Every other week, the editors of American Theatre curate a free-ranging discussion about the lively arts in our Offscript podcast.

This week’s guest is Mary Zimmerman, Skyping in from Los Angeles, where her Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of Guys and Dolls is playing at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. She talks to editor-in-chief Rob Weinert-Kendt about the joys and challenges of working with a locked classic text, about her newest adaptation (Treasure Island, now at Lookingglass Theatre Company), and about the differences between adapting a novel and an oral text.

Also, the editors celebrate a year’s worth of Offscript by looking back on the highlights of their year nationally (excluding a few obvious consensus picks—Hamilton, Fun Home, and The Humans). Our lists:

Editor-in-Chief Rob Weinert-Kendt:

• Cloud Nine by Caryl Churchill at Atlantic Theater Company (New York City)
• The Color Purple on Broadway

Senior Editor Suzy Evans:

• The Herd by Rory Kinnear at Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Chicago)
• Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I at Lincoln Center Theater (NYC)
• Dear Evan Hansen at Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.); it’s coming to Second Stage Theatre (NYC)

Associate Editor Diep Tran: 

• Vietgone by Qui Nguyen at South Coast Repertory (Costa Mesa, Calif.), at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Manhattan Theatre Club in 2016
• Hir by Taylor Mac at Playwrights Horizons (NYC)
• Also, Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, coming to a city near YOU in 2016

Production Editor Russell M. Dembin:

• Futurity from César Alvarez and the Lisps at Soho Rep (NYC)
• Now Now Oh Now from Rude Mechs (Austin)

Editorial Assistant Allison Considine:

• On Clover Road by Steven Dietz at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival
  (Shepherdstown, W.V.), next headed for San Francisco Playhouse in 2016
• Green Day, Billie Joe Armstrong, and Michael Mayer’s American Idiot from the Hypocrites (Chicago)
• John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, adapted by Frank Galati, at Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Chicago)

Download the episode here. Subscribe via iTunes or RSS.