Podcasts about Shakespeare festival

Another visit to 1890's London to house sit for Dr. Watson leads Madison on a new adventure with Sherlock Holmes.  This time they attend a Shakespeare Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon – only to end up being shot at! But was it on purpose or merely an accident?  With a femme fatale, a bookish husband and a handsome young actor, Madison will join the world's most famous sleuth to try and prevent a murder! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Another visit to 1890's London to house sit for Dr. Watson leads Madison on a new adventure with Sherlock Holmes.  This time they attend a Shakespeare Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon – only to end up being shot at! But was it on purpose or merely an accident?  With a femme fatale, a bookish husband and a handsome young actor, Madison will join the world's most famous sleuth to try and prevent a murder! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's episode is a shakeup from the normal. Today Mike Peron and Rob Galloway skip the guest interview to chat about all of the events and entertainment you need to add to your calendar for the summer of 2025!   MAY: 5/24: Matisyahu (Bally's)  5/24 – 25: Made in Tahoe Festival (Palisades) 5/30: Kevin Hart in Reno (Nugget Event Center) 5/31: Jefferson Starship (Harrah's) + Jackie Greene/Hot Buttered Rum at CBC 5/31: Big Blue Adventure Tail Wagger (NT Regional Park) – run with your dog 5k & 1-mile runs + dog-focused festival 8am - 3:30pm 5/31 – June 1: America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride 6/2 - 6/4: Backcountry Festival at Corely Ranch in Carson Valley 6/7:  The Hip Abduction (The Hangar) Tahoe City Food & Wine Classic   Soroptimist Wine & Restaurant Faire Dinner - 50th anniv on this (Coyote Moon Golf Course) Bowl Incline has Words to Water – benefit concert from WaterHope.org  6/8, 7/13, 8/10, 9/7: Music in Paradise Park (SLT) Trey Stone, Dirty Cello, Mescalito, Boot Juice 6/8: Wiz Khalifa (Cargo in Reno) 6/8: Tahoe Joy Festival (Commons Beach in Tahoe City) – 10 regional bands + student musicians + local vendors & food trucks 6/8: Maker Show at Truckee Roundhouse (Tr Tah Airport) – think of a craft fair where you are the one making all the crafts 6/14: Rod Stewart (Caesars Republic) + Lonestar (Truckee Rodeo Grounds for Latitude 39 Festival – 3rd year) 6/15: Valhalla Free Lawn Concerts 6/19 - 22: Broken Arrow Skyrace (Palisades)  6/19 – 20: Brighter Daze Music Festival – (Reno) Rebelution, Slightly Stoopid, E-40, Pepper, DENM, The Elovaters & more 6/19 – 20: Skate the Lake (Common's Beach)  6/19 – 28: Reno Rodeo – lots of events happening around the event and the kickoff concert is Scotty McCreery 6/21-6/22: Tahoe MTB Fest 6/21: Truckee Reggae Fest (Truckee Regional Park Outdoor Ampitheater) – Barrington Levy & Mystic Roots headline Sun. 6/22: Rock Tahoe Half Marathon  6/24 – 25: Trailcon (Palisades) trail & ultra running event + panelists & a festival  6/26: Aaron Lewis at TJ's Corral in Minden 6/28: Earth, Wind & Fire (Caesars Republic) + Western States Endurance Run – 100 mile race that is the world's oldest 100 mile trail race – starts in Olympic Valley and ends in Auburn JULY 7/1: Cascade Kitchens opening 7/6 – 7: Shakespeare Festival beings (runs thru August 23, 24) Twelfth Night & Peter & the Starcatcher 7/9-7/13: Celeb Golf 7/10: Tunes on Tap music series starts at Alibi in Incline Village  7/11: Mini Enduro (Northstar) MTB rider competition tailored for intermediate riders 7/12: Polish Ambassador (The Hangar) 7/12: Truckee Brewfest (Truckee River Regional Park) – put on by Truckee Optimist Club – all proceeds support Truckee youth programs 7/12 – 13: Wild Lotus Yoga Festival (Palisades) 7/13: Junior Downhill Series (Northstar) riders 12 & under 7/14 – 20: Barracuda Open – formerly the Reno-Tahoe Open – PGA event at Old Greenwood 7/18 - 19: Jon Pardi (Caesars Republic) 7/19 - 20: Tahoe Trail 100 (Northstar) – ride 50k or 100k of the Tahoe Trail MTB 24 – 25: Gambler's Run Music Festival (CBC) – Brothers Comatose, Beats Antique, Papadosio & Paul Thorn 26: Dropkick Murphy's, Bad Religion & Mainliners (GSR in Reno) 26: Kane Brown (Caesars) 30: Steve Earle (Harrah's)   AUGUST 8/1 - 2: Old Dominion (Caesars Republic) 8/8: Hozier & Gigi Perez 8/8 – 9: Concours d'Elegance wooden boat show (Obexer's Boat Co. in Homewood) – 51 years 8/9: Taste of Gold (LTCC) - the foundation's annual fundraiser for the college - lots of wine and food  8/10: Creed, 3 Doors Down & Mammoth WVH (Caesars Republic) + 311 at GSR in Reno 8/15: Whiskey Myers & Tedeschi Trucks Band (Caesars Republic) 8/16 – 17: Valhalla Renaissance Faire (Tahoe Valley Campground) 8/21: Collie Buddz (The Hangar) 8/23 – 24: Lake Tahoe Triathlon (Sugar Pine Point St Park) 8/23: Comic Con (TB Event Center) 8/23: Tahoe BrewFest (Ski Run SLT) 8/24: Weird Al Yankovic (Caesars Republic) 8/26: Dave Matthews Band (Caesars Republic) 9/5: Hollow Coves (The Hangar) 9/6: Sample the Sierra 9/6: Teddy Swims (Caesars) 9/14: Darius Rucker (Caesars) 9/18 – 21: Tahoe Wine + Feast (TBEC) 9/27-9/28: Tahoe Games @ Caesars    FALL & 2026 TEASERS: Fall Fest @ Paradise Park: Oct. 18-19, 2025 Curling Grand Slam @ TBEC: Nov. 4-9, 2025 Celebrity Banked Slalom @ Heav: Apr. 3-5, 2026 Foam Glow @ TBEC: Fall 2026

Meet Sarah Bruner, Producing Artistic Director of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, and Hannah Read Newbill, Festival Director of Marketing. We had a lively and inspiring conversation about the upcoming season and the immense effort it takes to bring five exceptional professional productions to life, running from May through September at the festival's stunning outdoor amphitheater. This 770-seat, state-of-the-art venue is thoughtfully designed to enhance the natural power of the human voice, while seamlessly blending into the breathtaking landscape that surrounds it—a habitat rich with diverse plant and animal life. The Festival thrives through a meaningful partnership with the Idaho Foundation for Parks and Lands and the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation. Its mission reaches beyond entertainment, embracing education and community engagement through the magic of live theater. A proud member of the Shakespeare Theatre Association (STA), the Idaho Shakespeare Festival invites you to be part of a truly unforgettable season beneath the enchanting Idaho skies. Learn more at idahoshakespeare.org — and don't miss your chance to experience this remarkable celebration of art and nature.

