The Play Podcast
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. In each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We discuss the play’s origins, its plot, themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing. Visit www.theplaypodcast.com for more information, including extra Footnotes on each episode and a complete list and profiles of our guests. Visit www.patreon.com/theplaypodcast to become a Patron and enjoy additional content and generously support the podcast. Thank you. Also, listen to The Play Review for reviews of some of the current shows on stage in London.
Episodes
Episode 099: Till the Stars Come Down by Beth Steel
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Beth Steel
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
It is Sylvia and Marek’s wedding day. But this is not an entirely trad...
Episode 098: Stereophonic by David Adjmi
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: David Adjmi
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
It is 1976, and a fictional rock band are holed up in a studio in California att...
Episode 097: Giant by Mark Rosenblatt
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Mark Rosenblatt
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
It is 1983, and the famous children’s author Roald Dahl’s life is in some turmo...
Episode 096: Dealer's Choice by Patrick Marber
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Matthew Dunster
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
A poker game in the basement of a London restaurant is the setting for...
Episode 095: Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Omar Elerian
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
A rhinoceros charges through the square of a small French village, and soon al...
Episode 094: Oedipus the King by Sophocles
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Professor Edith Hall
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
Sophocles’ tragic drama of the myth of Oedipus, who unwittingly kille...
Episode 093: Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Rory Mullarkey
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, the third of the quartet of great plays tha...
Episode 092: A Raisin in the Sun by Lorainne Hansberry
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Tinuke Craig
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
When Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun opened in New ...
Episode 091: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Arifa Akbar
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
Tennessee Williams’s third great play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a...
Episode 090: The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Max Webster
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is arguably the...
Episode 089: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Matthew McFrederick
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
Samuel Beckett’s tragicomedy, Waiting for Godot, is a notoriousl...
Episode 088: Roots by Arnold Wesker
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Diyan Zora
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
Arnold Wesker’s quiet classic, Roots, is a story of doomed love, rural poverty and soc...
Episode 087: Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guests: Dan Rebellato and Atri Banerjee
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger is one of the land...
Episode 086: Death of England by Clint Dyer and Roy Williams
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Roy Williams
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
Clint Dyer and Roy William’s trilogy of plays, Death of Eng...
Episode 085: The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Mark Lawson
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
Tom Stoppard is renowned for his intellectual wit and playful dramatic form, ...
Episode 084: Abigail's Party by Mike Leigh
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Nadia Fall
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
Mike Leigh’s 1977 ‘tragi-comedy’, Abigail’s Party, is renowned for its iconic s...
Episode 083: The Caretaker by Harold Pinter
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Justin Audibert
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
When it premiered in London’s West End in 1960, The Caretaker catapulted ...
Episode 082: People, Places & Things by Duncan Macmillan
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guests: Duncan Macmillan and Jeremy Herrin
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places & Thin...
Episode 081: The Government Inspector by Nikolay Gogol
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Patrick Myles
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
Vladimir Nabokov described The Government Inspector as the “grea...
Episode 080: Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill
Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Jeremy Herrin
Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.
Eugene O’Neill wrote his autobiographical magnum opus, Lon...
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