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[0:14] Robert Bannon: Welcome to the round table, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to us on Broadway World, the Broadway Podcast Network, iHeart, and Spotify. If I had a dollar for every time I tried to be a stuttering lawyer, I'd be rich. The incredible Austin Pendleton is here, and we're going to be talking with the director. Did you know? Bradford Cover, you know, I didn't get my offer to be a part of Shakespeare. I can't memorize, and I don't know how to do that. I can't do it, but I would have tried for you, Bradford, because you're incredible. Austin's incredible, and this show is going to be incredible. So I'm so excited that you all are here. Thanks for being here.

[0:49] Bradford Cover: Thank you so much for having us. We're delighted to be here.

[0:53] Robert Bannon: Bradford, why? Why A Midsummer Night's Dream? And why does it live for hundreds and hundreds of years?

[1:02] Bradford Cover: You know, the play is just very special in a way that is hard to get your hands around. But when you read it and when you see it and when you experience it, it just it's so delightful and funny and thoughtful. And when we first read the script, we all just remembered, God, how just delightful this play is. So that's the first reason we wanted to do it. And then the second is that we thought we'd do it from the vantage point of the mechanical characters, which adds another layer of complication to our proceedings here.

[1:37] Robert Bannon: Austin, how did you hear about this? And did they come to you? And why'd you say yes?

[1:45] Austin Pendleton: I think they came to me, and I said yes because I think Shakespeare is a promising writer. He's gonna, I think he's got something. He may have a future.

[1:56] Robert Bannon: Yeah, right. You know, last time I saw you, Austin, on stage, you were at the Cherry Lane Theater, you were doing karaoke in a back room on stage of a show. You were singing, you were so brilliant. You have made it in a career where your bio just says you've seen Austin in everything, the end. What you've known, you've been here. How do you know how many plays Shakespeare characters? Do you have any recollection of how many hundreds of parts you played?

[2:26] Austin Pendleton: Yeah.

[2:30] Robert Bannon: He knows. Bradford, what's it like to work with someone like Austin who has won awards, whose film, television, and theater credits are exceptionally incredibly iconically long? How do you give direction? How is he when you collaborate?

[2:46] Bradford Cover: Well, you know, it's wonderful to have been in the theater for as long as we have because we've had the chance of Austin's directed me in plays. I've directed him in some readings. Now I'm directing him in a play. I've also acted with Austin in plays, and so it's wonderful to have these sort of lifelong relationships with artists where you get to switch roles and change what you're doing and see each other from different vantage points and different positions in the process. And so that just enriches our life together and our artistic trajectory, for lack of a better word.

[3:32] Robert Bannon: I love that. So Austin, how is this take on this show? What are we gonna see up on stage that maybe we haven't seen before?

[3:42] Austin Pendleton: I don't know how to answer that.

[3:46] Bradford Cover: Is there a new way we were approaching this story? Or is it just the...

[3:49] Austin Pendleton: Yes. We're doing this play as if the mechanical characters, Bottom and Flute and Snout, they're in charge. So the whole play is from their point of view.

[4:03] Bradford Cover: Yeah, yeah. They are doing it as if they just somehow know that they're not just doing their part of the play; they're in charge of the whole thing. And so we've had to take them at face value and see and use our imaginations, but also take cues from the text to see what would they do if they were thrown together and had to do a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

[4:30] Robert Bannon: I love it. So Austin, how do you approach a script? And what is your trick for memorization and the way you find your character?

[4:39] Austin Pendleton: Well, my biggest trick to memorization is to try to get younger. That's pretty... I don't know how to answer that question.

[4:59] Bradford Cover: He just gets in there; you've just been doing it.

[5:02] Robert Bannon: I get it. So Bradford, for you, you're a theater guy. I saw A Thousand Clowns on Broadway. I mean, you have done a lot of theater around New York City.

[5:11] Bradford Cover: Yeah.

[5:12] Robert Bannon: Did you decide that directing was something that has always been a dream? Is that something you've been doing for a long time? What's your journey been like to being a director?