In a twist the Bard himself would've be proud of, a Javanese shadow theatre is a star turn at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Taranaki. Taranaki Whanganui reporter Robin Martin went to a workshop run by the troupe.

Erik Roth is an accomplished shamanic and alchemical astrologer, author and teacher. He has been practicing the art and language of astrology since 2010 and has helped thousands of people through astrological readings, mentoring and teaching/facilitating. Erik was the Managing Director of the Shamanic Astrology Mystery School for nine years and now he is in the process of evolving his astrological practice beyond shamanic astrology. In addition, he currently co-teaches annual online courses with Cayelin Castell that are focused upon the magic, symbolism and alchemy of the stars.Shamanic Astrology Readings and classes from Erik Roth

Daniel SeidmanComposer & Co-LyricistDr. Daniel Seidman is a licensed clinical psychologist practicing in New York City. Dan started playing in a band at the age of 12 at the Cafe Wha in Greenwich Village. At the age of 15, he toured the U.S. and Canada playing Hammond organ for Chubby Checker. He completed a year as a composition major at the Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1972-1973, and a B.A. in History from SUNY Binghamton. He received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1988, and subsequently joined the faculty at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) where he taught, practiced psychology, and did research for 30 years. He retired from Columbia in June of 2018. Fifth Avenue the musical originally grew out of Dan's combined interest in jazz and history. Discussions with a history professor Albert Fried about the immigrant experiences of the Irish, Jews, Italians and in more contemporary times, Blacks, Hispanics and the Chinese provided insight into the “dark side” of the American dream and its “underworld culture”. This is the story Fried tells in his book “The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America” (Columbia University Press). After college, Dan began composing the music for "Fifth Avenue" while employed by the Shubert Organization in New York City. He met Susan Crawford, who wrote the book and co-wrote the lyrics for Fifth Avenue, in 1979. They were married in 1984 and are now the proud parents of two grown sons. Susan CrawfordBook Writer and Co-LyricistMy theater life began at 13 in my hometown's Shakespeare Festival. It evolved into much acting from then into my 30's. It soon overlapped with an interest in playwriting, and I finished my first play at 24. Eventually writing overcame acting for me. For that I studied with Arthur Kopit and John Guare; lyric writing at the ASCAP workshop, and with Sheila Davis, and Dorothy Fields. Around that time I co-developed the continuity for Ned Sherrin for “Only In America” songs by Leiber and Stoller. It ran at the Roundhouse in London, and was a distant antecedent to what became “Smoky Joe's Cafe.” “Dollars to Doughnuts, a Comedy for the 99%” was my master's thesis in the CCNY Graduate Writing Program where I studied with Arthur Kopit. It was a finalist in the O'Neill Playwriting Conference the year it was finished (under the title "Lotto"). For the summer 2022 season, it was selected by Theatre for the New City's “Dream Up” Festival where it was workshopped and is now being submitted for production. My one-act "Place Settings" was selected for the Chain Theatre's 2023 Winter One-Act Festival, and is also available for production.R.K. GreeneProducer and Executive Director of The StoryLine Project, LLC, a theatrical production company developing new shows. Shows include: * "Beau The Musical" by Lyons & Pakchar now an award-winning feature-length motion picture; * "Fifth Avenue" in development by Susan Crawford & Daniel Seidman* "Harmony" by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman on Broadway; * "Farinelli and the King" with Mark Rylance on Broadway;* "Terms of Endearment" with Molly Ringwald Off-Broadway and licensing thru Playscripts;* "A Time to Kill" with Patrick Page, Tonya Pinkins, Tom Skerritt, Fred Thompson and John Douglas Thompson on Broadway; * "Peter and the Starcatcher" winner of five Tony awards and now an Australian Tour in 2024-25; * "Cougar The Musical" Off-Broadway and licensing thru Concord Theatricals;* "Love Child" with Daniel Jenkins and Robert Stanton Off-Broadway and licensing thru Playscripts;* "Room Service" Off-Broadway. See https://www.storylineproject.com/Fifth AvenueWhat happens when your American Dream keeps getting caught up in other peoples' schemes?  Max and Willy borrow money to go legit and open a nightclub during prohibition offering ‘Fifth Avenue' class in NYC's Hell's Kitchen.  Meanwhile the younger generation chase their own versions of the ‘American Dream.'

Tom Ridgely, Producing Artistic Director, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival joins Debbie Monterrey as the organization marks its 25th Anniversary with a partnership with the St Louis Zoo.

CarneyShow 02.06.25 Gloria Gaynor, Jeff Zufall, STL Shakespeare Festival, Brendan Wiese by

Jill Lagan, and The Best Dam Podcastwelcomes Matt Morgan, the Artistic Director of the Nevada Shakespeare FestivalMatt, who wears many hats as a clown, actor, director, and storyteller, brings a unique approach to making Shakespeare accessible and engaging for all ages.Jill and Matt delve into his upcoming event, "Shakespeare in the Park," set for October 18th at the Boulder City Library Amphitheater, where he's presenting a 90-minute, interactive adaptation of "Macbeth." Plus, they discuss his fascinating background in the circus, and his deep ties to a family legacy of circus performanceDISCUSSION  POINTSMake Shakespeare Fun Again: "Take him off the pedestal, rip him in half, smear him in the dirt, and then hand him back to the people." — [00:03:05 → 00:03:09]**Theater as a Living Room Experience**: "Our notion on performance is that it's like people are coming to our house and they're in our living room with us, and we wanna present theater in that way." — [00:10:19 → 00:10:28]Balancing Creativity and Management: "And that was super fun for me, and it'll be the last time I play a lead and direct a play." — [00:11:29 → 00:11:38]**The Art of Moving On in Acting**: "I finish a thing and then just may move it out and make space. And what's what's the next thing? I'm really good at that." — [00:12:15 → 00:12:20]**Shakespeare Adapted for Kids**: "We also have a summer camp program that we do called Shakes play, and we adapt Shakespeare plays, and we make them about 30 pages. And we work with kids that are from 6 to 17 years old." — [00:12:52 → 00:13:06]Turning Classrooms into Shakespearean Theaters: "Over the course of a 50 minute class, they're seeing a show and they're cold reading Shakespeare." — [00:17:35 → 00:17:40]Shakespeare for Modern Kids: "Shakespeare's not boring, it's not stuffy, it's not lame, and it's not old. You can make it new and make it relevant to you and your life and your jokes and your friends and whatever it is that you're interested in." — [00:17:53 → 00:18:04]"Life-Changing Circus Experience": "I was a graduate of the Ringling Brothers, and I traveled with the Ringling Brothers Circus for 2 years, sleeping and living on a train and traveling the country, performing over 500 shows a year." —  [00:22:08 → 00:22:22]Discovering Circus Life: "I discovered it in college. It was like, oh, I can go to clown college and learn about juggling and unicycle riding and water spitting and pie throwing and makeup and dance and character development." —  [00:26:57 → 00:27:12]LEARN MOREClick here to learn more about the Nevada Shakespeare Festival and the Free Shakespeare in the Park series across the Las Vegas valley, or on these social sites: FacebookInstagramYouTubeKEYWORDSMatt Morgan, Nevada Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare in the Park, Jill Lagan, Boulder City Chamber of Commerce, The Best Dam Podcast#MattMorgan #NevadaShakespeareFestival #ShakespeareinthePark #BoulderCity #BCNVChamber2024 #TheBestDamPodcastCREDITSThe Best Dam Podcast is a Podcast Production of the Boulder City Chamber of Commerce.This episode is sponsored by the  i & i Podcast & Music Studio. Be Heard.   Music for the Best Dam Podcast was created by ZakharValaha from Pixabay. 

