Offscript, American Theatre’s flagship podcast for a number of years, is back as a Facebook Live chat with the magazine’s editors and special guests as well as an audio podcast.
This month editor-in-chief Rob Weinert-Kendt talks to Michael R. Jackson and Anna K. Jacobs about their new musical Teeth, which they adapted from Mitchell Lichtenstein’s 2007 cult horror-comedy film and which is currently running at Playwrights Horizons through April 14. The musical follows an evangelical Christian teen whose, er, body bites back against the men who violate her. They discuss the show’s themes of sexuality and repression within a religious context, the novelty of centering female rage, and their process of humanizing horror. Later in the episode, Rob talks shop with Bay Area theatre critic David John Chávez.
Michael R. Jackson is a playwright, composer, and lyricist, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Strange Loop. Named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2022, Jackson also wrote the book, music, and lyrics for White Girl in Danger.
Anna K. Jacobs is a Jonathan Larson and Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award-winning composer, lyricist, and book writer. In addition to Teeth, her stage musicals include POP!, Anytown, Harmony, Kansas, Echo, and Stella and the Moon Man.
David John Chávez is a Bay Area-based theatre critic and reporter who writes regularly for the San Jose Mercury News, KQED and the San Francisco Chronicle. He is chair of the American Theatre Critics Association and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (‘22-’23), serving as jury chair in 2023.
You can download the episode here and watch the original Facebook chat here. If you have any feedback or suggestions for Offscript, please reach out to at@tcg.org.
