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Go in-depth with the leading artists and professionals working on stage today when you go Downstage Center. Downstage Center is the American Theatre Wing's acclaimed weekly theatrical interview program that spotlights the creative talents on Broadway, Off-Broadway, across the country and around the world, with in-depth conversations that simply can't be found anywhere else. Now in its sixth year, Downstage Center, produced in association with CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, has been featured by the Associated Press and Slate.com as the place to go for theatrical talk. New editions will be available every other Wednesday from this website, where you can listen online, download the programs or subscribe to the podcast. |
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Jim Simpson |
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With:
Jim Simpson
Jim Simpson, artistic director of New York's Off-Off-Broadway The Flea Theater, charts the company's 15 year journey from a collective meant to last for only five years to an ongoing institution on the verge of moving to a home that they own. Along the way, he tells about his years as a child actor in Honolulu appearing in touring musicals with stars such as John Raitt; his teenage summer spent studying with landmark Polish director and theorist Jerzy Grotowski; the highly politicized spirit of the Boston University theatre program during his time there; bridging the Robert Brustein and Lloyd Richards eras while in graduate school at Yale, including Richards' quashing of Simpson's all-male Hamlet; his ongoing development of the play Benten Kozo across multiple productions; his years as a freelancer at theatres including Williamstown and Hartford Stage; his forays into commercial runs both successful (Nixon's Nixon) and incomplete (Citizen Tom Paine); why The Flea's central tenets included clean dressing rooms for the actors and bathrooms for the patrons; the company's ongoing relationship with playwrights, notably A.R. Gurney; and how the 9/11 tragedy nearly closed the theatre and then, largely thanks to The Guys, spurred it into a new era; whether the presence of stars at The Flea, including Simpson's wife Sigourney Weaver, as well as John Lithgow and Marisa Tomei, has given them a profile beyond that of the customary downtown house; and why The Flea's resident young company, The Bats, forces the theatre to keep moving on to new challenges.
Original air date - November 3, 2010
Running Time - 1:01:09
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