From the Archives: Jon Robin Baitz

Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

iHeartPodcasts

Music Interviews, Music, Arts, Film Interviews, Performing Arts, Tv & Film

4.3 • 8.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2026

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jon Robin Baitz is a playwright who admits that writing plays is tricky. He’s a snob for Broadway, where the cachet and laughs are bigger. But deep down, this award-winning playwright considers it a privilege to be working in American theater at all. Alec speaks to Baitz about his Broadway debut play, Other Desert Cities, that came from a place of despair and loss—and his own personal experience writing for television in Hollywood.

Originally aired June 4th, 2012.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:02.5	Guaranteed Human.
0:04.5	This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from IHeart Radio.
0:10.6	Whatever it is, whatever you do, you're our daughter, and I will love you.
0:17.2	John Robin Bates has a new play on Broadway.
0:20.9	Recently nominated for a Tony other desert cities is about family, dysfunction, and the choices we make.
0:28.1	There are consequences to our actions.
0:32.1	What does that mean?
0:33.9	How could I trust you?
0:40.8	How could I ever be in your presence, my dear?
0:44.6	Robbie, as he's known to many, pursued similar themes in the drama he created an executive produced for ABC, brothers and sisters.
0:50.9	Robbie's strengths as a playwright are magnified by the talent he surrounds himself with.
0:56.7	Dan Sullivan directed Substance of Fire in 1992.
1:01.2	Joe Mantello directed Other Desert Cities.
1:04.5	Robbie Bates often writes four specific actors he admires,
1:08.9	like Stacey Keech and Ron Rifkin, who have worked on several of
1:13.1	Robbie's stage and screen projects. In the theater world, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone
1:18.8	who wouldn't want to work with Robbie. He comes across as kind, human, and humble. During our
1:25.2	conversation, he confessed there's been a dark side to his success on Broadway.
1:29.8	He's been spoiled. John Robin Bates can barely think about going back to the smaller theaters.
1:35.3	I'm ruined. I'm ruined from off-Broadway now. I sort of say things like, well, that plays an off-Broadway play.
1:42.1	It's not a Broadway play. Making fun of myself.
	...

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