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[0:11] John Schwab: Hi, John Schwab here, and welcome to episode 168 of the Curtain Call Podcast.

[0:19] John Schwab: Now, Curtain Call is the podcast that takes you deep behind the scenes of the theater world, bringing you in-depth conversations with the story makers that are shaping the future of theater, both here on Broadway and around the world.

[0:29] John Schwab: Now we pull back the curtain to reveal the stories behind the stories, give you a glimpse into the backstage world like no other podcast does.

[0:36] John Schwab: And what can I say, y'all? It has been a minute.

[0:41] John Schwab: Thank you for hanging around. It's so much has been going on over the last year and a half.

[0:46] John Schwab: I've been away filming a lot. I do apologize, but the podcast is still going strong.

[0:50] John Schwab: And I will be bringing you the interviews that you want to hear from some fantastic shows coming to London Town this year, including the new musical, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

[1:00] John Schwab: I cannot wait. I've heard some music from that, and it is glorious.

[1:05] John Schwab: There's also some things like Old Friends coming to the Gilgude. I cannot wait.

[1:11] John Schwab: I'm gonna put in some interview requests for Lea Salonga there and Bernadette Peters, but you know I can't promise anything, but I'm promising you things.

[1:19] John Schwab: So keep tuned, keep listening. And speaking of old friends, and by old, I ain't talking about our ages, people.

[1:27] John Schwab: Today I'm talking to the force of nature that is Cedering Fox. I've known her for many, many years.

[1:32] John Schwab: Cedering's most incredible achievement in my mind and in my heart, and I think probably in hers too, is the founding of Word Theatre.

[1:42] John Schwab: She is the founder and artistic director of Word Theatre, which she started way back in 2003.

[1:48] John Schwab: And along with Kirsty Peart here in the UK, Word Theatre and Cedering have been casting top film, TV, and theater actors in readings of works by the world's finest contemporary authors.

[2:00] John Schwab: I mean, we're talking about talents such as Olivia Williams, Damien Lewis, Elizabeth McGovern, Rae Dawn Chong, Rashan Stone, Gemma Chan, Maureen Lipman, Zachary Quinto, Danny Sapani, and hundreds more.

[2:13] John Schwab: And that's not even beginning to talk about the writers, which we do in the podcast. But we cannot wait for you to hear about those.

[2:21] John Schwab: But I've been lucky enough, extremely lucky enough to be included in those names and have appeared at a number of Word Theatre events over the years, and hopefully many, many, many more, Cedering and Kirsty.

[2:33] John Schwab: Now, Cedering and Kirsty have built an incredible thing here, and I am so excited to bring you this conversation with Cedering ahead of two very important dates in the Word Theatre calendar over here in London.

[2:46] John Schwab: And there's another couple of dates that we'll talk about in LA. So for those of you who are stateside, we'll talk about all of this, and I will put details of all of that in the show notes as well.

[2:57] John Schwab: But man, I'm rambling here because it's so good to be back recording for the Curtain Call Podcast.

[3:03] John Schwab: Now, I sat down in front of my computer here in cold, cold, gray London while Cedering was sitting in her Hollywood Hills gorgeous home, and it is gorgeous, people.

[3:14] John Schwab: And to talk to her about all things Word Theatre. And she was preparing lunch, and well, Brian, her love of her life, was preparing lunch in the background towards the end of our interview.

[3:25] John Schwab: So you might hear some things happening. Cedering's okay. She wasn't being hit with pots and pans.

[3:30] John Schwab: But anyway, I really hope you enjoy the podcast. Have a listen.

[3:38] John Schwab: Cedering, I've just pressed record. We should talk about Word Theatre, baby.

[3:42] Cedering Fox: Oh, should we talk about Word Theatre?

[3:44] Cedering Fox: We should talk about Word Theatre.

[3:46] Cedering Fox: Oh my gosh. I am so excited to have you on this podcast, Cedering.

[3:51] Cedering Fox: I have known you for decades, and this is the first time I've had you on the show, and I can't believe it's taken this long, and we need to rectify this.

