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[0:08] Robert Bannon: Well, welcome to the round table, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to us on Broadway World over here on the Broadway Podcast Network, iHeartSpotify, wherever you listen to artists talking about art. I have been to The Acting Company show and I have been to their gala. They throw a big fancy, swanky party with some of the greatest actors and some of the greatest people who are alumni of the program. And they have a big ol' auction and a big old shebang. And Devin, this is your baby. You are the artistic director of the incredible Acting Company. Welcome to the show.

[0:39] Devin Brain: Thank you so much. It's lovely to be here. And yes, I am.

[0:43] Robert Bannon: You guys throw a good party.

[0:46] Devin Brain: Yes, I can't take real credit for it. Our development team is amazing, and they throw a good party.

[0:53] Robert Bannon: It was really fun. When you think of artistic director, what do you describe your job as?

[1:01] Devin Brain: That's a great question. I think it has a couple parts. The first is I'm the spokesperson for the company. I'm the person that is responsible for articulating who the company has been and who it wants to be, and who maybe it is right now, to artists and to the larger community. And then beyond that, I'm also the one that sort of curates the work. So I decide, in consultation with a number of other people, what shows we're going to be doing, what artists we're really excited about, and how we're gonna build those shows to make sure that they are the works of art that we want to send into the world.

[1:43] Robert Bannon: Yeah. And you've been here for—you're not new new, but you're not old. You've been here for what, a year in this position?

[1:51] Devin Brain: Yeah, it's really strange. I've worked for the company for about 13 years. I started as a staff director who went, you know, was the assistant on the shows, then went on tour and adapted them to each space, and then slowly worked more with the company and got drawn into the office and then got drawn into larger positions in the office. And now I've been the producing artistic director since October.

[2:20] Robert Bannon: Since October. Well, congratulations. And what a killer way to kick it off here with Hamlet and what you're doing with this. You are no sh—when I read your bio, you are somebody who has done a lot of work with the classics and a lot of work with Shakespeare. I mean, Macbeth and Julius Caesar, you've done other things like As You Like It, Of Mice and Men, The Comedy of Errors. You're not afraid of a classic.

[2:43] Devin Brain: Absolutely not. I love those plays. There's something really remarkable about them. Before this became your job and you became an artistic director and worked for this company, how did you fall in love with them? Were you a kid in school that liked them? Did you have to be tortured to read them? How did you fall in love with this work?

[3:04] Devin Brain: It's supremely dirty. My mother read to me as a small child, like every night, and at a certain point, I think she just finished reading children's books or decided that she didn't want to do that anymore. So she started reading Shakespeare and some of those great classics of the English canon. She's Australian, so she was raised in a slightly different educational environment. So she would read them to me when I was pretty young. So by the time I got to reading them in school, I'd already heard them and heard them from parental figures with a real sense of love for them. Then I'm a nerd, and I just really like language in that way. There was a part of me that the combination of being a nerd and loving language, and then also those plays, if you're introduced to them right, are just filled with love and violence and intensity in a way that most kids do hate these plays when they are first taught to them.

[4:14] Devin Brain: I find it kind of amazing. I mean, there's more violence and sex in most of Shakespeare than there is on even our contemporary television. So it's like we're just teaching it wrong.

[4:26] Robert Bannon: I was just gonna say, if you like drama, like the housewives have nothing on the drama of Shakespeare. Anything you're watching on TV has nothing compared. These storylines and the ideas that we love come from this kind of turbulence, fun times. I'm an English teacher, I run an English department, and in high school, a lot of the times we have a lot of conversations about finding the love of classical text, finding a love of literacy and words, and how words are an art form, like acting is or singing is or painting is. For you, you work very closely with students and you work very closely within the school system in New York City. What's it like for you to see the light bulb click on, or when you see kids that are engaged with this text that they did not love when you walked in the room?

[5:13] Devin Brain: Oh, it's magical. I mean, I say, you know, we do a lot of different types of programs, but the Shakespeare shows that we tour into the schools are my favorite thing we do. There is a—I think the moment that clicks for me, that really sort of viscerally shows the beauty of it is when you see the kids talk back. Like actors will say, we'll talk about how horrifying it is, like when you're standing on stage and you say, you know, some line of like, I wonder where this person is. And the kids are like, he's over there, as though that's disruptive. I love it. We had a Hamlet performance yesterday where the Hamlet is in the middle of a soliloquy. Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I who calls me a villain and looks out into the audience and looks a student in the eye and says, Who calls me a villain?