“Oh Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” Chances are this summer you can find him– along with many other characters from the famed works of Shakespeare– in the idyllic setting of Central Park in old Louisville, where Candy and Ashley recently enjoyed the renowned Kentucky Shakespeare's Free Festival in Central Park.  In this fun episode we first take a brief look at the Bard himself, William Shakespeare. And while Will is widely believed to be the most famous and most celebrated playwright of all time, you just might be surprised at some of the interesting new details that come to light.  Then with the help of Matt Wallace, Kentucky Shakespeare's Producing Artistic Director, and actors Gregory, Justin, and Mollie, we take you behind the scenes of the Shakespeare Festival. You won't want to miss hearing fascinating insights and first-hand stories directly from the performers themselves.   Finally, we share highlights from Ashley and Candy's field trip to see “Comedy of Errors,” including audience reactions from Kara, Dave, Sally, Fin, Wally, and Sylvia.  To go or not to go… there is no question! Head on over to Kentucky Shakespeare's Free Festival in Central Park, right after you give this episode a listen.

Terrance Winn loved sports, was a smart student and planned to go to college. And then at 16, he was arrested for murder, charged as an adult and sentenced to life in prison.30 years later, Winn was released. He's now a prison reform advocate and the director of a group that helps mentor kids and keep them out of jail.In the final installment of our series on gun violence in Shreveport, the Gulf States Newsroom's Kat Stromquist spoke with Winn about his efforts to reduce crime in the area through outreach. Louisiana has no shortage of athletes competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics. And while many are former students at LSU, others are lifelong residents of the state. Alexi Shostak is a trampoline gymnast from Lafayette gearing up for his second Olympic appearance. He joins us for more on how he discovered the sport, how he's training, and what he's most looking forward to at this year's games. The New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane is closing its season with a production of ‘Julius Caesar.' We learn more about this production of the classic tale of betrayal from director Salvatore Minnino and actors Silas Cooper and James Bartelle. ___Today's episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Diane Mack. Our managing producer is Alana Schrieber. Matt Bloom and Aubry Procell are assistant producers. Our engineer is Garrett Pittman.You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at 12 and 7 p.m. It's available on Spotify, Google Play and wherever you get your podcasts. Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you're at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you'd like to listen to.Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!

Talked with Trent Stevens, Artistic Director and Elizabeth Dashiell from Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival (PBSF).  This year PBSF and Palm Beach County Parks and Recreation are presenting FREE Shakespeare by the Sea XXXIV production of King Lear July 11-14 and 18-21.  Presented by Gary and Katherine Parr the Production will happen at the Seabreeze Amphitheater in Carlin Park in Jupiter.  Then on July 25- 28, there will be an encore week at The Commons Park sponsored by The Village of Royal Palm Beach.  Listeners can bring their own chair/blanket and food/drink or purchase some refreshments on site.  This year special guest, "The Sonnet Man" Devon will be doing pre show performances on July 18- July21.  The shows are free (with a suggested donation of $5/person).  For information, to become a volunteer, become a sponsor and more, Listeners can go to www.pbshakespeare.org.  

Performances of William Shakespeare's play "Julius Caesar" are taking place in Southmoreland Park, next to the Nelson-Atkins, through June 30. This cautionary tale explores themes of political turmoil and betrayal.

At least two charter schools in New Orleans held their final graduations this past spring. One of them - the Living School in New Orleans East - was known for its unique approach to education. Instead of focusing on test scores, it promoted equity, community and project-based learning. But state assessments recently gave the school an “F” ranking on standardized tests. Still, leaders and parents of students have fought to keep it open. Reporter Nate Ha covered that fight - and joins us for more about the school. The New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane is presenting “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged.” This show is a comical journey through all 37 of the bard's plays in just 90 minutes. Actors Keith Claverie, Ian Hoch and Lauren Malara join us today for more.Between fast currents and submerged trees, there's no shortage of dangers on the Mississippi River. But for more than two decades, a canoe company in the Gulf South has been working to teach kids not to fear the country's primary waterway.The Gulf States Newsroom's Danny McArthur takes us on a ride down the river with a group of kids learning both about outdoor adventure and efforts to help protect the Mighty Mississippi.___Today's episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Diane Mack. Our managing producer is Alana Schrieber. Matt Bloom and Aubry Procell are assistant producers. Our engineer is Garrett Pittman.You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at 12 and 7 p.m. It's available on Spotify, Google Play and wherever you get your podcasts. Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you're at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you'd like to listen to.Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!

After a brief hiatus, the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival returns to its full capacity starting June 28.

Send us a Text Message.Thanks for joining us. In this episode we speak with:Abby Bland, Kansas City Poet & Performer. https://www.abbyblandpoetry.com/Sidonie Garrett, Executive Artistic Director, Heart of America Shakespeare Festival. Julius Caesar, Southmoreland Park, June 11-30, 2024. https://kcshakes.org/juliuscaesar/ Our MUST SEE KC picks are:Heartland Men's Chorus Presents 'RISE UP' at The Folly Theater. June 15-16, 2024. More info at https://hmckc.org/summer/Donny Osmond Presented by Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. June 11, 2024. Get tickets at https://tickets.kauffmancenter.org/osmond.KC Fringe Festival. July 12-28, 2024. Tickets & Info at https://kcfringe.org/This show is hosted and produced by Tess Koppelman and Jamie Campbell. Our Executive Producer is Nathan Gwartney. Our Audio Engineer is Paul Vedros. Episodes are mixed and edited by Thomas Newby who also composed our theme music.If you have something you would like featured on our show reach out to us through our social media.Follow Us On:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsite

