Twice a month, critics Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal; Elisabeth Vincentelli, contributor to The New York Times, The Village Voice, and The New Yorker; and Peter Marks of The Washington Post get together to talk about what’s going on in the American theatre.

This episode, the critics sit down for an interview with Time Out New York and 4Columns contributor and critic Helen Shaw (she also writes for American Theatre on happy occasion). They discuss Shaw’s experience covering the Off-Off-Broadway scene and its inherent challenges, as well as her beginnings in criticism. Then all the critics try to finally figure out what exactly a dramaturg does. Teach Al Pacino yoga, for one—at least that’s what she did in her second day as a dramaturg on a production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.

The critics also discusss a new a production of that Brecht play at Classic Stage Company, as well as What to Send Up When It Goes Down, the return of An Inspector Calls, and Catch as Catch Can.

Download the episode here.

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Have comments or requests for what the critics should talk about? Email them at threeontheaisle@gmail.com, or go to @threeontheaisle on Twitter.