[4:01] Cedering Fox: And I just, Cedering Fox, the incredible, like energizer bunny that is Cedering Fox. Let's take you back to how Word Theatre started.

[4:12] Cedering Fox: And if you haven't heard of Word Theatre, you're about to get your eyes open and ears open to something else.

[4:20] Cedering Fox: But Cedering, could you just—

[4:20] Cedering Fox: The only thing I can think of, John, is it was 20 years ago today.

[4:29] Cedering Fox: Okay. So nice, 20, a little more than 20 years ago.

[4:35] Cedering Fox: Oh gosh. I've been doing this thing in Los Angeles for a long time where I get great actors into the same room as great writers.

[4:47] Cedering Fox: And so I cast and direct the actors to read the stories. And this unbelievable—talk about the energizer bunny—she makes me look like a lazy cow moo.

[4:59] Cedering Fox: Kirsty Peart, who has a screenplay about a cow, as a matter of fact, was in Los Angeles doing a producer's course at UCLA, and she wandered into one of my programs.

[5:14] Cedering Fox: And I had recently started my own talk fest, I guess. Salon. It's really a salon.

[5:20] Cedering Fox: And so we had about a hundred people having dinner, and then there were stories, and this absolutely wonderful creature came up to me.

[5:30] Cedering Fox: She goes, "Oh my god, you know, we've got to do this in London, right?" You can just see her.

[5:34] Cedering Fox: Yes, I can see, I can hear her and see her, yes.

[5:39] Cedering Fox: So wonderful. And I said, "Okay." And the next thing you know, we are opening in London with Brian Cox, who actually did one of the very first shows here.

[5:53] Cedering Fox: Brian Cox, his son Alan Cox. Brian got Bill Nighy. I was watching Damien Lewis and Gina McKee in the Forsyte Saga.

[6:04] Cedering Fox: So I called Gina's agent and I said, "Would really love you to do this." And she came along, and this whole thing started and never stopped.

[6:15] Cedering Fox: And we are actually celebrating the 20th anniversary of Word Theatre this fall in London.

[6:23] Cedering Fox: And well, in fact, we have a 20th anniversary gala happening at the Lansdowne Club on October 11th.

[6:32] Cedering Fox: Oh yeah, it's gonna be really special. But before we get to that, we have done shows in Los Angeles, New York, London, and then kind of around the UK.

[6:47] Cedering Fox: You have been very much a part of some of these mad adventures of ours.

[6:54] John Schwab: Yes, I love, yeah. I mean, yeah, why not? I mean, of course, because they are beautiful mad adventures.

[7:02] Cedering Fox: Yeah, I think you're one of—Jenny Cooper introduced us.

[7:08] Cedering Fox: So we had been at the Cannes Film Festival because I was working in the film business still, and she said, "You've got to meet this great guy."

[7:16] Cedering Fox: And I went and saw you with my little daughter, Lillian, in the Reduced Shakespeare Company.

[7:16] Cedering Fox: She was about seven. So that means we've known each other for about eighteen years or 17 years, something like that.

[7:34] Cedering Fox: That's crazy. And she was crying laughing. We were howling.

[7:40] Cedering Fox: And I met you after the show. And within the first five minutes of talking, do you remember this? I said, "I work with great actor Jeremy," and you go, "He's married to my best friend, Mary."

[7:51] John Schwab: Exactly.

[7:52] Cedering Fox: Mary Stewart Masterson. Unbelievable.

[7:56] Cedering Fox: Unbelievable, right?

[7:57] John Schwab: Yeah.

[7:58] Cedering Fox: So we started talking about all these great actors doing Word Theatre, and you and I knew so many people. I recruited you immediately.

[8:07] Cedering Fox: And I think it was right. So we were doing—we would do shows in places like, oh, and then you introduced us to David Soul for the Café de Paris show.

[8:16] John Schwab: Do you remember?

[8:17] Cedering Fox: Yeah. And it was a benefit for Freehouse, which is Nick Hornby's.

[8:23] Cedering Fox: That's right. And it's morphed into another name now. But I've just actually had a Zoom with Nick because another of his stories, not one that was done that night, but Alfred Molina read, and it's up on the—we have a free podcast as well.

