Offscript is American Theatre’s flagship podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts (including Spotify and Apple Podcasts), and this month we have a very special episode for you.

This month, managing editor Jerald Raymond Pierce talks to playwright Kristoffer Diaz (The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Hell’s Kitchen) and director Dexter Bullard (Linda Vista, Grace, Bug) about Diaz’s new play Things With Friends, beginning performances at American Blues Theater in Chicago on Aug. 29. They talk about why they can’t reveal much about the play itself, about the director/writer relationship, and about making art in a time of crisis.

Then digital editor Gabriela Furtado Coutinho and editor-in-chief Rob Weinert-Kendt talk to two of the contributors to our Summer issue about immigrant theatremakers, Francisco Mendoza and Miriam Felton-Dansky. Mendoza was a consultant on the issue, a voice in a fascinating roundtable of immigrant theatremakers, and a source for Felton-Dansky’s piece about the precarious state of artist visas, both under Trump 2.0 and well before. They talk about the wide variety of immigrant experiences and expressions, in a conversation that gives equal weight to the legal, political, cultural, and aesthetic issues at stake in these narratives.

You can download the episode here. If you have any feedback or suggestions for Offscript, please reach out to at@tcg.org.