Diane Paulus Talks The Gershwins’ PORGY AND BESS, from Dream to Fruition
ANDY DRACHENBERG: What about The Gershwins’ PORGY AND BESS captivated you as something you wanted to work on? DIANE PAULUS: I remember seeing Porgy and Bess at the New York City Opera and I had two memories from that experience: one was being overwhelmed by the number of hit songs in this opera – it was like hit after […]
Spotlight Interview with David Alan Grier (2.0)
ANDY DRACHENBERG – Let’s start at the beginning – What about Porgy and Bess as a work captivated you as something you wanted to work on? DAVID ALAN GRIER – Well, Diane was directing it, Suzan-Lori Parks was doing the adaptation with the approval of The Gershwin Foundation, Porgy and Bess had not been done on the musical stage in […]
Spotlight Interview with Bilingual Stephen Pucci
ANDY DRACHENBERG: How did you first get involved with this show? STEPHEN PUCCI: The Goodman had hired a UK casting director. The UK casting director had emailed a bunch of translation companies, one of which happened to be my friend who I went to university with. He obviously knew I was an actor so he forwarded […]
Spotlight Interview with Chinglish Translator Candace Chong
ANDY DRACHENBERG: How did you first get involved with this production? CANDACE CHONG: I met David (Henry Hwang) when I came under the ACC Grant in 2004. He was the dramaturg for a new play at the Lark Theatre, and I started talking with him about theatre in New York. We became friends quickly. He’s very […]
Interview with Jeff Calhoun
ANDY DRACHENBERG: What captivates people about Bonnie and Clyde’s story? Jeff Calhoun – Whether it’s Bernie Madoff or Bonnie and Clyde, I think it’s human nature to want to understand how ostensibly good people go bad. AD– How have the collaborative process and the show developed over time? JC – There are truly no shortcuts, and there is […]
From South Carolina to Broadway, Phillip Boykin Talks The Gershwins’ PORGY AND BESS
ANDY DRACHENBERG: How did you get involved with The Gershwins’ PORGY AND BESS? PHILLIP BOYKIN: When I was a young boy in West Greenville, South Carolina, I saw the album cover with Leontyne Price and William Warfield in the title roles of Porgy and Bess. These African-Americans on the cover were role models I could identify with […]
Interview with Norm Lewis
ANDY DRACHENBERG: When you first heard about Porgy and Bess, what captivated you as something you wanted to work on? NORM LEWIS: I always loved the music – it’s timeless. When I found out the other people who were possibly going to be involved with it… Audra McDonald (whoo!), David Alan Grier, and Diane Palus – to get to […]
Larry Lei Zhang on the Broadway Guanxi in CHINGLISH
ANDY DRACHENBERG: How did you first get involved with this show? LARRY LEI ZHANG: The first information I received about it didn’t actually come from someone in the States! In the beginning of the play, we talk about guanxi – the relationship – and that’s what happened in my case. I was working in San Francisco, and […]
Interview with Suzan-Lori Parks
Andy Drachenberg – What about The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess captivated you as something you wanted to work on? Suzan-Lori Parks – I was at home one day, minding my own business, and Diane Paulus e-mailed me asking if I was available to talk, not really knowing what the conversation was going to be. She called me up and said […]
Ronald K. Brown Discusses Creating Dance for The Gershwins’ PORGY AND BESS
ANDY DRACHENBERG: What about The Gershwins’ PORGY AND BESS as a work captivated you as something you wanted to work on? RON K. BROWN: I think it was at breakfast with Diane Paulus and Diedre Murray, when they were talking about re-imagining this piece. I was fascinated by how to get the story in the characters bodies in […]
Interview with Jeremy Jordan and Laura Osnes
ANDY DRACHENBERG: Bonnie & Clyde have been given a lot of titles over the past century… from celebrities to criminals, there’s still no real agreement on their actions. Can you tell us a little about the Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow we meet in this story? JEREMY JORDAN: Bonnie and Clyde obviously were outlaws, they robbed […]
Interview with David Henry Hwang
Andy Drachenberg – Spanglish, Franglais, and now Chinglish… when did this start and what does ‘chinglish’ mean? David Henry Hwang – I think that we’re at a point in history right now where there’s more movement across borders. The old notion of individual nationalisms has started breaking down. You have a lot of people who know more […]