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1066, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Let'S Go Online 1: Oh my God! It's a double rainbow video! Seen by more than 19.3 million people on this site! What does this mean?!. YouTube. 2: "The Clone Wars: Fierce Twilight" and "The Powerpuff Girls: Fast and Flurrious" are games at this TV channel's .com. Cartoon Network. 3: On May 15, 2007 Shawn Cotter used this site to prank friends, creating the rickroll. YouTube. 4: There's no place like this cozy page, the first page of a website. the home page. 5: Nora Ephron is editor at large for this political site co-founded by Arianna. the Huffington Post. Round 2. Category: The Unicorn 1: This Japanese beer brand uses a unicorn for its logo and that's what its name means. Kirin. 2: In "Through the Looking-Glass", she meets a unicorn who is stunned to discover she's not a monster. Alice. 3: The endangered Indian species of this large ungulate has the scientific name R. unicornis. rhinoceros. 4: The "Gentleman Caller" breaks Laura's prized figurine in this play from 1945. The Glass Menagerie. 5: This unicorn-like whale's "horn" is really a long tusk. narwhal. Round 3. Category: Good Knight 1: The Poor Knights of Christ became known by this name after occupying a house near the Temple of Solomon. the Knights Templar. 2: Anne Crompton reworks medieval lit by pairing this knight not with the Green Knight but rather with "Lady Green". Gawain. 3: "The Hedge Knight" is a graphic novel set in the same world as this author's "A Song of Ice and Fire". George R.R. Martin. 4: When a woman gets a knighthood from the British, she gets this title before her name. dame. 5: 11th century knight El Cid was a soldier of fortune for both Christians and these Spanish Muslims. Moors. Round 4. Category: Culture Around The World 1: Drawing from the name of our motion picture capital, it's the name for India's movie industry. Bollywood. 2: This museum's original holdings consisted of art collected by the Hapsburg and Bourbon monarchs of Spain. the Prado. 3: In 1953 the Shakespeare Festival in this Ontario, Canada city held its first performance. Stratford. 4: This form of Japanese drama that incorporates music, dance and mime developed in the 1600s. kabuki. 5: Originated by 2 high schoolers in 1971 , the Roskilde culture and music festival in this country is one of Europe's largest. Denmark. Round 5. Category: Tough Oz 1: The Wicked Witch of the West dies when Dorothy does this to her. Sprays her with water. 2: The 3 kinds of animals fretted about in the forest, "Oh My!". Lions and tigers and bears. 3: It's the part of the Tin Man's body that Dorothy oils first. his mouth. 4: The warning on the Haunted Forest signpost says "I'd" do this "If I were you". Turn back. 5: This animal pulls the coach in the Emerald City. the Horse of a Different Color. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/ AI Voices used

We're releasing an episode from our secret feed vault to give you a taste of what you can get each month as a Friend or Friend-of-a-Friend subscriber. Our guest, Brydie Lee-Kennedy, is a Friend-level subscriber who joined Kelsey on the secret feed last November to tell a harrowing story about a game of sexy hide-and-seek gone wrong. If you loved Brydie's story, make sure to check out her novel, Go Lightly! You can support Normal Gossip directly by buying merch or becoming a Friend or a Friend-of-Friend at supportnormalgossip.com. Our merch shop is run by Dan McQuade. You can also find all kinds of info about us and how to submit gossip on our Komi page: https://normalgossip.komi.io/ Episode transcript here. Follow the show on Instagram @normalgossip, and if you have gossip, email us at normalgossip@defector.com or leave us a voicemail at 26-79-GOSSIP. Normal Gossip is hosted by Kelsey McKinney (@mckinneykelsey) and produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin (@alexlaughs). Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Jae Towle Vieira is our associate producer. Show art by Tara Jacoby. Normal Gossip is a proud member of Radiotopia.