[8:40] Cedering Fox: Yes, you must listen to it, guys. And we'll put all this in the show notes as well. We'll put all the links in the show notes.

[8:48] Cedering Fox: Wordtheatre.org. It's the Word Theatre Short Story Podcast, and every week, a story that has been recorded live, usually with the author in the room, is shared for free for about two months.

[9:02] Cedering Fox: And anyway, that show that we did right after you and I had become friends, I guess it was like 2005 or something.

[9:12] Cedering Fox: Yeah. And then we were together at Kirsty's apartment in London, and we needed an American to do—you were already doing something else in the show, and it was this big benefit to raise funds for autism research.

[9:28] Cedering Fox: And we've often collaborated with different nonprofits to raise funds for their organization. We're a nonprofit as well.

[9:37] Cedering Fox: But so Nick had written this absolutely beautiful story about his experience of having a child with autism, which Mark Addy read at that particular benefit.

[9:50] Cedering Fox: And we had, oh my god, we had Lindsay Duncan read, Ben Miller, Amanda Seyfried read. It was pretty amazing.

[10:01] Cedering Fox: And we were short one actor for this absolutely gorgeous Tobias Wolff story, which is to me one of the great stories of all time called "Bullet in the Brain."

[10:11] John Schwab: Oh, you had just worked with David Soul.

[10:15] Cedering Fox: That's right. And I said, "David Soul, Starsky and Hutch."

[10:20] John Schwab: Starsky and Hutch, baby.

[10:21] Cedering Fox: You said he's amazing.

[10:22] John Schwab: Yeah.

[10:23] Cedering Fox: And I thought you're amazing. So I took your word for it, tracked him down, and it was like a Friday night.

[10:29] Cedering Fox: And the event was on Saturday or something crazy.

[10:32] Cedering Fox: Yep.

[10:32] Cedering Fox: A Café de Paris with 200 people coming. It was crazy.

[10:36] John Schwab: Or more, maybe 250.

[10:38] Cedering Fox: His manager answers, calls him, he shows up to rehearse the next morning or whatever.

[10:45] Cedering Fox: It has been a love affair ever since.

[10:47] John Schwab: Yeah.

[10:48] Cedering Fox: He and all the actors—he went last. All the actors are thinking Starsky and Hutch, right?

[10:55] Cedering Fox: David's—he blew the roof off the café.

[11:00] John Schwab: He blew the roof off.

[11:03] Cedering Fox: They went—and listen, it's not hyperbolic here. I was there.

[11:08] Cedering Fox: They went mental for his story. The applause, they screamed.

[11:15] John Schwab: Yeah.

[11:15] Cedering Fox: I mean, Ben, I was standing next to Ben Miller in the back of the room, and Ben's jaw was down to his belly button.

[11:21] John Schwab: I'm—everybody was—we—I mean, nobody breathed.

[11:25] Cedering Fox: That's right. Brilliant performance.

[11:28] Cedering Fox: And I gotta tell you, he is one of the most passionate, intelligent, cares about literature, cares about language, serious actors I know, and the performance that he's done for us over the years, including—do you remember the summer when Brian Cox and David Soul were at Latitude and became best buds?

[11:53] John Schwab: You know, I sent a picture to you not so long ago.

[11:56] Cedering Fox: I remember because I came across this memory, and I don't know why. Maybe because it was a—you know how Facebook throws these things up, and this picture came up, and it was definitely around the time.

[12:07] Cedering Fox: And I went, "Oh my gosh, there's little me watching David Soul performing that story with Brian Cox behind him." I mean, it's incredible.

[12:16] John Schwab: Listen, Cedering, the magic—what you've just described is the magic of short storytelling, and what you've done and what Word Theatre have done is to bring it to audiences that maybe, especially here in the UK, it's really not done, where you sit back and listen to a short story being told.

[12:36] John Schwab: I mean, this is what humans have been doing for centuries, for millennia, is being told stories to teach, to enrich lives, to learn lessons, listen to parables.

[12:48] John Schwab: And it's an incredible evening, an incredible event. And it's not just short stories. What you've managed to do is create events that bring all types of art together.

