Excerpt 1

1.                  MUSIC:           THEME. FADES INTO:

2.                  A:                     Tell me of a bad experience you had in connection with theatre.

3.                  JOSIE:             I’m...this isn’t the worst experience, but I would never recommend seeing a theatre performance when you’re jet-lagged. (LAUGHTER) I went to London with my brother, and we went to see Waiting for Godot/yeah, and it was our first...we hadn’t slept since before the flight...

4.                  LOTTE:           Jet lag?/(LAUGHTER) Oh no!

5.                  JOSIE:             It was a good play but...both of us were like doing a head bob, you know...It was hard.

6.                  CHRIS:            Almost like seeing Arcadia without intermission.

7.                  JOSIE:             (LAUGHTER) Right. And there’s also this play I saw. It was Off Off Broadway, and I remember shaking my head thinking...what?

8.                  LOTTE:           One bad experience I had was when a friend of mine was doing a play, and I remember sitting through the performance really trying to figure out something positive to say about the play. And struggling, you know...really struggling.

9.                  CHRIS:            I have this running joke which is like: when we start commenting on how good the lighting is, you know the play is horrible. (LAUGHTER)

10.              SOUND:          APPLAUSE.

Excerpt 2

1.                  MUSIC:           THEME. FADES INTO:

2.                  A:                     What is the funniest play you ever saw?

3.                  CHRIS:            The funniest? Huh...Boy, I haven’t seen a lot of funny plays...but...oh, yes...the funniest play I ever saw – where I laughed so hard the gum flew out of my mouth and onto my lap – was Virtual Reality by Alan Arkin, in New York City. The play was beautiful. There are two people who meet in a warehouse. And the one guy was preparing the other guy for this assignment, but he was only giving him the information on a need-to-know basis, and he wanted him to get prepared for the mission they were gonna do by pretending to unload from a truck which was gonna show up, things that were gonna be unloaded. When they opened the crates that were not there and discovered things, they had to unload things that were in the crate, and the other actor had to play along while wondering what he was doing and...and by the end of the play, they ended up on top of a mountain freezing to death in the snow. They both died. (LAUGHTER) The one guy shot himself in the head with a fake gun and died onstage...(LAUGHTER) I laughed so hard that the gum flew out of my mouth through the entire play. (LAUGHTER)

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5.                  JOSIE:             For me, the funniest play was Noises Off. It was hysterical. It was outrageous. Packed with physical comedy...I’ve never read the play. I actually should read it to see what it says. Because, I mean...I couldn’t stop laughing at that thing.

6.                  MUSIC:           THEME. FADES INTO:

7.                  A:                     What do you think of Shakespeare?

8.                  CHRIS:            I mean...he is the greatest playwright in any language that ever lived. He’s the greatest English-speaking playwright, and from what I understand, people are willing to learn English just so that they are able to read Shakespeare in English. Because I don’t know how translatable it is. It’s hard enough to read in English.

9.                  MUSIC:           THEME. FADES INTO:

10.              LOTTE:           I think Shakespeare should be cut. Any time it’s produced. I don’t think anyone should ever do Kenneth Branagh’s one thousand hours of Hamlet. I think Shakespeare, in his work, there’s so much for cutting. He didn’t edit it well enough. I think he is a brilliant storyteller, though. I think he has a wonderful mastery of the language, but I think his comedies are all the same in formula, and huh...I think it requires an insane amount of work for a director to make Shakespeare’s plays really approachable for an audience.

11.              MUSIC:           THEME. FADES INTO:

12.              A:                     What do you think of Shakespeare?

13.              JOSIE:             I adore him. Hmm...What I find remarkable that even now that it’s pushing four hundred years, he’s still relevant.

14.              CHRIS:            I don’t know whether the time was right or if he was a titanic genius...I mean, it all came together. I don’t even know if it’s possible that just one person could have written all that stuff. In my mind there’s enough reason to speculate.

15.              JOSIE:             No way. The work is too consistent. It’s written by the same person.

16.              CHRIS:            I don’t know. It’s not because he wasn’t educated as a playwright, because that’s not necessary, but it’s just so...

17.              JOSIE:             It’s all Shakespeare’s. There’s no doubt in my mind.

18.              CHRIS:            I mean, think of the workload...It’s so...massive. I find it hard to believe that one person...

19.              JOSIE:             I can’t believe you’re even speculating about this.

20.              CHRIS:            That is so amazing that one person wrote it. I mean Shakespeare.

21.              A:                     What is your favorite Shakespeare play?

22.              JOSIE:             The one with Rosamund...hmm...not Much Ado About Nothing...hmm...The Old Fair? What’s that one?

23.              SOUND:          APPLAUSE.