How Shakespeare gave actor Michael Patrick Thornton his life back

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2022

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This weekend, Lilah talks to actor Michael Patrick Thornton, who appears in the buzzy new Broadway production of Macbeth. When Michael was 24, he had a series of spinal cord strokes. Reciting Shakespeare's sonnets taught him how to breathe and speak again, and continue his career. Michael is at present the only actor on Broadway who uses a wheelchair. We ask him about the power of language and his role in the play (which also stars Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga). Then, we learn about Britain's top forensic artist from journalist Will Coldwell, and the techniques she uses to catch criminals — which include a jar of strawberry jam.

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Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us at [email protected]. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.

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Links and mentions from the episode:

– Will’s profile of Melissa Dring, ‘To catch a criminal: what a forensic artist knows about the mind’: https://on.ft.com/3rw0lht

– Michael Patrick Thornton’s theatre company, The Gift: https://thegifttheatre.org/

– Macbeth – starring Daniel Craig, Ruth Negga and Michael – is on Broadway’s Longacre Theatre until July 10

– Michael is on Twitter @ThorntonMPT, and Will is on Twitter at @Will_Coldwell

– Select coverage of the war in Ukraine is free to read at https://www.ft.com/freetoread

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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	When the actor Michael Patrick Thornton was in middle school, he saw the play that made him fall in love with theater. Is it permissible to swear on this podcast? Sure. Okay. So my first production that I saw, we were bussed in. I think I was in seventh or eighth grade. And it was 12th night. And the first line of 12th night, if I remember correctly, the person comes out and says, if music be the food of love, play on. And the actor came out, and it was like 10 in the morning. It was a school show, you know. And he said, if food, fuck. And they blacked out on them. And I was like, what just happened, you know? And then the lights came slowly back up, sort of music.
0:38.9	And I think in that moment, like, the sacred, the poetic and the profane were married, you know, for me.
0:44.6	It was hilarious.
0:45.5	It was vulgar.
0:47.0	It was wrong.
0:47.9	An accident was turned into an opportunity.
0:50.6	And I think that was kind of the seed, you know.
0:53.3	That's Michael talking to me in our studio in New York.
0:56.7	Michael actually lives in Chicago, where he has his own theater, The Gift.
1:00.8	You may also know him from the show Private Practice. He played Dr. Gabriel Fife.
1:05.3	He was also in Madam Secretary and has been in a lot of other TV shows.
1:09.9	For 15 weeks this spring, Michael is in New York.
1:13.0	He's in a new production of Macbeth on Broadway,
1:15.8	alongside Daniel Craig and Ruth Negan.
1:18.5	But Michael's relationship to Shakespeare goes way back,
1:22.2	and it runs deep.
1:24.0	Shakespeare practically saved Michael's life.
1:26.9	It definitely saved his career.
1:30.1	And I remember reading Shakespeare in grammar school and, like, you know, not understanding what the hell they were talking about, but it was just so attractive that, well, I know this is English.
1:38.4	I know those words, but the arrangement of them, it seems like a code to break, you know, and that was attractive.
1:46.1	And then I dropped out of the University of Iowa and kind of a Chicago theater right of
1:50.1	passage was there as a theater company called the Ivenhoe Theater with a very bizarre man
	...

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