The Subtext: Making Space With Tanuja Jagernauth
This month Brian talks to the Chicago-based playwright, activist, and healer about the transition points in her life and career.
Stories by Brian James Polak
The Subtext: Writing Across Mediums
This month Brian hands the mic to Playwrights’ Center’s Jeremy Cohen and a panel of multi-platform writers.
The Subtext: Backstory and Foreshadowing
In this solo episode, Brian reflects on the podcast’s origins, frets about the future, and finds hope in an elder’s advice.
The Subtext: E.M. Lewis’s Audio Diary
The award-winning playwright records the joys and challenges of daily life on a farm in rural Oregon during the pandemic lockdown.
The Subtext: Excerpts From a Lost Spring
This month, an anthology of scenes and monologues from 15 plays whose premieres were cut short by COVID-19.
The Subtext: Coronavirus Edition
A special bonus episode features voicemails from playwrights all over the country about this extraordinary historical moment and how they’re faring.
The Subtext: Will Arbery’s Guilt Traps
The playwright of ‘Plano’ and ‘Heroes of the Fourth Turning’ talks about Dallas theatre, existential crisis, and the difference between love and empathy.
The Subtext: Korde Arrington Tuttle’s Sporting Chance
The playwright of ‘graveyard shift’ talks about football, spoken-word poetry, and finding a home in the theatre.
The Subtext: C.A. Johnson’s Trapped Women
The writer of ‘Thirst’ and ‘All the Natalie Portmans’ talks about her Louisiana upbringing, starting out in fan fiction, and why she writes about cornered women.
The Subtext: Clare Barron’s Secret Sauce
Brian James Polak talks to the playwright of ‘Dance Nation’ and ‘You Got Older’ about memory, pain, and first drafts.