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—or wherever you get your podcasts!Confused about how to handle COVID this fall and winter? Wondering how to think about masks, boosters, and reducing your risk of getting sick?On this episode of Beyond the Prescription, Dr. McBride talks with Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, who became one of the most prominent public health experts in the country during the pandemic. Dr. Gandhi is a Harvard-trained physician, expert in infectious diseases, and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is the director of the UCSF's AIDS Research Center and the medical director of the San Francisco General Hospital HIV Clinic. Dr. Gandhi's career centers on the principle of harm reduction, born out of her decades-long work in HIV. Harm reduction is the belief that public health policies should consider not only the pathogen (i.e., HIV or COVID) but also people's basic needs for social connection, intimacy, and agency—and that public health's job isn't to shame, stigmatize, or even to eliminate risk (that's impossible) but rather to arm people with information and tools to mitigate the inevitable risks we face.Her new book, Endemic: A Post-Pandemic playbook, published in July 2023, aims to reckon with the country's present condition: comprehending and living with a new respiratory disease and how to face the coming variants and next pandemic with reason, science, courage and compassion.Listen to hear Drs. Gandhi and McBride discuss where we have been, where we find ourselves now, and how we ought to manage the virus this season, and in the coming years.Join Dr. McBride every Monday for a new episode of Beyond the Prescription.You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on her Substack at https://lucymcbride.substack.com/podcast. You can sign up for her free weekly newsletter at lucymcbride.substack.com/welcome.Please be sure to like, rate, and review the show!The transcript of our conversation is here![00:00:00] Dr. Lucy McBride: Hello, and welcome to my office. I'm Dr. Lucy McBride, and this is Beyond the Prescription, the show where I talk with my guests like I do my patients, pulling the curtain back on what it means to be healthy, redefining health as more than the absence of disease. As a primary care doctor, I've realized that patients are more than their cholesterol and their weight.[00:00:31] We are the integrated sum of complex parts. Our stories live in our bodies. I'm here to help people tell their story and for you to imagine and potentially get healthier from the inside out. You can subscribe to my free weekly newsletter at lucymcbride.substack.com and to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.[00:00:57] So let's get into it and go beyond the prescription. Let's talk about Covid. Joining me today is my dear friend, Dr. Monica Gandhi. Monica is a physician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She's the director of the UCSF AIDS Research Center and the medical director of the San Francisco General Hospital HIV clinic.[00:01:21] She studied at Harvard Medical School and then at UCSF where she focused on infectious diseases, specifically HIV. She holds a master's in public health from UC Berkeley, with a focus on epidemiology and biostats. During the pandemic, Monica became one of the most prominent public health experts in the country.[00:01:42] National and local political leaders, medical professionals, and the media often turn to Monica for her thoughts and recommendations on how to handle the constantly shifting dynamics and demands of COVID. She has now put her thoughts together in a new book, Endemic: A post pandemic playbook out in July 2023.[00:02:02] It aims at reckoning with the country's present condition, comprehending and living with a new respiratory disease back in 2020, and how to face the coming variants and the next pandemic with reason, science, courage and compassion. Monica is not only an accomplished physician and public health star, she's also a dear friend.[00:02:24] I got to know Monica during the pandemic when I started noticing that patients were suffering not only from COVID, but also from the sustained fear, anxiety and social isolation of the pandemic. I was immediately drawn to her straight talking, evidence based and compassionate voice.[00:02:42] It was a rarity in a sea of COVID experts. She seemed to consider the whole patient, to value the importance of human connection as much as guarding against an infectious disease. So we became fast friends. We've written op eds together. And we started a group text of seven women in medicine and public health who now have communicated multiple times a day for over two years today, Monica and I will discuss where we have been, where we find ourselves now and how we ought to manage this virus this fall and in the coming years, Monica, it is so fun to have you on the show today. Thank you for joining me.[00:03:21] Dr. Monica Gandhi: Thank you so much. It's so good to see you.[00:03:23] LM: So tell me about your book, let's start there. What are the lessons learned and then how can we move forward with COVID in our midst in perpetuity and the potential for new viruses coming along? So tell me about the book and what are the major themes in the book?[00:03:40] MG: Yeah, so thank you. It starts out with an introduction to the concept of why I was so interested in infectious disease and I went into it and that really had to do with my interest in HIV, even from a very young age, my interest in social justice, my interest in disparities, and my interest in the fact that people are stigmatized for infectious diseases, which I always found completely shocking in the world of HIV.[00:04:04] It's kind of Lehman's language on the whole pandemic and where we are with vaccines and therapeutics. And then it goes into harm reduction. And what that means is really that you have a pathogen. Let's say we had HIV which we did and we still do. And the way that we dealt with HIV, at least those people who are expected dealt with HIV is they dealt with this kind of whole person aspect of care.[00:04:29] So you have a person living with HIV, but you also have their mental health and their sexual needs and their needs for companionship and their needs to have hope and it to become an HIV doctor became a really, I think, a doctor that sees the whole person and doesn't just see the disease or the pathogen or just the virus.[00:04:51] And what I saw with COVID 19 is that we used the same bad stigmatizing language that we used with HIV with COVID. There were actually public health people that said, COVID idiot, or you're a bad person for getting COVID, which I still will never understand. And then I thought of harm reduction. What are the ways that we can absolutely fight the pathogen?[00:05:12] In my mind, it's biomedical advances, but also minimize the harm done to society. And the three I think, or supposed mitigation, because I don't think they helped, that did harm, in my opinion, were prolonged school closures, were closing other medical care, not taking care of other medical needs, especially mental health, and then third is not letting people see their family members in the hospital.[00:05:36] I think that's actually, frankly, inhuman. So I dwell on those for some time, chapter five is all school closures, then the subsequent chapters on around global equity, because if biomedical advances are your way out of a pandemic, you need to give them to everyone. And then the last chapter is a 10 point pandemic playbook.[00:05:54] How do we go forward. If this happens again, and I hope it doesn't for 100 years and not get to this point where we are now, where there's about a 30% trust in public health. By the latest poll, a health affairs paper showed that in March of 2023, 30% of people trust the CDC. I mean, there must have been mistakes made for such a low number of trust.[00:06:14] I don't subscribe to the view that Americans are anti science. I think they saw all the confusion. They saw the harm and they don't trust. And how do we get to a pandemic playbook that makes sense, that takes other people's needs into account, societal needs into account, outside is safer, therapeutics, vaccines. And then we're in the building of trust phase and we can go into that.[00:06:36] LM: Yeah, harm reduction makes sense on a population level. It also makes sense on an individual person level, just for people who are listening and you don't know what that exactly means. It's rooted in the idea that risk is everywhere, that being a human being involves risk by being in relationships, by driving a car, by existing with bacteria and viruses, merely being a human carries occupational risk.[00:07:08] And we cannot make risk zero. In the case of HIV, correct me if I'm wrong, the message never should have been abstinence only. Because what abstinence only as a message does... is it deprives people of their basic biological needs to have sex and intimate relationships, and it stigmatizes the person for having human needs.[00:07:33] So, Harm Reduction's message to HIV patients and populations is, let's not tell you no, let's tell you here are the risks, let's arm you with facts and nuanced information, and give you the tools. Condoms, education, and a way to frame risk so that you can make your own decisions based on your risk tolerance, which you're entitled to.[00:07:58] You can be very afraid of HIV and never have sex, and that's Up to you, you can be less afraid, but as long as you're aware of the data, you're talking to your partner, then you do you. So I think what I saw in my practice was people suffering from being shamed for going to their child's graduation, even after they'd been vaccinated.[00:08:24] You remember those pictures of people. On beaches and media pundits were shaming them for being outside when we knew from get go that outdoors was pretty darn safe. And we know that people need to be outside. So somehow we lost the plot and we of course cared about death and dying from COVID, like that is a given, right?