Reduced Shakespeare Company

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.8 • 878 Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2016

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Discovered in a treasure-filled parking lot in Leicester, England, an ancient manuscript proves to be the long-lost first play by none other than the young William Shakespeare from Stratford. That’s the premise of the latest work from the Reduced Shakespeare Company, “William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (Abridged),” which premieres at Folger Theatre in April 2016. The comedy troupe’s current directors are also its longest-serving performers, Austin Tichenor and Reed Martin. Barbara Bogaev interviews them about this new play and how it’s radically different from every other show they’ve written up to now. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © April 5, 2016. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We had help from Wendy Nicholson at public radio station KRCB in Rohnert Park, California and Jeff Peters at the studios of Marketplace in Los Angeles.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:07.0	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folcher's director.
0:10.0	This podcast is called, Oh, if a muse of fire, be the food of love, let's eat.
0:16.0	And no, that's not a quotation from Shakespeare, though our guests would like you to think that it is.
0:21.5	It's a line from William Shakespeare's long-lost first play, Ridged, the latest work from
0:26.9	the Reduced Shakespeare Company, a comedy troupe that's been spoofing, pranking, and cracking
0:31.9	wise about Shakespeare in one form or another since 1981.
0:36.4	The group's current directors are also its longest-serving performers,
0:40.3	Austin Titchener and Reed Martin. Reed and Austin joined us recently to talk about this new work,
0:46.7	which is radically different from every other show they've written up to now. They're interviewed by
0:52.1	Barbara Bogave. Well, although in the grand scheme of Madcap comedy, it hardly matters what the premise is for
0:59.2	this new production. I'm going to ask you about it anyway. What is the backstory to Shakespeare's
1:03.8	long-lost play? The premise within the play is that we are on tour in England, and we
1:10.3	were performing at a theater in Leicester, and we went back to Titus, which was parked in the park.
1:15.0	Well, you should explain what Titus is.
1:16.7	Oh, we tour England in a 15-passenger van we call Titus Van deronicus.
1:21.0	Yeah.
1:21.4	It's awesome.
1:22.9	And so we went back to the parking lot, and we found a hole in the parking lot lot and in the hole was a pile of bones and they seemed unimportant.
1:31.1	So we ignored those.
1:32.0	But there was also this huge manuscript.
1:35.1	And it turned out to be William Shakespeare's long lost first play.
	...

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