ATW - Downstage Center

Executive Director of the Theatre Communications Group (TCG), Teresa Eyring, talks about the work of the 50 year old service organization which boasts membership if some 500 of the country's professional theatres. She talks about her own professional journey in theatre, including her youthful encounter with Orson Welles, her college studies in international relations; her job in the very early days of Washington DC's Woolly Mammoth Theatre, "where everyone did everything" and her graduate work at the Yale School of Drama; the work of TCG on fostering professional growth for the next generation of leaders, both artistic and managerial, through a mentorship program; the challenge of keeping people in the field, which despite growing "against all odds" has more artists seeking work than there are jobs; whether she perceives a difference in the institutional theatres as they move far beyond their founders; how TCG responds to criticism of its member theatres, such as the book "Outrageous Fortune" and the monologue "How Theatre Failed America"; TCG's efforts to foster artistic relationships beyond the U.S. borders; and as she travels the country, what message she wants to bring to U.S. theatres -- and what in turn she's hearing from them. Original air date - December 1, 2010.

"Lombardi"'s leading lady Judith Light talks about her research into both the role and the real-life Marie Lombardi, and whether she thinks "Lombardi" is a "football play." She also talks about her early training at Carnegie Mellon University; her first professional job, touring European military bases in "Guys and Dolls" during the Vietnam War; shuttling between regional theatres, particularly Milwaukee Rep and Seattle Rep in the early 70s; what she learned from comedian Pat Paulsen when she appeared with him in "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers"; playing small roles in the New York Shakespeare Festival's productions of "A Doll's House" and "Measure for Measure" and a major role on Broadway in the short-lived "Herzl"; why she took a 22 year hiatus from the stage -- and then chose to return in a role as challenging as Vivian Bearing in "Wit"; the opportunity to work with playwright and director Athol Fugard on "Sorrows and Rejoicings" in both New York and Los Angeles; and her appearance as Joanne in "Company" for Reprise! -- and whether there are more musicals in her future. Original air date - November 24, 2010.

"The Divine Sister"'s Teutonic nun Alison Fraser talks about her role, her prior work with -- and sharing a dressing room -- with playwright/actor Charles Busch. She also discusses her musical theatre roots in high school in Natick MA, where she met prior graduate William Finn, leading to her creating the role of Trina in both "In Trousers" and "March of the Falsettos"; how being cast in "Beehive" gave her her first opportunity to show she could be funny; the pleasure of performing in the two one-act musicals known as "Romance, Romance"; how having her own child informed her role as Martha in "The Secret Garden"; her longstanding connection with David Saint and his George Street Playhouse; the experience of working with Arthur Laurents on shows both old (the most recent Broadway "Gypsy") and new ("Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are"); and she reveals, despite her oft-stated affinity for creating roles in new works, the roles from the classic musical theatre canon she'd most like to play. Original air date - November 17, 2010.

Called "the most powerful man in English theatre" by "The Stage", co-CEO (with his wife, Rosemary Squire) and creative director of the Ambassador Theatre Group, Howard Panter, talks about the impact of his company's recent purchase of the Live Nation venues in the UK (giving the company 40 theatres and 400,000 seats a week to sell) and how he sees the company being "vertically integrated," not unlike the way in which, he says, Shakespeare worked. He talks about his own early love of theatre and being drawn to the visual and physical aspects initially, as a result of what was later diagnosed as mild dyslexia which rendered him a problematic student; how he managed to do, at one point of another, just about every job in theatre except for acting; his transition from stage manager, director and set builder into theatrical impresario; the differences he sees between producing in England, Australia and on Broadway, notably in regards to theatre ownership, unions and critics; how he happened into becoming the caretaker of "The Rocky Horror Show" for the past 21 years, and the network of theatres he hopes to forge internationally in the coming years that would allow productions to play for several years without ever needing to set down on Broadway. Original air date - November 10, 2010.