[00:08:47] There's no question that human tragedy. I mean, zero question, but somehow people started moralizing human behavior. And then, if you spoke out, like you and I did, about trying to balance the harms of the virus with the harms of not living a life that is just meeting basic biological needs, somehow if you're talking about that, you're morally reprehensible.[00:09:15] So, it's a really weird time in our country. I don't need to say that to you, but I just wonder, what do you think is that in inherent tension? Like, where does that come from? That this concept that like doing things, living your life, even if you've been vaccinated is morally reprehensible. I just don't understand.[00:09:37] MG: Yeah, I didn't understand it until I really went back to the history of HIV, and then I think I made a connection, which is that in the history of HIV, 1981 was when these case reports were first described in the CDC, MMWR, and the President of the United States of, at the time was Ronald Reagan. And because of that, he and his wife also with Just Say No as a campaign for addiction, pushed an abstinence only approach.[00:10:03] He actually didn't even talk about HIV until 1985. And there was a very like, just say no, there's just something wrong with you if you want these needs. And so the public health community. who tends to be left, as I am, completely pushed against that and said, no, that is a absence based only is an awful approach.[00:10:22] And it's really unkind and not compassionate. And we can't tell people what to do. And instead we'll give you tools to stay safe. And we'll tell you about condoms and later prep and treatment, but really like it is up to you. You are a human being with your own needs, like you said, in your own risk tolerances and what happened during COVID, as Trump was president, so the public health establishment who's left, and so are ID doctors. They pushed against him no matter what he said, even when it was reasonable, like prolonged school closures weren't happening in Scandinavia and Europe. And he said, let's open schools in summer of 2020. And then people were all writing about opening schools, public health officials, and then they changed their mind when he said that.[00:11:02] So I think it is actually a push against, it was not reasonable because it was clearly A reactionary pose against the right. And the problem with that reactionary poses at harm children. And it was completely topsy turvy from what we did with HIV. And I think there were two other reasons. One is the media thought that would with a lot of fear, they thought that would kind of scare people into compliance with masks or public health measures. But the problem with that is fear doesn't work. It makes people like paralyzed. I mean, that's what it does in nature. And so it doesn't make you say, oh, I completely understand that even though we have vaccines, they're still telling me to socially distance, even though Europe's gone back to normal with the vaccines.[00:11:48] Instead of understanding that again, distrust came. And then I think that the third was that we just didn't celebrate the vaccines and no physician is really against vaccines in general. Like it's just a degrading 96% of physicians got vaccinated for COVID with the first two shots. Boosters I think have to be nuanced, but it was a celebration of the vaccine of the HIV therapies in 1990s and with the vaccines. At least the media still made it seem like it was really negative and that didn't unlock the key to normal life, but they didn't do that in Europe. They did. They unlocked the key to normal life. I don't know where anyone thought that normalcy wasn't an important human need, like being connected, being together, joy.[00:12:37] Being around people, celebrations, church, synagogue, temple, these are part of the rituals of human existence. They're so terribly important for our mental health. So when the vaccines came we could have really celebrated them and instead there's been so much fear still.[00:12:53] LM: And it's so funny how anti vax, like true anti vax sentiment, people who are saying that the vaccine, you know, alters your DNA and, you know, turns you into an alien, that messaging almost touched the messaging of let's have a vaccine that's life saving in some high risk populations, but it's not enough.[00:13:15] Let's continue to mask and distance. It almost felt anti vax, as you just said, for me, the moment, I mean, there are many moments during the pandemic when I thought, golly, Baba, we are not messaging this Right, was Provincetown. So Provincetown was that weekend when it was rainy and cold up in Provincetown, Mass. There was a lot of people in intimate settings, post vaccine, and a lot of people got COVID. But no one died. A lot of people got colds, flus. To me, that should have been the CDC's moment to say, “Oh my gosh, this was the stress test for the vaccine. These people have been vaccinated, they got together, they had sex, they had fun.[00:13:58] And they got colds. And they got flus and that's terrible and we don't want that.” But you know, what are you gonna do? And we should have said, “that's a vaccine success story.” But instead, that's when the CDC said, “nope, put masks back on. And that's when, among other moments where I thought, oh my gosh, we've lost the plot because we're moving the goalpost.”[00:14:17] It's like kicking a soccer ball down the field and you're, you shoot for the goal and then the goal gets moved. And again, just to be clear to people who are listening, this is not to say, go get COVID, And you know, who cares? Not at all. We can do two things at once. We can be mindful of our risks for a virus and arm people with tools and information.[00:14:38] We can also be mindful of the risks of living in a state of hypervigilance and fear where we aren't allowed to be ourselves and be in relationships and go to school and see the faces of our teachers. Like, we can do hard things. We can do many things at once. And I think it was this sort of paternalism from public health institutions, it felt very draconian and sort of condescending like that we know better when the vast majority of people who got COVID particularly after the vaccine did extraordinarily well.[00:15:07] MG: I mean, I think that the interesting thing about what you just said and where I had a little different twist to the conversation was my history in HIV. And so if you look, people were saying a lot of people around that time was saying the same thing, actually, CDC's moment and they blew it, but I could bring in this concept that HIV.[00:15:28] We never judged people, or what I mean is the people who judge people, we didn't like those people. We didn't like those public health officials who judged. We thought they were really out of line. And we used a harm reduction pro, in this case, sex approach. And so in the case of COVID, what happened with the Delta variant surge in Iceland is the Iceland prime minister came out and said, Look what's happening, everyone.[00:15:55] You all got vaccinated, the hospitalizations are extremely low. This means the vaccines work. Go back, go forth, be with one another. This is an excellent example of how the vaccines work. And then everyone got vaccinated and the appropriate people got boosted, like older people, and everyone moved on. And they really did move on in Europe.[00:16:14] So there was this kind of celebration of that moment, and I do write about this in the book. That was, I think, the moment. where the CDC really did lose its trust with the American people and we need to rebuild it, which is a lot of what the latter half of this book is, that the people who are talking right now, like the vaccines and therapeutics don't work are not actually rebuilding trust and certainly not rebuilding trust in technology and advances.[00:16:42] Like we rebuilt hospitals. Trust in antiretrovirals with HIV to say that life wouldn't change after these advances didn't make sense. This is the other thing that's really important is that beyond bringing the HIV angle to it that I could because I've just thought about it for so long. [00:17:00] It's also important to say that respiratory viruses, cause I live, I'm an infectious disease doctor have always plagued humanity and I worry every winter about respiratory viruses.[00:17:11] I worry about RSV, and I worry about influenza, and rhinovirus, and other coronaviruses, and adenovirus, and human metapneumovirus. But, actually the difference is, we have better tools for COVID than we do for human metapneumovirus in an older person, for example. I can give Paxilovir to an older person. There are boosters.[00:17:29] There are no vaccines for human metapneumovirus. There are no treatments for that virus. RSV, we just got a vaccine. So, it means... That we really moved quickly, and we didn't celebrate that, that rapid movement, that incredible biomedical advances. But we did in HIV. We did. We said undetectable equals un-transmittable.[00:17:49] You don't have to use a condom if you're on antiretroviral therapy. And we were just much more harm reductionist and sitting with the patient, making shared decision making. At least that's what, again, the good HIV doctors were doing. And here it was top down decision making.[00:18:03] LM: And the MRNA technology that is so incredibly advanced is being deployed now for potential vaccines in HIV.[00:18:12] MG: it's very exciting. Yes.[00:18:13] LM: It's very exciting. I mean, I'm with you. Like, you and I got accused, both of us, for spreading hopium. It's so funny[00:18:22] MG: It's a strange word. Yeah.[00:18:23] LM: It's such a strange word. Like, you know, but it's sort of the way American medicine addresses patients in general. We think about health as this sort of set of boxes to check. It's about your cholesterol, it's your height, your weight. When hope, joy, and the sense of an end point to a crisis are really important for health. I mean, it's foundational. It's fundamental. The other thing is that hope and caution are not mutually exclusive.