[13:01] John Schwab: So you will have musicians perform.

[13:05] Cedering Fox: That's always been a good part of it.

[13:07] John Schwab: That's something that's completely unique to you in Word Theatre. You know, what was that just because you wanted to even, you know, make the evenings bigger?

[13:16] Cedering Fox: You've brought up a lot of things. Performing at Latitude, where you might have 3,000 people hovering, you know, standing room only at the literary arena, with Florence and the Machine blasting off the back.

[13:35] Cedering Fox: Yes. You have to be doing something right to hold people's attention.

[13:40] Cedering Fox: And correct what the success, I believe, of Word Theatre is the alchemy that actually transpires when the right actor has stepped into a brilliant piece of writing.

[14:00] Cedering Fox: And we rehearse these stories, and every so unusual, I think, is how willing this very high caliber of actors that we've managed to attract over all the years, how willing they are to spend a lot of time pulling a story apart and then stepping into it and having it come out of them as if they're writing it in front of you.

[14:28] Cedering Fox: And there's something that happens to the molecules in the room.

[14:35] Cedering Fox: Kind of everybody's sort of the focus goes in, and everyone is listening, and everyone is hearing what's happening.

[14:45] Cedering Fox: So the musical element came along.

[14:50] Cedering Fox: A couple of things. I fell in love with a senior music agent at CAA who took me to a big show early on at the Staples Center, and it was Nicky Minaj, whom he doesn't handle anymore.

[15:08] Cedering Fox: But it was Nikki, 20,000 people in Los Angeles really enjoying this woman strutting her stuff with nine female dancers behind her.

[15:22] Cedering Fox: And I am watching this thing, and I was working with a writer that I've one of my all-time favorite American writers, his name is John Edgar Wideman, and he kind of chronicles the black African American experience, has been publishing since the year Langston Hughes died.

[15:40] Cedering Fox: He's been publishing for like 54 years. He's a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient. He's the first writer in America to win two consecutive Penn Faulkner Awards. He's a genius writer.

[15:53] Cedering Fox: And his work is very dense, and I was working on a collection of very, very short stories. And I, and after each story, it could be a page long or two pages or three pages long, but it's almost as though you need time to process it.

[16:11] Cedering Fox: So what I thought is for this big show we did at the Ford Amphitheater here, this way back in 2012, I thought we need music and dancers to punctuate these stories.

[16:28] Cedering Fox: And we sold out this 1200 seat amphitheater here in Los Angeles, the Ford Amphitheater, and bust in 500 kids who had never been to the theater before, and their teachers.

[16:42] Cedering Fox: And it was the most riveting thing. People were ecstatic. And I felt that the music added. We had a DJ actually, and the dancers, we had this troop of hip hop dancers, and it allowed you time to process because some of the things are you have to think about and they're not easy.

[17:02] Cedering Fox: I don't gravitate toward, to be honest, fluffy stories. I gravitate toward kind of grab you by the throat.

[17:10] Cedering Fox: Yeah. Great literature, right?

[17:12] Cedering Fox: Yeah. But when you hear a great actor read it, it's not highfalutin at all. It's like us having a conversation.

[17:20] Cedering Fox: Yeah. So ever since then, I've been meeting through Brian, so many interesting people in the music business.

[17:29] Cedering Fox: And by sheer luck, I've sort of grown the repertoire of people, and then people introduce us to people, introduce us to people.

[17:42] Cedering Fox: And then we, you know, then we did the jazz shows for the London Jazz Festival that I created, and we're actually doing a version of that now at the London Jazz Festival and sort of incorporating what happened in Los Angeles in jazz, where people, Jelly Roll Morton, encouraged people to move out to California in the 20s and do that.

[18:05] Cedering Fox: But, um, and you know, settle, and there was this incredibly vibrant jazz scene that happened along Central Avenue, which is complicated from a racial point of view because it's sort of the only place that they were really allowed to go live back in the early part of the century, the 20s, 30s.

[18:25] Cedering Fox: But, um, but fascinating the music that came out of that. I've had my nose deep in so many different books.

