The Pratfalls podcast
Hosted by Levi Weinhagen, The Pratfalls Podcast features conversations with artists and creative folks of all kinds about the relationship between making cool things and being a person in the world. It features funny, insightful and weird conversations with artists and creatives of all kinds.
Episodes
“Literature is not the same thing as publishing. We’re in the literature business and publishing is one thing that we do.”
Chris Fischbach talks about taking over leadership of an organization, the health of print and the challenge of getting someone to actually purchase a specific book. He also excitedly talks about the work of Kao Kalia Yang and the latest work from Valeria Luiselli.
“My gauge of success is how do I feel on Sunday nights and Monday mornings.”
In this episode, Chief Experience Officer at Clockwork Chuck Hermes talks about how he got started doing graphic design as a night manager at Prince's legendary Paisley Park studios. He talks about building an art department and how he transitioned from visual design t...
"You can make better art when you listen to community voices."
Leah Cooper is Co-Artistic Director of Wonderlust Productions. She has been directing, producing, and performing in theater for thirty years. She was the director for the Veterans Play Project, a collaboration between Footprints Collective, Mixed Blood Theatre and Bedlam Theatre. Locally, she has also directed productions for Commonweal Theatre, Park Square Theatre, His...
“Anytime I want to feel better I just need a stage.”
On this episode, singer/songwriter Katy Vernon talks about depression, her fairly new relationship with sobriety, how she went from writing songs in her head to process life to being an actual artist and what parenting is like for someone who lost both parents before adulthood.
Born and raised in London, UK, Katy now calls Minnesota home. She has written songs for as long as she ...
“By having a plan B, it weakens your plan A.”
Kory LaQuess Pullam was born and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas. He earned his BFA at Stephen F. Austin State University in 2013. Leaving the collegiate nest, Kory moved to Chicago and worked with Raven Theatre, Light Opera Works, ...
"If you have an idea for a podcast, please make it."
On this episode of the podcast, Hans Buetow talks a lot about podcasting. He talks about the specifics of working in that medium and how it's different from radio work. Hans talks about the iterative nature of relationships and creative work, the messes and mistakes that are always in the wake of creative successes and shares some of his favorite shows.
Hans Buetow is a producer...
“In India I think everyone is pretty much always dancing.”
Divya Maiya and Madhu Bangalore talk about their marriage, their work with Bollywood Dance Scene and how the two intersect.
Bollywood Dance Scene was formed in 2012 by Divya Maiya, Rashi Mangalick and Jinal Vakil, three dynamic Indian dancers who wanted to share their love of movement and Indian culture with their neighbors and friends.The trio took on dance choreography pr...
“This has been a year of understanding resilience and how humor is part of processing something as dark and deep as suicide.”
Shannon Forney is working at the intersection of creativity, creative placemaking, entrepreneurialism, small business, nonprofit management, and clown. On this episode of the podcast, Shannon talks about the work clown training does to separate the person from the ego and to see the foley of attempting that ...
“I don’t have to be only about this rigid, tough-guy masculinity that was passed down in my neighborhood, I’m into poetry.”
Jake Virden learned anti-racism and a love for hip-hop music and culture at a very young age. On this episode of the podcast, Jake talks about growing up in Northeast Minneapolis amidst a huge cultural shift in that area and it's relationship to North Minneapolis. He talks about how rap music is black music bu...
Nina Simon is inspiring speaker, writer and thinker who started changing the way museums and cultural institutions do and think about their work when she started her Museum 2.0 blog over a decade ago.
In this episode of the podcast, Nina talks about writing and sharing her latest book "The Art of Relevance" and how she came to her working definition of the word R...
“If your son says you’re a bear, you’re a bear.”
Jon Ferguson talks about how his desire to move and imagine and create caused expulsion from school but its what propels his work as an artist in adulthood. He shares how his early creative experiences as an adolescent listening to a walkman on road trips and imagining scenarios, chases, rescues, romantic stories – all to a soundtrack informs how his work interacts with set and sound...
Tina North talks about being the mother of a young graphic artist and how her work has influenced his connection to the arts, “when he was in utero, I was in a show.” What it’s like to grow up with a father who is a working musician and a mother who is a makeup artist and how that made her less likely to wear makeup day to day. Also, the creativity of owning and operating her own business, Moss Envy.
Raised by a professional dancer and a rock drummer, Rick Ausland has been performing percussion and tap dancing since he was a child. Rick is a tap dancer, teacher, choreographer, bucket drummer, audio and video editor, magician and theater and event producer. Rick got his start performing live as a street performer alongside his brother Andy. In 2004 Rick and Andy created Buckets and Tap Shoes, a high-energy blend of music, dance ...
“I think people connected with me better… because I was honest.”
In this episode, Saymoukda Vongsay aka Mooks talks about being a refugee, nicknames, transitioning from being a poet to a playwright and why she's totally fine with always being labeled a Lao artist.
Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay is an award-winning Lao American poet, playwright, and cultural producer. She was born in a refugee camp in Nongkhai, Thailand and current...
“I’m really writing about my experience of watching the thing.”
David Roth is a writer and editor living in New York City. He has written for many different things for many different outlets, from sports trading cards to print advertising material to magazine features. David has written and edited for a host of different online and print venues, including SBnation.com, Slate, the New Republic and Vice Sports. David co-created The C...
“The thing that scares me, that’s actually the direction that I need to pursue.”
Paul Riedner was a deep-sea diver in the U.S. Army who served in the Middle East. He's currently the Executive Director of Veteran Resilience Project, a nonprofit dedicated to helping Minnesota veterans get free access to Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. Paul also makes the Resilience Project podcast that helps veterans sha...
“If someone is going to think less of you for not knowing something, they can suck it.”
On this podcast Molly Mogren Katt talks about anxiety, getting out of one’s comfort zone. She talks about how facing your fears regularly alters how you think about fear and think about doing things that scare you. Molly shares how committing to a year of doing one thing every day that scared her meant a few big obvious things and then a lot of...
“I wish there was one thing I could say ‘this is what I want to do with my life.”
Nathan Tylutki's new business cards actually say "Renaissance Man." This is as close as he can come to describing his career. Nathan is an actor with a masters degree in sociology. He's fully trained in law enforcement and created a one man show called Nayrotica. Nathan's an activist with a history working in fundraising.
On this episode of the Pratf...
“Although I fly the flag for ‘yes, and’ it’s okay to say no.”
Madde and Levi have known each other for a number of years. Which is part of why this episode is full of silly bits and goofy nonsense. But Madde also talks about relationships, making work, living in new cities and where she is in her life. Madde also talks improv theory, working in education and shares a bit about her new project “Down & Out.”
Madde Gibba is a New ...
Katie Sisneros is a founding editor of The Tangential, a PhD student in English literature at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, the voice of Totinos on the internet and a live event host. She is a Minneapolis transplant from Nebraska where she earned two English degrees at UNL before deciding to one-up herself at the U of M. She orders whiskey diets but won’t return it if she’s served a whiskey coke, and usually manages to g...
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