[00:18:50] You can protect yourself like you and I did by getting vaccinated and boosted as needed and staying home when you're sick and celebrate the successes of the vaccine. Celebrate that. Now, as you just said, we have so many more tools to protect ourselves from COVID than we do for, um, metadenoma virus or para influenza virus, which every single year get many of my patients sick and in the hospital, because this is not a new concept that viruses tip people into crisis when they're particularly vulnerable.[00:19:22] I mean, again, this is not new. We have done this before.[00:19:26] MG: Well, I mean, I'll give you a good example of what you just said, what it reminded me of. Number one, my husband passed from cancer three months prior to the pandemic, and actually we didn't have hope fundamentally with bad cancer and we had moments of hope, but there wasn't. The thing about infectious disease is it's the other, unlike cancer, which is the self.[00:19:48] I just wish, I kept in thinking as we were going through the beginning of COVID, I wish that I had someone to turn to during the worst parts of his cancer who would say vaccines work, therapeutics work. And so I wanted to be that person to help tell Americans that advanced therapeutics for an infectious disease, which is other. work. And it's not hopium. It's actually modern medicine technology. And then the second thing is it also could be that if you look at the world right now, I think there's a kind of a microcosm maybe on Twitter, but if you look at the world, I went to a large concert at something called the Chase Auditorium in San Francisco, which is like 20,000 people in an indoor space.[00:20:30] And it was a large rock concert. And then later I went to Cirque du Soleil and. All these people, because I just was on the news a lot in San Francisco, came up to me at the concert and they said, Hey man, got vaccinated, rock on, you know, like, and they weren't, you know, distancing or masking. They were really living back with that joy that made life so meaningful.[00:20:51] And I was really happy to see that is. It's kind of the point, right, of combating infectious diseases or combating anything that you're doing in medicine is the point is to infuse as much joy and normalcy into human beings lives as possible. And the other thing, and I really want to mention this, is my father was immunosuppressed during COVID. He was 88 and going through B cell lymphoma treatment. So this is as you know, when we talk about the vulnerable, this is really as vulnerable as we can get because he's not only vulnerable to a virus that is really age stratified in this risk. But he was on chemotherapy. And I kept on writing about how well the vaccines were working in my father.[00:21:32] Trying to give people the personal anecdote. Because after vaccines and a booster, he had sky high antibodies during chemo. He sailed through his episode of COVID that he got at a family wedding, you know, very well. We did give him Paxilovid and I think that's very appropriate. I couldn't get at why... People didn't think the vaccines worked among the immunocompromised because the mRNA vacs, and I work with an immunocompromised population because I work with HIV, these mRNA [00:22:00] vaccines are so immunogenic. They're much more than like a whole virus vaccine or old protein based vaccine. So I'm really pushing the mRNA vaccines on my immunocompromised populations because they work so well.[00:22:10] If someone wanted a Novavax, I was not encouraging immunocompromised, but Novavax was great for others. So it was just, again, like knowing that they really work. Even there was this idea that we would leave immunocompromised people out of the loop, but we weren't because we had this new technology that didn't leave them out and I kept on bringing my dad up to try to tell that I'm not just saying that even though I do work with an immunocompromised population.[00:22:36] This is as bad as it gets and he's done very, he's done very well and he's back to normal life. He's, he went to the Shakespeare Festival in Utah the other day with his 92 year old friends. Yeah, he's 88, he's turning 89 soon.[00:22:49] LM: It's amazing. I mean, you were always the champion of the T cells being cellular immunity, the arm of the immune system that protects against severe disease. So we learned pretty early on that it was post Delta that the vaccine could no longer block infection. That ship sailed, you could get 4, 5, 10 vaccine doses and still get infected,[00:23:13] MG: Yes, exactly. T cells and B cells together are literally arming us from future protection from severe diseases. That's why it's so enduring.[00:23:20:] LM: Right. And somehow that message just didn't get across, like the waning immunity conversation, it's like, I felt like, probably like you, I wanted to poke my eyeballs out because people thought waning immunity meant you were naked, like you're running outside of your house without any protection, when that just was never true.[00:23:38] MG: These are basic principles of immunology that we learned in medical school. And I wrote a thread on Twitter just two days ago, cause I'd been thinking about it for a long time. How long does immunity last? Cause we've had some very nice new data about antibodies and it looks like it's going to last a long time for years actually.[00:23:55] And so, and. The reason I thought about T cells so much is it's so hard to have seen an early AIDS and infection that HIV that hurt the very arm of the immune system, T cells that helped you combat infection. So I think about T cells all the time. I say the word T cells to my patients because what's your T cell count?[00:24:14] But beyond the basic concepts of immunology, we've had a wealth of immunology information during the pandemic from really sophisticated groups in the UK and San Diego. They have done beautiful work that shows T cells cover all variants, and that's really important because I know we think we have to update the vaccine all the time, but they really do cover all variants because it's kind of a blanket of protection, and then B cells adapt their antibodies towards new variants.[00:24:41] So there is really an adaptive immunity that we've shown both in this pandemic and from basic principles.[00:24:47] LM: Monica, let's do a rapid fire Q and A. I'm going to ask you the questions that patients ask me every day About COVID and how to face the upcoming fall winter season. So there's a lot of buzz about these new variants, right? The BA[00:25:03] MG: 286. Yeah. Yeah. I remember it because it's like 86, Ward 86. Yeah. Our[00:25:09] LM: right. And the fear about this is that it has so many mutations that it may be, it may have escaped immunity from the vaccine. So when someone asks me, what should I do? Should I mask? Should I distance? Should I get another shot in the face of this new variant? What do I tell them?[00:25:28] MG: So, there's two variants that keep on being talked about in the news, EG5 and BA286. And the one thing I will say is, actually, BA286 is not taking off like EG5 is. So we keep on saying, hey, there's a case in the UK, and there's a case over here. Actually, it seems extremely not very transmissible, and I think it's going to end up being one of those ones that go away.[00:25:49] Because... If you're more transmissible, then you keep on rising in incidence. And the one that's rising in incidence is EG5. It looks like it's more transmissible than XBB1.5. These new variant directed vaccines that are coming out in mid-September are directed against XBB1.5, and they're going to very happily cover EG5 because there was just a paper on that. That EG5 and XBB 1.5 just differ by one mutation. So that's done with EG5. We'll know it's going to work.[00:26:18] LM: But, let me ask you this. When you say cover, it doesn't mean you're going to, you can get the new booster and you won't get COVID. Right. So let's clarify that; it doesn't block infection.[00:26:27] MG: what's so important going back to BA286, which you were asking about originally, is that there's a concept of sterilizing immunity. What is sterilizing immunity? It's what we saw with smallpox infection or smallpox vaccine. And that was really the ability of Antibodies in the nose, which are called IGA to block all infections and the intramuscular vaccines that we get for COVID-19 do not produce that high of IGA in the nose.[00:26:55] Guest: They did actually earlier on, or at [00:27:00] least the IGA was adequate to cover alpha. So there was blocking of transmission early on, but when Delta came along, 2 things happened. Number one, our antibodies go down with time and Delta had mutations across its spike protein and the vaccines didn't work as well against Delta, at least in terms of antibodies.[00:27:16] But this is where our T and B cells are so important because there's never been a variant or a sub variant where the vaccines or your natural immunity don't work against at least in terms of cellular mediated immunity because T cell coverage is very broad so you can have lots and lots of mutations. But it still provides a blanket of protection and that's been shown again and again by Dr Setti's lab and other UCSD and then the second reason is B cells which T cells help produce more antibodies from those B cells are sitting dormant.[00:27:50] Like you said they're in memory And then if they see another subvariant, even if it is BA286, they say, Oh, I, my job is to make more antibodies. I'm not going to make antibodies directed against some old variant in the past. That's not how these work. They're adaptive. I'm going to make antibodies directed against what I see.[00:28:05] It will take a couple of days, but they will make, and you'll get infected, but you will be protected against severe disease. So there will be ongoing protection, even with both of these new variants with severe disease. If you've been naturally infected or had he vaccine before, and most people have had both, many people have had both. What about who needs boosters? That's the next question. I[00:28:29] LM: Yeah. So as for boosters, so people are asking all about these boosters coming out at the end of September, early October, I remind people, cause most of my patients. I've had COVID and have been vaccinated. So they asked me, what's the optimal timing? I'm going to my daughter's wedding in November. What should I do?