My chat with the RSC

I had the pleasure this evening of “interviewing” the two leading lights of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, Austin Tichenor and Reed Martin.

I put “interviewing” in quotation marks because we really just shot the breeze for awhile. Neither they nor I really had any particular question points or theme in mind.

This was quite a rush for me; I’ve been fans of the RSC for several years now. I first saw them at the Kennedy Center sometime before the turn of the millenium (not sure whether it was 1995 or 1999). Their witty abridgements of not only Shakespeare, but also the history of America, the Great Books, and many other areas of intellectual endeavor, are a hoot. If you haven’t seen them yet, you should.

They’ve been doing a podcast for about the past six months or so, produced once a week by Austin. Matt Croke, an associate of theirs, contacted me by email through The Word Nerds and suggested that we might get together and talk.

So this evening, before their performance in Reston, Virginia, we talked for about a half hour about podcasting, my podcast, their show, and what it’s like to do funny in different countries.

I think neither Austin nor I know exactly what we’ll do with our recordings, but we will certainly get them into our respective podcasts sometime this summer.