[18:34] Cedering Fox: But the idea of music is really quite, um, it's such a great element unto itself. And when dance is required, I really like adding that.

[18:48] Cedering Fox: But sometimes it's the violin player like Lizzie Ball. Lizzie Ball, who is just cursing brought into this mix. That is Lizzie Ball, and we'll talk about her in a minute because she's involved in a show we're gonna end with.

[19:02] Cedering Fox: But I've had the absolute privilege of being on stage with her when she's playing behind. I mean, I got it's really hard to, you know, we're doing something to we're doing this podcast to bring awareness to Word Theatre and this some of the shows.

[19:17] Cedering Fox: And it sounds like if I'm overly praising and blowing sunshine, I'm telling you, I get chill bumps when I listen when I think about the times of being on stage with Lizzie Ball playing an incredible, the violinist. It's just incredible.

[19:31] Cedering Fox: When I when I David Sowell punching his, you know, punching the baseball in his glove heads. I get chill bumps. My wife still remembers him.

[19:38] Cedering Fox: And yes, and uh, you know, you also we've just, um, my son's just celebrated his 21st birthday.

[19:47] Cedering Fox: Yeah, and 18 years ago on Sunday, my son nearly we we nearly lost him due to an anaphylactic reaction to nuts.

[19:56] Cedering Fox: And you said to me, John, let's do a show we can to raise money for the anaphylaxis campaign. That was the first time that we as a family raised money.

[20:06] Cedering Fox: It was the first time we raised money. One of the most brilliant stories ever. Influenced, I might add, by Steven Tobolowski.

[20:15] Cedering Fox: Oh my gosh. So listen from I exactly writing short stories. I got him to start writing short stories, and I'm so excited that he's such he's such a great writer, and you were so influenced by him.

[20:29] Cedering Fox: And then 100%. But this is what I'm talking about. So this has grown. Like you, you know, I could go through the people that I've listened to, the people I've worked with, but you know, you've mentioned Bill Pullman, you've mentioned Bill Nye, um, uh Brian Cox, um, you know, you've got Danny Sapani, Chibo.

[20:48] Cedering Fox: Rae Dawn Chong, Gemma Chan, like how about the writers? And the right, like, okay, Dan Sean.

[20:56] Cedering Fox: All right, you introduced me to Dan Sean. I've never I went on the which you also do a writer's retreat, and I went on a writer's retreat. Dan Sean was teaching, and it changed my life, Cedering.

[21:05] John Schwab: Yeah.

[21:06] Cedering Fox: Oh, you're a great writer. It made me realize that I could tell a story in a and um Dan Sean was beautiful.

[21:15] Cedering Fox: Uh Lionel Shriver has written one of my favorite ever short stories called Prepositions. I absolutely love that short story.

[21:22] Cedering Fox: But Brian Doyle, Ben L. Oakry, or Eda Perlman. You know, there's so many writers that it's impossible for me to big up enough what you've managed to achieve and build with Word Theatre.

[21:34] Cedering Fox: You bring in the best actors. You bring in the best writers. Can you just take me through some of your Kirsty has been, you know, Kirsty, Kirsty, who's being such a successful animation writer these days with all sorts of the series for Disney and the BBC and such, she was actually in the Footlights at Cambridge.

[21:57] Cedering Fox: And because of that, she had there's this web of connections that she started bringing in very early on.

[22:09] Cedering Fox: And then it was Kirsty's idea to hook up with something that's now defunct. But in 2010, they started the Sunday Times started the richest short story prize in the world.

[22:21] Cedering Fox: Right. And so they would have six finalists, and then whoever won would get a 30,000 pound prize. It sounds like it's they they've lost they they don't have a sponsor for now.

[22:33] Cedering Fox: But they had a wonderful sponsor at the time, and Kirsty approached them and said, Why don't why doesn't Word Theatre cast and direct actors to read the six finalists?

[22:47] Cedering Fox: And it was we had this wonderful collaboration for about seven years. And the head of marketing at the bank that was funding it really took a shine to what we were doing, and so he really helped with our sponsorship.

