Is acting like riding a bike? Like doing yoga after not stretching for a few years? In this episode, I get the opportunity to talk with Alissa Branch and Tim Grimm, two amazing actors, artists, and humans who haven’t tread the boards in a few years and see what their comeback really feels like as they prepare for The Lion in Winter opening October 9th at OSP. We also discuss collaborative efforts on the stage and as a married couple, the impact of art across mediums, and the consequences of technology reliance on art.
Please come see The Lion in Winter at OSP opening October 9th and closing the 19th. See the links below for tickets to the show, Tim Grimm’s #1 Folk song “Broken Truth,” and tickets to Theatre Crude’s opening performances.
The arts are under attack, and buying tickets is a great way to show your support and fight back.
Buy Tickets — Oklahoma Shakespeare: The Lion in Winter
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Thank you for listening!
Host/Shakespearean Shrew: Karen Feiner
Co-Creator/Brew Shrew: Michelle Coffman
Cover Art Creator/Artistic Shrew: Katie Kimberling www.halfmaverick.com
Thank you to our guests Tim Grimm and Alissa Branch.
ALISSA BRANCH is a theatrical and visual artist based in Norman, OK, where she serves as Associate Professor of Acting in the Helmerich School of Drama. Favorite directing credits include Oklahoma Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet(2023), Pride and Prejudice (2022); Phoenix Theatre: The Circumference of a Squirrel; Butler University: The Dreaming of The Bones (with subsequent tour of Southern Ireland). OU University Theatre: Twelfth Night, Arcadia, Summer and Smoke, Clybourne Park, Mary Stuart, Julius Caesar; OU Lab Theatre: Proof (2023), Miss Evers’ Boys (KCACTF Region 6 Director’s Choice Award, and Standard Bank Silver Ovation Award, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa), Anna in the Tropics; 9 Parts of Desire (KCACTF Region 6 Director’s Choice Award). Alissa also directed the regional premiere of the new play Shakespeare’s Other Women, which received Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region 6 awards for Outstanding Work with Heightened Text, and Excellence in Ensemble Acting. Alissa recently created and released a 12-episode video master class for The Great Courses Plus called “Shakespeare: From Page to Stage.” Alissa is also a painter. She and her partner, singer-songwriter Tim Grimm, share a small visual art gallery called Black Chalk Studio. Visit www.alissabranch.com to learn more.
Tim Grimm is a bit of a Renaissance man in the performing arts world, forging a rich and varied career that blends his love of songwriting, travel, and acting in theatre, film and television. For most of his 25-year career as a storytelling balladeer in the tradition of John Prine, Woody Guthrie, and Bob Dylan, Tim has written primarily about community, history, family, and social issues - often framed by his strong sense of place and the many years he spent on the family farm he built in rural Indiana. His songs are filled with rural characters and landscapes, written and sung with vivid warmth and intimacy.