Jim Simpson, artistic director of New York's Off-Off-Broadway The Flea Theater, charts the company's 15 year journey from a collective meant to last for only five years to an ongoing institution on the verge of moving to a home that they own. Along the way, he tells about his years as a child actor in Honolulu appearing in touring musicals with stars such as John Raitt; his teenage summer spent studying with landmark Polish director and theorist Jerzy Grotowski; the highly politicized spirit of the Boston University theatre program during his time there; bridging the Robert Brustein and Lloyd Richards eras while in graduate school at Yale, including Richards' quashing of Simpson's all-male "Hamlet"; his ongoing development of the play "Benten Kozo" across multiple productions; his years as a freelancer at theatres including Williamstown and Hartford Stage; his forays into commercial runs both successful ("Nixon's Nixon") and incomplete ("Citizen Tom Paine"); why The Flea's central tenets included clean dressing rooms for the actors and bathrooms for the patrons; the company's ongoing relationship with playwrights, notably A.R. Gurney; and how the 9/11 tragedy nearly closed the theatre and then, largely thanks to "The Guys", spurred it into a new era; whether the presence of stars at The Flea, including Simpson's wife Sigourney Weaver, as well as John Lithgow and Marisa Tomei, has given them a profile beyond that of the customary downtown house; and why The Flea's resident young company, The Bats, forces the theatre to keep moving on to new challenges. Original air date - November 3, 2010.

South African playwright Athol Fugard discusses his newest work, "The Train Driver", during rehearsals at the Long Wharf Theatre, and explains why this play marks the end of a stage in his writing -- but promises that he'll die with a fountain pen in one hand and a blank sheet of paper in the other. He also talks about the artistic collaborators who have been so important to him -- actors Zakes Mokae and Yvonne Bryceland, author/actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona, and designer/co-director Susan Hilferty; explains why guilt has been such a driving force behind his work; considers why he has on occasion been actor and director in his own work; defines the effect of his recent U.S. residency on his playwriting; considers the effect that the official end of apartheid has had on him and his work; and emphatically addresses recent comments both made by and attributed to him regarding the state of political playwriting in the world today. Original air date - October 27, 2010.

One of the greatest classical actors of his generation, Sir Ian McKellen reflects on his more than 50 years on stage, explaining that he's really only qualified to voice his opinion on two topics: gay issues and theatre. He talks about the recent production of "Waiting for Godot" in which he played opposite Patrick Stewart in London, then Roger Rees in both London and Australia, and which he'd happily perform in yet again (and wonders what the production would have been like had director Sean Mathias have received approval for McKellen's originally proposed co-star, Dame Judi Dench); why he feels that despite performing it in venues around the world, he never really "cracked" the role of "King Lear" and would like to try again; offers his first thoughts on recalling such roles as Iago, Macbeth, Richard II and Richard III; explains the British system which allowed him to move into a professional career quickly after his university days despite having no formal acting training; how he found himself on Broadway with Ian McShane and Eileen Atkins -- only six years after graduating from university -- in a Russian play that was a big English hit but a U.S. flop; explores the experience of playing the leading role in "Bent" in both the original production, prior to coming out publicly, and playing it again 10 years later after he had declared his sexuality; and why without his Broadway performance in "Amadeus", which was entirely the result of Paul Scofield declining to play it in the U.S. and McKellen having gone to school with Peter Hall, he might not even be sitting for a Downstage Center interview. Original air date - October 20, 2010.

Playwright Alfred Uhry recalls the original production of "Driving Miss Daisy" in 1987 at Playwrights Horizons, lists the actresses he's had the opportunity to see play the title role - based directly on his own grandmother - and discusses the cast of the play's Broadway premiere. He also talks about his Atlanta upbringing and being the beneficiary of his mother's love of the stage; moving to New York after graduating from Brown University and his apprenticeship under the great Frank Loesser; the Broadway musical he regularly leaves out of his bio and resume, which featured a book by another novice, Terrence McNally; the good fortune that smiled on "The Robber Bridegroom", which featured Raul Julia, Kevin Kline and Barry Bostwick in successive New York incarnations; how the failure of his Al Capone musical "America's Sweetheart" led him to shift away from musicals towards playwriting with "Daisy"; drawing once again on his own family for "The Last Night of Ballyhoo"; collaborating with director Hal Prince and one living composer (Jason Robert Brown) and one deceased (Kurt Weill) for the musicals "Parade" and "LoveMusik"; and how his fact-based drama "Edgardo Mine" has now become "Divine Intervention". Original air date - October 13, 2010.