[23:02] Cedering Fox: And that allowed us to do, we did a whole show about cricket. Do you remember this?

[23:08] John Schwab: Oh gosh.

[23:09] Cedering Fox: Words and wickets.

[23:10] Cedering Fox: That was that was, yeah, Kirsty and um and her best friend Katie.

[23:18] Cedering Fox: Um Damien Lewis did that.

[23:21] Cedering Fox: Yeah. And we they played against the authors, and we were at Starlington, and we did a whole themed show that I created about the history of cricket. It was amazing.

[23:34] Cedering Fox: Is though there's one disconnect. It's you almost have to experience it to understand the power.

[23:44] Cedering Fox: Yep. Because, like I said, the molecules change, something changes in you. We say step into the story, be transformed.

[23:53] Cedering Fox: There is something about the level of excellence of the writing met by an actor. Inhabiting is the only word I can use.

[24:05] Cedering Fox: And we had Nicholas Royal, who has been doing, he's been editing best British short stories for the last 12 or now 13 years, I believe, came up to speak at our writer's workshop a couple of years ago and spent the night there and had a, you know, gave a beautiful talk and was meeting all the 14 participants at the workshop.

[24:29] Cedering Fox: And the next morning after breakfast, he pulled Kirsty and me aside, and he said, You've created a movement.

[24:39] Cedering Fox: Yes. And I thought, wow, that's right. Because once somebody gets involved in Word Theatre as an author or an actor, they get really excited for authors.

[24:51] Cedering Fox: We're really an authors-led movement. We're an authors-led organization. We start with the story.

[24:56] Cedering Fox: I spend a lot, a lot, a lot of time looking for these stories. And I was telling Nick Hornby the other day that his stories, there's something he had he does not have many stories, but the stories he has are the kinds of stories I look for because something happens in the course of a story.

[25:18] Cedering Fox: It's going along, you're going along, you're listening to the story, you're enjoying a story, and then something happens.

[25:24] Cedering Fox: So your whole perspective shifts, and you go, Oh, there's a humanity.

[25:55] Cedering Fox: As language is being truncated, people are moving faster, everybody wants everything in quick sound bites. But what I find is that humans crave what you started to say at the beginning, sort of the oral tradition where you're together with in the town in the town square with the king and communing, the peasants and everyone is all together because a great story works, you can be the plumber or the president.

[26:29] Cedering Fox: And if it's a good story, it will really move you. You will connect.

[26:36] Cedering Fox: And years ago, right when I really had started Word Theatre with a this is going to be what I'm really committed to for the rest of my life. So it was 2003.

[26:49] Cedering Fox: And in the course of one week, I got two emails from two very, very, very different people.

[26:55] Cedering Fox: And one of them said, When I leave a Word Theatre performance, I feel so much more compassion for the people I pass on the street.

[27:04] Cedering Fox: And the other one was a well, the other was a woman. Um, the first was a gorgeous, you know, an ABC producer, gorgeous, black, gay, fabulous, brilliant guy. And this was um an elderly woman who had lost her husband.

[27:24] Cedering Fox: And she wrote to me and said, Word Theatre is the church I've always been looking for.

[27:30] John Schwab: Amen, Cedering.

[27:31] Cedering Fox: But when I have felt, you know, when I felt like, especially during the pandemic, and you think, what are you doing? You're just pushing this rock up the hill. Who cares? Ian Hart calls me out of the blue from South Africa and says, I was just thinking about you. What you do is so important. Don't ever stop. And I burst into tears because I was sitting alone in my garage working, going, does anybody care?

[27:58] John Schwab: All right. We're gonna take a quick little break for a short word from our sponsors.

[28:04] John Schwab: And now for the concluding part of this week's Curtain Call Podcast. I would urge anyone listening, and you, I would like you to tell me about the show that's coming up on the 18th of June. I would urge people to go because what you've talked about being in the room of a Word Theatre show is like no other thing you will ever experience anywhere. You could hear pins drop, you hear people leaning in to go, what is the next word going to be? And you will laugh and you will cry and you will get chill bumps like I've got right now talking about it, and you will come away having experienced something a hundred percent unique, and you're in the room with the actors who are there on your level who are also listening to stories being told, and you can, and it's just a room of people communing and experiencing something collectively, and you all leave on this high on this, we've just done something that is incredible.

