Friday Phone Call # 43

This call is with Geoff Sobelle and Trey Lyford of rainpan 43. We're focused on The Elephant Room, a piece they created with Steve Cuiffo that Paul Lazar is directing. It opens this week at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. The project developed over a long time and in very unusual ways. I had the real privilege of being close to the project for a lot of that time. I wanted the guys to walk Friday Phone Call listeners through the process and to hear their takes on the innovations in structure that it prompted. We also talk about the impact of "context" for audiences and for artists and the perils of trying to create a work on a regional theatre scale that you hope will tour on the presenting circuit. There's a lot of information in here for people trying to move between the two worlds and looking to evolve the current relationship of the development process to the institutions and artists involved.

Listen to weekly podcasts hosted by David Dower as he interviews theater artists from around the country to highlight #newplay bright spots. You can subscribe to the series via iTunes or this RSS Feed (for Android phones).