, and what she thinks about the theater critics who are Sophie McIntosh super-fans. Don't miss this episode!
Hours after the world premiere of his musical adaptation of Pericles, Troy Anthony joins the podcast to share how he adapted one of Shakespeare's knottiest plays for the Public Theater's community-centered Public Works program. Hear about his unique journey through the Public Works experience, why this story resonates with the gospel tradition, and what it feels like to hear your music sung in a sold-out crowd at the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. Don't miss this episode!
Douglas Lyons returns to the podcast to talk about his new show Beau the Musical. How can theater especially help to amplify queer voices and stories in 2025? What drew the writer-composer to a Nashville sound and setting for this story? And how did this show journey over nearly a decade to its present iteration? Don't miss this conversation!
Pulitzer Prize winning playwright (and Dan's college playwriting professor!) Donald Margulies joins the podcast to talk about his new play Lunar Eclipse. How does the play pay tribute to the playwright's father-in-law? How do you keep the ball in the air in writing a two-hander? And what would have happened to Our Town's George and Emily if they'd gotten to grow old together? Don't miss this exciting conversation about a new celestial work of theater.
Mara Nelson-Greenberg hops on to the podcast to talk about her new play Not Not Jane's, one off three productions in Clubbed Thumb's Summerworks 2025. We start off with a heavy-hitting question: Why are fart jokes still so funny? But then we dive deeper into the challenges of finding moving meaning in the absurd and carving believable human characters out of the silliest circumstances. If you've always wanted to learn more about Clubbed Thumb's new play development process — or if you've never heard of Clubbed Thumb before — then this is the episode for you!
How do you make a new version of an old play? That's the central question posed to Jen Silverman, adaptor of August Strindberg's 1889 Creditors, currently starring Liev Schreiber, Justice Smith, and Maggie Siff, in this riveting conversation about what it means to reimagine classic drama. Don't miss this dramaturgical deep dive as Silverman explores how they both upheld and upended Strindberg's original.
Pulitzer Prize finalist Itamar Moses joins the podcast to talk all things DEAD OUTLAW, his new Broadway musical about the life, death, and after-death of the very real scofflaw Elmer McCurdy. How did writing the show for Audible impact the storytelling? How did he decide which extraordinary facts of Elmer's unbelievable story to leave on the cutting-room floor? Why did he make Andrew Durand play dead for half the show? And what kind of people write a musical all about the inevitability of death? For answers to all those and more, don't miss this essential episode of The Present Stage!
Whatever happened to Coco? Patrick Foley and Michael Breslin, co-founders of the Fake Friends theater company and Pulitzer Prize finalists for Circle Jerk, join the podcast to talk about their new musical The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse. How do you write a stage show that takes place almost entirely online? What is it like for two millennial writers to create a trio of Gen-Z protagonists who are obsessed with millennial culture? And just how cool is Natalie Walker? For answers to these and more, don't miss this episode.
Tony winner Adam Guettel returns to the podcast to celebrate the revival of Floyd Collins, his 1996 off-Broadway musical making its Broadway debut. Don't miss this electric conversation that goes deep into the score of Floyd Collins and Adam Guettel's compositional process. You might even hear some exclusive snippets of cut material! If you want to go spelunking into the staves of Guettel's score, there's no better cavern to explore than this conversation on The Present Stage!
Benjamin Velez is back on The Present Stage to talk about his new musical Real Women Have Curves, his Broadway debut as co-composer and co-lyricist! What was it like to collaborate on a new musical over Zoom with Mexican American pop star Joy Huerta? How did the collaborators approach adapting a well-known film for a contemporary audience? And how did Velez incorporate the music of the factory sewing machine into this Tony-nominated score?
Composer-lyricist-bookwriter Adam Gwon joins the podcast to talk about his new musical All the World's A Stage. What are the challenges and opportunities in crafting a musical for only four performers? What is it like to return to writing a musical on your own after decades of collaboration? And how can theater amplify empathy and community? (BONUS: Are you superfan enough to catch the Ordinary Days Easter egg in this latest show?)
Ryan J. Haddad to talk all things solo performance, creating accessible theater experiences, and the concept of "access intimacy" in his new one-man play Hold Me in the Water. Don't miss this powerful chat with a leading playwright-performer voice.
It's time for a SPECIAL AWARDS EPISODE! Esteemed critics Brittani Samuel and Joe Weinberg join Dan for an epic conversation about the best theater of the season in preparation for the upcoming announcements of the 2025 Tony nominations and Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Oh, Mary or English? Audra or Nicole? Pudgy the Dog or Hwaboon? (Ok, we don't actually debate that last one.) Don't miss this insightful, fun-filled tour through the Pulitzer-contending slate and through the 2024-2025 Broadway season!
Mona Pirnot is BACK on the podcast and this time, she's written a solo play performed by the playwright-performer David Greenspan about a playwright named Mona writing a play to be performed by the playwright-performer David Greenspan. This is the ultimate playwright's play that digs into what it means to dedicate yourself to writing for the stage and whether that's ultimately an act of self-sacrifice or self-aggrandizement or both or something in between. We get into all of it (and more!) this week on The Present Stage!!
Emil Weinstein joins the podcast to share about the creation of Becoming Eve, a theatrical adaptation of a memoir by Abby Chava Stein, once a Hasidic rabbi, that charts her journey towards coming out as a transgender woman. We explore the unexpected obstacles to getting the play staged after the Archdiocese that ran the Connelly Theater blocked the production, as well as the intricacies of how playwright and memoirist became friends as he adapted her story and how that friendship impacted the writing and rehearsal process. We also dive into the use of puppetry in the play, the challenge of engaging audiences in a conversation about rabbinical scholarship, and the significance of telling trans stories in 2025.
Leegrid Stevens, writer and composer of the Trojans and Co-Artistic Director of Loading Dock Theatre, joins the podcast to talk about how he built this new synth-wave pop, Homeric memory musical. He delves into how his background as a sound designer influences his storytelling as a writer and explores how he fused ancient myth and 80s adolescent lore.
Ken Urban joins the podcast to discuss his new play Danger and Opportunity, premiering in an intimate production at The East Village Basement. He shares how a unique venue and Jack Serio's distinct directorial vision helped to shape the play, what it means to write a piece of theater set during the pandemic, and what it's like to watch the audience watch Danger and Opportunity in such close quarters. Don't miss this exciting conversation about an intriguing new play!
Caragh Donley joins the podcast after her second public performance, "He Said, She Says," her solo show about coming out as transgender in her 60s, to share her journey to the stage. In this conversation, Donley, a Senior Producer for the Kelly Clarkson Show, shares why telling her story has become a central part of her mission and identity, how she made the leap to theater-making, and which jokes in the show are in the script just to make her laugh.
The Present Stage: Conversations with Theater Writers
Hosted by Dan Rubins, theater critic at Slant Magazine, The Present Stage: Conversations with Theater Writers celebrates the extraordinary playwrights (plus lyricists, librettists, and composers!) currently featured on New York stages. Each episode spotlights the writer(s) of a new play or musical running in New York City, inviting each guest to explore the genesis and development of the script, the transition from page to stage, and the questions that animate each work. With its focus on plays and musicals still running in New York, The Present Stage offers listeners a closer look at current theater and provides audience members with the opportunity to take a deeper dive into the creation of a show they've just seen.