[29:09] John Schwab: So I mean, I could go on and gush, gush, gush, but I would love for you to tell me about the next show that's coming up here in London. The um is something that's super important. Can you tell me why you're doing it and what it is?

[29:21] Cedering Fox: Well, we have had the great pleasure of working on the stories of Hanif Kureishi. Yes. In fact, last spring, I took a story of his and cast four actors. It was Indira Varma, Derek Riddle, um Nina Sosanya and Rashan Stone, I think. Yeah, there were four of them. I broke it up into four voices called She Said He Said, and it worked like gangbusters. And he wanted to come. Hanif wanted to come. He's been in the room before. He wanted to come, but he was shooting a TV series in Rome. So he couldn't make it. And we got the video because we do videotape our stories. And we do one of the things I'd like to mention is that we have we are really sustained by a membership base where people sign up for an annual membership.

150 a year breaks down to 110 pounds or 10 pounds, eight pounds a month or something ridiculous. And that helps support the podcast, but it also really helps support our. We go into schools, we go into under-resourced schools, and we create these events, which are very bespoke and labor intensive. So I had and we film them all. And if you're a member, you can actually watch the events that we filmed on your members page. So it's, you know, it's up there and it's beautiful. And that's if you live in Zimbabwe, which people do, you can actually watch, you know, and because we had a great writer from Zimbabwe. We're number one on Apple Podcasts in Zimbabwe, by the way. Yes, that's saying okay, yes.

[31:16] Cedering Fox: But anyway, um, so Hanif couldn't come, he was in Rome. We filmed the event. I had his story to send him. I wanted to send him the whole show, yeah. And I don't know if this happens to you, but I seem it feels like lately I keep finding things in my drafts that I meant to send. Yeah, anyway. Anyway, so in December of this past year, I read that Hanif had taken a fall while in Rome, and when he came out of it, he had lost the use of his arms and his legs.

[31:52] John Schwab: Oh my gosh, yeah.

[31:54] Cedering Fox: And he started a blog, which his son is helping him transcribe. He speaks. His mind is completely fine. He's doing rehab. I understand from his last communique that he's, you know, doing some work with his legs. Um but yeah, but is still, you know, in rehab in Rome. So I wrote to him in January when I first read about this, and I said, I'd love to do something to help. And let's do an evening of your stories. And by the way, here's been sitting in my drafts for six months. Here's the last one we did with the four actors, which was so brilliant. And he said I would, he wrote back immediately, I would absolutely love that. And so we're gonna take a portion of the proceeds and of course ask for donations because he's been in rehab in Rome.

He's trying to get back to London. But this guy is such a great writer. So I called on perfect actors for the job. Ian Hart, Gina Bellman, Karen Bryson, whom I just met but was admiring on the split, and uh shameless is joining us for the first time. But we also have Mianna Burring and um Ray Penthacke on board. So these five actors will all be involved. Um Mianna and Ray are reading a story together. It's four stories, five actors. So Ian, Gina, and Karen Bryson, and then Ray and Miana. So that is gonna happen, and we have the inimitable Lizzie Ball, who has toured the world with Hugh Jackman. She's toured the world with Brian Ferry, extraordinary virtuoso violinist, can do anything. She's always at Ronnie Scott's. She'll be involved. And then we have a classical pianist named David Lamprier Lawton, who's played with us before, who happens to be in town and available.

[33:53] Cedering Fox: So it's an evening of these remarkable stories with some of this incredible music. And before that, if anybody is in Los Angeles on June 1st, we have an all-star cast with Alfred Molina and J.K. Simmons and Laura Sangia Como and I think it's 10 actors and two great musicians, a Cuban cellist named Sophia Baclar and Star Perotti, who's our Grammy award-winning pianist and composer doing an event of Brian Doyle stories.