And had five students be like, I do, you're a villain. And there was a delightfulness to that. And that's what these plays were when they were being done in front of an Elizabethan audience. Those audiences weren't quiet; they were shouting back. There's a joy to watching the students realize that that language is designed to engage them, that it's asking them questions.

[6:32] Devin Brain: I think that's amazing, and it shows they're paying attention. I wish they'd pay attention like that in my class. So maybe you gotta come out to my school.

[6:42] Robert Bannon: This production of Hamlet is on tour right now in schools until May 15th, and then you have a chance to see it from May 20th to May 24th. How do you describe this modern verse translation and this particular production of Shakespeare?

[7:01] Devin Brain: Excuse me, of doing this show.

[7:04] Robert Bannon: Of doing Hamlet.

[7:06] Devin Brain: Yeah. First of all, Chika Aike, who's the director of this project, she built this six-person Hamlet. It's 75 minutes long. It's got all the sort of muscularity that you want out of these productions. It's visceral, it's fast, it engages the audience. It's quite contemporary, you know, it's modern dress, really sort of leans into making sure that we see ourselves reflected in this show, that this is a Hamlet that is about our lives as much as it is about the lives of someone that lived 400 years ago. And in all of that, I think it's incredibly successful. It's got just enough—these shows tour into New York City schools, so they play in gyms and auditoriums. And yesterday they played at a library, I think, yeah, all sorts of different spaces.

So they're designed to really lift up the word and the language and the actor. They don't have elaborate lighting effects; there's some beautiful music, but it's mostly just about a human standing on stage telling the story. So there's something really nice about having Shakespeare done that sparely. You really feel the strength of it and what made it powerful and has made it powerful for so many years.

[8:25] Devin Brain: Uh, in terms of the translation, it's fascinating. We have a long relationship with Lisa. We've she we commissioned her to do an adaptation of the Odyssey a few years ago. Uh, we just honored her at our gala. Um, she's a phenomenal artist, and she worked with uh Playon Shakespeare to do this modern verse translation. Um, and what I think is sort of amazing about it is that in this case, you had a director who is also a remarkable scholar, extremely experienced with Shakespeare, who went in and looked at this play and was like, where are their places where I can keep honoring the intent, but maybe smooth the uh understanding a little bit, that some syntax things get tweaked to make sure that we actually understand what's being said rather than looking at a piece of uh, you know, listening to a line with a word whose meaning has sort of changed over the course of the last 400 years, that some language does shift and play.

So she's just made it a little bit more immediate to you know, cut that 15 second. Uh, what was that that sometimes occurs with these plays? People are gonna see it, they're gonna fall in love with it, and they're gonna open a fascination. And that's I guess the whole point is that you're exposing them to art and culture. But you're not only exposing students to art and culture, it is available for the public to come and see these shows at the Sheen Center, which is a great place to go see a show. There's tickets for May 20th. There's two shows May 22nd, and then Saturday, uh May 23rd and May 24th.

[10:00] Robert Bannon: Okay, you're the artistic director, Devin, but you know, people out here, you think Shakespeare, you think New York City, you think you gotta drop a lot of money. There are tickets for $30 or even $10. Devin, I went to Starbucks and got a 20 a venti cup of coffee for $11.85. $10, Devin?

[10:22] Devin Brain: We really want people to see these shows, and we really want uh to keep them accessible to the students and the audiences. The we offer these programs to the schools when they actually go into the schools for free or for uh an incredibly low amount of money. And these public performances are a chance, both for the larger audience to see the work, but also for students that maybe we couldn't get to in their school to be able to come and see it, to bring their parents, to bring their friends. So we want to make sure that there isn't a barrier to that working. It's incredible. The actingcompany.org is where you can get your tickets, and you can get your tickets for these shows before they're gone. So you better jump in there and get a ticket to see it and go expose yourself and your family and friends to some great Shakespeare with some great artists and some great acting up on stage here in New York City.

[11:13] Robert Bannon: So, what do you do? What is the acting company besides this particular program in Hamlet and you going to the schools? What is the mission of the acting company?