Playwright Jules Feiffer, perhaps best known as a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, explains why he sees little difference between his comic work, screen work and stage work, as well as why he has no issue with his 42-year-legacy of provocative work in the "Village Voice" being called, simply, a comic strip. He also talks about his early involvement in moving from the comics to the stage, including Paul Sills' adaptation called "The Explainers" and his own "The World of Jules Feiffer", which featured the first "Passionella" musical, with a score by Stephen Sondheim; how he feels about the "Passionella" segment in "The Apple Tree" and whether he prefers the original production or the recent revival; the journey of "Little Murders" from Broadway flop to London award-winner to Off-Broadway success -- all in a two-year span; how "The White House Murder Case" started off a hit and why the audiences suddenly stopped laughing; how he came to contribute to the infamous revue "Oh! Calcutta"; what shifted his play "Carnal Knowledge" from the stage to the screen before it was ever produced, and what prompted him years later to resurrect the stage script; how his troubled personal life yielded the comedy "Knock Knock"; why "Elliot Loves" drove him from the theatre for over a decade, and why he came back with perhaps his most personal play, "A Bad Friend"; and what's happening with his long-aborning collaboration with Andrew Lippa on a stage musical of his children's book, "The Man in the Ceiling". Original air date - October 6, 2010.

Veteran director Daniel Sullivan talks about his suddenly busy 2010-11 Broadway season, which will see transfers of his productions of "Time Stands Still" from Manhattan Theatre Club, "The Merchant of Venice" with Al Pacino from The Public's Delacorte Theater, as well as the premiere of David Lindsay Abaire's "Good People" for MTC. He also talks about getting his start as an actor and his early experiences with the San Francisco Actors Workshop, run by Herbert Blau and Jules Irving; moving to New York with the Workshop when it became the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center; working as Stage Manager and Assistant Director on the original production of "Hair", and why he had to restage the show almost every night; getting his first directing opportunity with the debut of A.R. Gurney's first play, "Scenes From American Life"; how quitting his first directing job at Seattle Rep (a production of "The Royal Family") didn't impede his becoming Resident Director there, and two years later, Artistic Director, a post he held for 16 years; why his greatest disappointment at Seattle Rep was ultimately the inability to create a full resident company of artists; how it felt to embark on a freelance career again in 1997; and his thoughts on the playwrights with whom he's most associated: Herb Gardner, Wendy Wasserstein, Donald Margulies, Charlayne Woodard, Jon Robin Baitz and David Lindsay Abaire. Original air date - September 29, 2010.

West End musical theatre star Elaine Paige discusses her three month sojourn in New York, including the recording of a new album of duets with artists ranging from Paul Anka to Sinead O'Connor, as well as her ongoing BBC2 program, "Elaine Paige on Sunday" and what it's like to be the interviewer instead of the guest. She also talks about having her first show, the original production of "The Roar of the Greasepaint", "The Smell of the Crowd" close during its pre-London tour; her early roles in the original London companies of "Hair" and "Jesus Christ Superstar"; how she managed to secure the coveted role of Evita and why she had to live like a nun just as she attained stardom; the accident that led to her being cast in "Cats" at the very last minute; the holiday musical "Abbacadabra" that prefigured "Mamma Mia!" and led to her role in the premiere of "Chess"; why she signed on to produce "Anything Goes" in the West End; her experience succeeding Betty Buckley in both the London and New York productions of "Sunset Boulevard"; and her mystification over the brief run of "The Drowsy Chaperone" in England. Original air date - September 22, 2010.