[5:20] Bradford Cover: Yeah, you know, I did a fair amount of it when I was young, and I really enjoyed it, but when I got to New York to start my adult life here, I really was more interested in acting, and I really went for that, you know, and I really was fortunate enough to be able to do some wonderful projects and work with some amazing people, and I felt very lucky, and I was very happy for a long time. But then, as I got older, I started to think about directing more, and when we started this theater company, the Resident Acting Company, we needed a director, so I thought, you know, I better start doing it again, and it's been a real pleasure and an adventure at the same time.

[6:09] Robert Bannon: Well, while we're talking about this, you have three weeks to see the show, October 11th to November 2nd at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture down on Bleecker Street, and the tickets are available and on sale. What I love what you all do is that you can get tickets, everybody, for less than you could get a pizza in New York City. They're making Shakespeare accessible and theater accessible for everybody to check this out. Bradford, what is the mission of this theater company, and what can you tell us what it's like to be a part of it?

[6:37] Bradford Cover: Well, the mission is really to be an acting ensemble, and we've all are artists who've worked together for a long time, and so we really felt that we had something to offer in terms of ensemble theater. We're just so happy that we've been able to raise enough money to do our first full production, which is what this is. Up until now, we've been doing readings, and that's what we've been able, that's what we've had funding for. So it's been good, and that's been nice, but it's not quite the full experience. So this time, the last four weeks we've been rehearsing has been just one of the most exciting times in my life. And it's been thrilling to meet every day and work with these incredible artists to build this show.

It's really an incredible cast of actors. Having Austin in the mix only makes it even more exciting because we're using some sense of spontaneity, and we don't always have to have things the same way every day, and everybody's so imaginative and so talented that it's just like we're just playing, you know? It's like play every day. And all these wonderful things happen constantly. It's really incredible.

[7:58] Bradford Cover: I grew up in a community theater. So, I mean, from the age of eight, I would watch people rehearse in our living room.

[8:10] Robert Bannon: And has that been the feeling you've had working with this incredible group of actors?

[8:17] Bradford Cover: Yes. It's wonderful. What a beautiful group. You guys have assembled a really incredible group. Bradford, besides the legend that is Austin Pendleton. Who else do we get to see? What's it been like to work with the other actors that are a part of this?

[8:30] Bradford Cover: Well, we have Rachel Botan, who was a longtime associate of mine from the Pearl Days. We're an outgrowth of the Pearl Theater Company, which went out of business a few years ago. And so we started with the actors from the Pearl. We were the company members there, and that's why we're called the Resident Acting.

[8:52] Bradford Cover: Yes, that's right. And she's an incredibly talented actress. Um, we have Anique Clements, who is our new member of the company, and she has just fit right in from the first minute. She's picked up the vibe of the group, and she's incredibly talented and an imaginative young actor. And I'm just so grateful she's in the mix.

[9:21] Bradford Cover: And he loves to bring in props, and he has a large assortment of musical instruments. And so every day he's bringing in like an extraordinary amount of things for us to play with. Um, we were joking that his entire apartment is going to end up in the rehearsal studio at some point. Uh, one day he brought in one of those things you walk through, like a beaded thing for a doorway and put it in the rehearsal door. Um, he's also just an incredibly talented guy, along with being a lot of fun. Um, who else do we have, Austin? I'm forgetting somebody.

[10:04] Bradford Cover: Um, we have RJ Foster, who is a wonderful guy. We have um, we have RJ's terrific. He's another longtime associate of ours and artists and um he brings a wonderful boldness to his work and uh, and he's really a very fine actor. I've known RJ for many, many years, and uh he's just become a very, very fine actor. They're all wonderful with text, I will say. So it's a combination of being very, very adept at doing Shakespeare. So that's just built into our group, but then they also can play with it and maintain the language without um, you know, these people are so good, they work on multiple levels all the time.

[11:02] Bradford Cover: R-A-C NYC is where you can get your tickets, R A C N Y C dot org. And then we can go to a Vemprite and get your tickets to see it for three weeks. So, Austin, when you were starting out as a young actor, come from Ohio and go to New York City. Um, was these kinds of parts with Shakespeare and doing classical something that always was inspiring to you?