[34:28] Cedering Fox: And you can hear Brian Doyle's stories up on the podcast right now. And you can hear the Nick Hornby story and a whole bunch of other stories up on Word Theatre Short Story Podcast. But Brian Doyle, the stories on the podcast we did in London with Danny Sapani, Harriet Walter, Guy Paul, and Emma Hamilton. And they're just beautiful. And we're doing all new selections of stories on June 1st at the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles by a remarkable writer who tragically died of a glioblastoma in 2017. And I'm on a mission to share his stories with the world. So that's what's going on.

[35:10] John Schwab: I'm going to ask you a question, and I'd like you to answer it. And this is Cedering, when somebody comes to see a show, uh, any of your Word Theatre shows, and they've been so many successful ones. What is the one thing that you would like them to take away from that show and move forward with their experience of art or word as art or stories as art?

[35:36] Cedering Fox: When people leave a Word Theatre event, I would like them to feel a compassion and empathy for other people. Because if you spend time walking in someone else's shoes and allow yourself to find the things that you have in common, it makes you a more loving person in general to make space for stories of what it is to be human to celebrate the quirks and foibles and pains that we all have to take things out of your pocket that you've been shoving down there and pull them out and have a look at them and know that they are, you know, it's part and parcel of this thing called life. And being human is kind of great and kind of messy and kind of funny and kind of painful and beautiful, basically. You know, the thing about it is these authors have lived through these stories.

They, whether they're, you know, there's always a little bit of autobiography, but the fact is that they've crafted these stories in such a way they've kind of lived, whether it's fully in their imagination or in their real lives, through these stories and survived, and they kind of give us a roadmap for survival, if you don't mind me saying so. Because like I said, I don't always pick the ha-ha stories. I pick the great stories, rich, rich, great stories. And um that's, I want to, I want people to feel more connected and feel more um as if they're part of this river of humanity, which we all are for better or for worse, rather than separating ourselves and being divided from others. Just know we're all human, and that's what's going on.

[38:03] John Schwab: Uh Cedering, I absolutely love you. I want everyone to go to WordTheatre.org, sign up, become a member, support this incredible movement, as you say. Come see the show on the 18th of June. Um I will be there, you will be there, Christy will be there. It's gonna be an incredible evening. Um I will put all of this in the show notes. Cedering, I you know how much I adore you. I love what you do, and um, I cannot wait to see how it goes. And for all you big uh money bags out there who need to sponsor uh a movement as well, you know, we the corporate sponsorship. It's any everything is on the table, but come, come see the shows. Come see, and we're on the cusp of getting charitable status in the UK. We're a full-on nonprofit in the U.S. And we haven't even talked about all the work we do in schools, but it's uh we had Jason Isaac and Damian Maloney there. Yeah, there's way too much to talk about.

[39:02] Cedering Fox: Oh listen, I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day and uh and uh during lunchtime as well. Um but Cedering, I love you. Um and I will see you in a month's time. Thank you, thank you.

[39:16] Cedering Fox: Yes, go to WordTheatre.org and click on the events tab and register, that'll take you right into the box office. So hope to see you on the 18th. And if anybody is listening in Los Angeles, June 1st at the Grammy Museum. You'll find the tickets still at WordTheatre.org/events.

[39:35] John Schwab: Thanks everyone. Founder and artistic director of Word Theatre, Cedering Fox. Thank you all for listening. Uh make sure you check the show notes for links.

[39:48] John Schwab: Um, but before we go, just a quick reminder to say that if you like this episode or indeed any of our episodes of the Curtain Call Podcast, please go to whichever fine streaming platform you use. Leave us a rating uh and leave us a review. It really does help others like your fine self uh to discover the podcast. I thank you in advance.

[40:08] John Schwab: And if you want to reach out to me, you can find me on all the socials at John Schwab, J O H N, S C H W A B. You can also find out about Word Theatre by visiting WordTheatre.org. That's theatre with uh R. E. Uh and if you want to uh to find on the socials, they're uh at Word Theatre, all on Word on Twitter and Insta. Uh and I listen, I'm always at the Word Theatre events as an audience member and sometimes as a reader. So I will hopefully see you there.

[40:37] John Schwab: Thank you all for listening. We'll speak soon and stay safe. Bye-bye.