[11:21] Devin Brain: I mean, the overall mission of the acting company is to develop performers, uh, to lift up artists. The company was founded by John Hausman and Marlowe Harley about 55 years ago now. Uh, they they were part of creating Juilliard Drama, and they took the first company of actors out of Juilliard Drama, and they created a touring theater company. And that's what we remain today. We each year we do these school tours, but we also do a national tour, which takes two plays in rep. One uh a classic of the canon, basically always a Shakespeare, and the other uh a newer play, something contemporary. It could be something we commissioned, like X or Betty Shabazz for the Nation, which tells the story of Malcolm X's assassination, or um Two Trains Running, one of August Wilson's plays, or an adaptation of the Odyssey that Lisa Peterson did for us.

It tours these across the country with an ensemble of artists, about a third of whom are straight out of training programs. It's a way of really giving artists a chance to stretch their legs, to really do something that most organizations don't do anymore, that sort of itinerance theater company is not a common structure these days.

[12:34] What's incredible about it is that I know a lot of people leave acting school. I did when I left acting school, you know, you say, like, we're gonna start a collective and we're gonna do this work together, and we're gonna start a company, and we're gonna, and it's very hard to do because it's it's hard to, it's a business, it is a it is it involves money, it involves a lot of talent, it involves a lot of people. And the fact that this has existed all of these years, and you have seen alumni and people who have come out of the acting company on TV, on films, on Broadway, and on all the stages and screens in the world is such a feather in your cap. It's incredible work that you all do.

[13:08] Devin Brain: Yeah, the legacy of the company holds is phenomenal. The artists that have come out include Patty LePone and Kevin Klein and Jesse L. Martin and Jeffrey Wright and Harriet Harris and Dakin Matthew. And I I could spend half hour listing all of the sort of remarkable artists. Uh it's a it's a huge honor to work with the company now. And when we are able to gather those artists, we have some of our alums come and talk to the artists that are in each new company. And there is something about passing down that love of these works, and that, and also the love of making these works feel of the moment. The way they built these shows 50 years ago is not quite how we build them today. And there's something really great about both the ability to sort of honor that legacy and continue to let it change and adapt and stay relevant.

[14:04] Robert Bannon: Absolutely. So Patty Lapone and Kevin Klein and Jesse L. Martin was just here. What an the interview with Brunt Devin, the interview was so good that People Magazine picked it up and wrote an article. Not because of me, because he's insanely talented, incredible. So how do you sort of? I'm sure you're getting paid something as are people that work there. You have bills to pay, you have spaces to rent, you have shows to pay for, actors, etc. How do you guys make it fun? What is the funding like? What is it like and how can we help?

[14:36] Devin Brain: Um, there's information on the website. If uh if someone is interested in donating, uh, we do survive heavily based on contributions uh from individuals who want to support this work, who wanna make sure that we are able to send these shows into New York City public schools to send them across the country to make sure that this that high-quality plays are not something you can only see in places like New York or Chicago or LA that they go. Most of the communities we hit across on our tours are small towns, our universities in relatively rural areas. We go, you know, the broadest swath of uh of America is where our shows go. So um, yeah, we're really excited that that is a thing that people still really want to support. And we're incredibly grateful to everyone that does uh does offer that support. It's relatively easy to do on our website. I would give you the exact URL, but I don't have it off the top of my head. I know look, the link will be below.

[15:40] Devin Brain: So all you got to do is go to the actingcompany.org or you can click the link below and you can donate. They'll take anything you got, and that money will be put to get good use because people in New York City and around the surrounding area will be able to be a part of a community and see and be exposed to art that will create the future art and the great arts of the future have to be inspired by something right now, and that's what the acting company is doing. Break light, have an incredible, incredible run of this incredible show. The show, their version of Hamlet, which is gonna, you don't have to be scared. This isn't this is the one you got to bring your family to to get into the whole nook and crannies of it all from May 20th to May 24th is your public performances at the Sheen Center right there in New York City.

[16:19] Robert Bannon: And then a lot more to becoming the acting company is always doing something. So follow them, find them online. And thank you, Devin. Congratulations. Incredible run that is already started for you. And I'm the best is yet to come.

[16:30] Devin Brain: Thank you so much. It was great to talk to you.

[16:33] Robert Bannon: Thank you, everyone, for listening.