[11:24] Austin Pendleton: Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're all also in this is Karine.

[11:32] Bradford Cover: Yes. That thank you. Karine Montbertrand is incredible. She's another member of the cast. Um, everyone's playing multiple parts, by the way. Um, and uh Corine is an incredibly talented actress in her own right, and she's also an expert in mask work, and so she brings a lot of incredible imagination and creativity from that. And we're just she's a vital part of our group.

[12:02] Bradford Cover: Uh amazing. What an amazing group of people, and what an incredible show. If you've seen it and done before, you're not have not seen it done like this. So, Bradford, who do you hope comes to see this? Is it is it more than just the Shakespeare super fans?

[12:13] Bradford Cover: It's more than just you know, the people that have been voted all the Shakespeare plays. There's there's got to be a new audience out here that can experience it and see it in a way they've never seen it before. That's my hope.

[12:24] Bradford Cover: Absolutely. This is a production that's for everybody. Um, we we're starting, we wanted to start afresh with the play and to use this mechanical angle to see it again in a new way because we've all seen it so many times and we've all been in it and we all know it. So I thought it was about time we tried something different. And uh, um this experiment that we're doing um, uh I think is going to be something that's exciting and delightful for someone who's never seen Shakespeare before you can come in and you're going to be able to enjoy this play uh that is that's for sure Austin for for you when people come young actors come in or people who have not familiar with Shakespeare what's that like for you to be there their first time seeing maybe there's going to be people that have never seen it before?

[12:43] Austin Pendleton: Oh that I that that's very exciting to me. I remember the well I mean I as I say I grew up in a community theater and and uh and I remember how excited um after dinner in our house my brother and I would set up the thing before the actors do work and then we would speak downstairs and watch the rehearsals and I was eight years old he was six or seven and we well he he's he's done a lot in theater he's worked a lot at the Cleveland Playhouse and that was when we just got excited about how a play can develop funnily enough my whole career afterwards and I was just gonna say, funnily enough, my dad my dad, by coincidence, is was from Cleveland originally, and he started his career at the Cleveland Playhouse.

[14:14] Austin Pendleton: Back in the days, yeah.

[14:19] Bradford Cover: Yeah, yeah, that's right. So many wonderful actors came through that that place.

[14:27] Robert Bannon: All of you so talented, talented family. My dad's a landscaper in Jersey, not as talented and as fancy as all that.

[14:34] Austin Pendleton: That is for sure. Um, I've done a little landscaping myself, so uh it's there's an art to that.

[14:44] Robert Bannon: I love this, and I can't wait to check it out. I'm gonna have to absolutely be down there. I love the part of New York City that this show is going to be in. It's such an artistic place now that is growing on Bleaker Street that is always being somewhere that you need to be. The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture is a beautiful place to see a show. And then October 11th to November 2nd.

[15:02] Robert Bannon: There right now, Bradford is taking time from building, they're loading in the show. Austin, they're loading in, they're cutting things and nailing things. I don't know what they do, but they're building it as we speak.

[15:13] Austin Pendleton: Yes, yes.

[15:15] Robert Bannon: I I'm in the lobby of the theater speaking to you, and they're working there now.

[15:20] Bradford Cover: So Bradford's gonna go and he's going to be going put putting things together. See, he landscapes, he he he he uses tools, he directs, he acts.

[15:30] Robert Bannon: And Austin, do people still come up to you and talk about your television and film career? You still get my cousin Vinny, no matter where you go.

[15:37] Austin Pendleton: Yes, I do.

[15:37] Robert Bannon: It'll live forever. It's one of the greatest movie roles of all time.

[15:44] Austin Pendleton: It's incredibly iconic. And you can see him doing Shakespeare. If you've not seen him on stage, I'm telling you, you're in for a treat. He's absolutely incredible. And Bradford, I'm sure you've assembled something really fantastic for everyone to check out. I hope you all get tickets and go see it. Congratulations, break legs, have an amazing run.

[16:01] Bradford Cover: Thank you so much for having us.

[16:03] Austin Pendleton: Such an honor.

[16:04] Bradford Cover: Thank you all.

[16:05] Austin Pendleton: Thanks.