Director, artistic director and playwright Moisés Kaufman discusses his newest project, the U.S. premiere of the 1940s opera "El Gato con Botas (Puss in Boots)", a collaboration between his Tectonic Theater Project, Gotham Chamber Opera and London's Blind Summit Theatre puppet troupe, debuting at The New Victory Theater -- whether it's an opera meant for children and why it fits into the Tectonic aesthetic. He also talks about his youth and schooling in Caracas, Venezuela and how an annual festival bringing in work by such artists as Peter Brook and Pina Bausch turned him on to theatre; why he felt he needed to come to the U.S. to become a director; why he was done with his schooling at NYU's Experimental Theater Wing but never actually finished; how and why he came to create the Tectonic Theater Project so quickly after leaving school; the development of "Gross Indecency", "The Laramie Project" (and its epilogue), "I Am My Own Wife" and "33 Variations", including his evolution as a writer; why, as someone who has had such success creating his own works, he also enjoys directing existing texts as well; and the reason he listed "Pixar" as his religion on Facebook. Original air date - September 15, 2010.

Marin Mazzie talks about taking on the role of Diana Goodman in Broadway's "Next to Normal" and whether she and her co-star/husband Jason Danieley take their work home with them after the show. She also talks about her early professional experiences, including The Barn Theater in Michigan and An Evening Dinner Theatre in Westchester NY; appearing in the ultimately truncated national tour of "Doonesbury"; stepping into roles in the original productions of "Big River", "Into The Woods" and "And The World Goes Round"; her first opportunity to create a role, Clara in Sondheim and Lapine's "Passion", and having it created around her; the journey of "Ragtime" from Toronto to Broadway; her foray into the classics with Charles Mee's version of "The Trojan Women" for the site-specific company En Garde Arts; the differences between appearing in both "Kiss Me, Kate" and "Spamalot" in New York and London; and her forays into non-musical roles with "A Streetcar Named Desire" at Barrington Stage and "Enron" on Broadway -- and why she wants more opportunities to do more than just musicals. Original air date - September 8, 2010.

Cora Cahan, president of The New 42nd Street in New York, discusses her 20 years in the role of recapturing what was once the epicenter of Manhattan sleaze for theatre and family audiences. She talks about her early work as a professional modern dancer; her shift into management with the Feld Ballet, having had no prior experience whatsoever in management (despite being married to the Associate Producer of The Public Theater); her discovery of what became Michael Bennett's fabled 890 Studios; her dual position as the head of the Feld Ballet and the Joyce Theatre, which she and Eliot Feld conceived as a home for dance companies at a time when New York didn't have an appropriate small venue; the Joyce's brief effort in the mid-80s to curate an annual festival of the best work from America's regional theatres -- and why it didn't work; why her first act upon arriving at her 42nd Street job in 1990 was to rename the organization; the chronology of how 42nd Street shifted from Triple XXX to G-rated; the development of The New Victory Theatre as a home for innovative children's and family programming, and why she felt that was a gap in New York's cultural life that needed to be filled; what's on tap for The New 42nd Street now that the environment has changed, the theatres are reclaimed, the rehearsal studios are always filled and even the long-delayed commercial buildings now anchor the corners of the stretch between 7th and 8th Avenues; and what she thinks of nostalgia for the former grit and danger for the street she has reclaimed. Original air date - September 1, 2010.

Downstage Center welcomes its second starship captain as actress Kate Mulgrew visits during her stint in the Off-Broadway comedy "Love, Loss, and What I Wore". She talks about being raised in an Iowa household that groomed her for an acting career, even though she saw little theatre and had no TV growing up; getting her big breaks in theatre and TV simultaneously, playing Emily in "Our Town" at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford CT and debuting on "Ryan's Hope"; her participation in the first workshop of Wendy Wasserstein's "Uncommon Women and Others" at the O'Neill Theater Center; playing Desdemona in Stamford CT and Tracy Lord in Anchorage AK; why "Hedda Gabler" was the hardest role she's ever tackled, why she wishes she could do it again, and why it was a relief to be performing it in rep with "The Real Thing" at L.A.'s Center Theatre Group; the particular challenges of the "stew" that is "Titus Andronicus", which she did in Central Park; the lonely but rewarding experience of playing Katharine Hepburn in "Tea At Five" around the country; her joy at having Marian Seldes play her mother in "The Royal Family"; her feelings about having only appeared on Broadway twice in her 35 year career; and her excitement at finally playing the queen in "Antony and Cleopatra", her dream role, this coming season at Hartford Stage. Original air date - August 25, 2010.