Recent Podcasts

From the Ground Up returns to the airwaves with Patricia Garza who shares their experience producing hyper-collaborative and ensemble-based theatre at the regional theatre level. Their work at the Network of Ensemble Theaters, Los Angeles Performance Practice, Center Theatre Group, and artEquity provides significant insights into contemporary theatre-making practices and next steps for the industry.

As a part of the New Deal, the Federal Theatre Project of the 1930s funded theatre in the United States at an unprecedented level, providing paid work for trained theatremakers and low-cost performances to audiences all around the country. Corinna Schulenberg and Dr. Elizabeth A. Osborne discuss the history of the Federal Theatre Project and its potential to act as a model for a New Federal Theatre Project formed in conjunction with racial justice, climate justice, and Land Back movements.

Shakespeare looms large over both the American and British theatre scenes. But his outsize influence means that we’ve long neglected a dizzying array of fascinating and brilliant theatre written by other early modern England dramatists. Robert Crighton and the Beyond Shakespeare Company are working to remedy this, and Robert joins us for this episode to discuss how they’re trying to expand our awareness of the theatre of this era.

In these episodes of The Future Is Now, two CEC Artslink Future Fellows—Azerbaijan-based filmmaker Leyli Gafarova and Russian art curator and researcher Elena Ischenko—discuss their vision for the future of arts practice.

In these episodes of The Future Is Now, CEC Artslink invites two of their Future Fellows, artist and activist Selma Banich and freelance cultural manager Fatin Farhat, to discuss how they envision the future of arts practice.

The ancient Roman comedies of Plautus have inspired playwrights from Shakespeare to Sondheim. But they've also been seen as grim reminders of the oftentimes horrifying world of ancient Rome, where violence and slavery were commonplace. Dr. Amy Richlin joins Mike Lueger to talk about her book Slave Theater in the Roman Republic, which explores how Plautus's plays gave voice to enslaved persons during this era.

In these episodes of The Future Is Now, CEC Artslink invites three of their Future Fellows—Amirah Sackett, an independent artist and activist, and Malika Umarova and Marat Raiymkulov of Art Group 705—to share their vision for how they see the future of arts practice.

In these episodes of The Future Is Now, CEC Artslink invites cultural worker Qondiswa James and mixed media artist Cannupa Hanska Luger, two of Artslink’s Future Fellows, to discuss their artistic work, practices, and visions for the future.

In the nineteenth century, Charlotte Cushman became United States’ first celebrity actress. Tana Wojczuk, who has written a new biography of Cushman, joins the Mike Lueger to talk about the actress’s remarkable life both on stage and off.