[00:28:46] I remind them that again, you can get 10 shots and still get COVID. So they're not, these vaccines are not sterilizing. But if you wanted to try to time the vaccine to get a transient bump in your antibody levels before the wedding, which again, may not. It's like, if you jump into a freezing cold swimming pool and you're wearing a wet suit, aka vaccine, you're still going to get wet.[00:29:11] MG: but it doesn't harm you with the severe disease. Yeah. Like it doesn't harm you.[00:29:15] LM: Exactly. It's not, you're not going to have severe disease, but having had COVID and having had the vaccines previously is already going to likely protect you from serious outcomes. But if we're talking about the new booster, you might time it to get two weeks before the anticipated crowd you're going to be in.[00:29:35] But, I mean, what do you think? Do you believe in like timing the vaccine to an event?[00:29:37] MG: I don't actually believe them in timing them to an event because like you just said, I don't know if it's going to rise high enough to prevent infection at that event. What I actually really believe in and I wrote about this a lot of times is spacing the vaccines appropriately to get the best immune response.[00:29:51] So I'll give you a good example that it looks like you should definitely wait at least four and likely six months since your last infection or last booster, whatever, they're the same thing. They're showing you the virus or parts of the virus in the case of to get another shot because you're essentially, you're going to interfere with that B cells trying to settle into memory, and this was data from the NIH.[00:30:13] So, for example, my father, I would have encouraged him at 88 and going through chemotherapy to get the fall booster. However, he got, just got COVID, and it was in mid-July when he got COVID. So I'm going to ask him to please wait four months, regardless of events. So July, August, September, October, and then get the vaccine then. At least four months, maybe six so that he is doing exactly what vaccines are supposed to do, which is help refresh his immunity.[00:30:41] Again, his immunity is more needing of refreshment than a young person's because young persons have very good immune responses to vaccines or infection.[00:30:50] LM: It's a great point. And the other thing to remind people is that, you know, you can go to your daughter's wedding in November as planned. And if there's no one in the room with COVID, you know, it doesn't matter if you had the vaccine or the booster at all. In that moment, you can also be in any room anywhere because COVID is ubiquitous and it's not a wedding, but just because it's a wedding doesn't mean you're more likely to get it.[00:31:08] That said, the virus tends to spread in closed Poorly ventilated spaces. It's just an odds ratio. It's not like weddings equal COVID and walking to the, the small boutique pharmacy, you're not going to get COVID. The virus isn't that smart. It's just different.[00:31:24] MG: yeah, I think that's a really, not only is that a really good point, but the inoculum question, which I wrote about really early on. Oh, by the way, I was really mask focused very early on. In fact, when you say that I was on the, on the news, actually the first year and a half, it was all about masks, but I actually was talking about masks and this concept of inoculum.[00:31:43] And there was just a recent paper that showed this is likely true, but it's amount, it's the amount of virus that you're exposed to. So that's why, yeah, dose. Right. And so, That's why in a closed indoor space, you'd be more likely if someone has COVID. Because the other important thing is not everyone has COVID all the time.[00:31:59] That was the issue about treating people like they were vectors or something was wrong with them. Or we taught people to be scared of breathing. Actually, that is a thing that my patients said again and again to me. They said, I've been through one pandemic and I was told to stay. These are people living with HIV.[00:32:15] And they said, I was told the way to stay. Stay away from people now. You're telling me to stay away from people and I can't even breathe like it was so hurtful the messaging a very soundbite messaging wear a mask save lives stay at home save lives Because it was not nuanced and spoke to the fact that It's really more likely when you have COVID that you're spreading disease.[00:32:37] That was another interesting thing that changed with time is the degree of spread is really most when you're symptomatic and now we have really updated data around that But there was this idea that and I also wrote about that idea at the beginning but I changed my mind with time when I saw the data that you were spreading it when asymptomatic Just like most other infections. The majority of it is spread when you're symptomatic And that's good because that's what updating of data and recommendations means, right?[00:33:01] LM: We have to have the epistemic humility to acknowledge that when we have new knowledge, we can change recommendations. That's not rooted in politics or ideology or, you know, who we vote for. It's, it's science change. It's iterative.[00:33:14] MG: There was this idea that Americans needed simple messaging and I thought that was really insulting to the American public because I actually find Americans very pro science and very sophisticated. And I mean, just like everyone else. And so I didn't think they needed simple messaging, boosters for all mass for all. Like I thought they needed, you know, an explanation of the data instead of just say no.[00:33:35] LM: Yeah. So there is sort of no more hot button. Issue than masking in this country, right? It became this sort of lightning rod and. It was just a fascinating sort of display of vitriol and science entangled with politics when masks are just masks. So when patients ask me now, should I mask in the fall?[00:34:00] Should I wear a mask in an airplane? Should I mask when I'm outside? I tell people that despite searching for data to show that masks Reduce the risk for transmission. We failed to prove that they are that effective, particularly cloth masks and so even surgical masks. we do think is that a well fitted mask that is worn consistently and that is high grade can protect the wearer and whether or not to wear it is really up to you and your personal risk tolerance. Will I wear a mask when I'm sick with COVID? Well, I'll probably be at home in my room anyway, I wouldn't want to go to work sick or go to a social event sick. So first of all, I think there's no role for band aids because again, masks are for the wearer.[00:35:00] But I also am trying to manage people's expectations because I think most people want to understand the reasoning. At the same time, there are some people who just want to be told. Mask up.[00:35:10] MG: Yeah, I mean, so I will say that you're absolutely right, like I really go over the data on masks in this book. So it, because it was such a contentious issue, I really wanted to go over the data and it's kind of a vast section about all the studies, the Cochrane Review and negative studies in children. I mean, meaning negative harms in children, especially those who are learning how to speak.[00:35:32] And so I really try to. comprehensively review that. And I agree with you that the only conclusion we can make as physicians and those who evaluate data is that if you all the time, we're a very well fit and filtered mask, like N95, KN95, KF94s, that you're going to protect yourself to a certain degree, but not always actually, cause it loosens, you'll take it off to drink something like it's not always, but that is all we can say. In medicine, putting all of this data together and I wrote the chapter actually for our infectious disease Bible on COVID and we really with another infectious disease doctor and we go over the data on masks. And that's what we conclude. You really mass mandates. It's not appropriate to put them back because of the different ways people are mass.[00:36:16] And also because there is personal determination. If someone chooses to wear a mask or not, for example, my father. Again, I like to bring him up because he's high risk, except that I don't actually think he's that high risk because he's been vaccinated and now he's had COVID, but he doesn't hear very well because he had an accident 10 years ago.[00:36:33] So masks are really, he doesn't like them because they interfere with his hearing. So it's when we think about people who are living with disability, um, it's a nuanced approach to what they would like to do. It has to be a personal decision, but I also reassure people so much about the vaccines that it's really interesting to see I don't think I have a single patient who's still masking. To my knowledge. They come in and they're like Hey, you convinced me. Like, you know, you got me to even take it sometimes if I didn't want to. And I, now I'm living with this risk like I've lived with other respiratory viruses.[00:37:05] LM: At the same time, I, you wouldn't either shame anybody for wearing a mask if you want to wear a mask. That is your prerogative.[00:37:13] MG: We are not very kind. Why don't, why are we so unkind? Like, we never, I don't know, in medicine the nice doctors are the ones who don't tell people how they have to be. I don't know, like, you just give them tools and then you let them...[00:37:24] LM: Wasn't that the deal in medical school? I was, like, humility, empathy, compassion.[00:37:30] MG: Not stigmatizing, not blaming, not people calling them idiots. So I can remember we treat lung cancer with compassion. If there's maybe an associate, you know, there is an associate of smoking. I mean, we'd never say, well, they don't deserve care. And in this epidemic, we were so unkind. We said the unvaccinated don't deserve care. Some people said…[00:37:48] LM: Right. And we called children vectors of disease, grandma killers. I mean, you know, it's just not appropriate. It's not really in keeping with the sort oath of kindness that we take as doctors or[00:38:00] MG: It really isn't in keeping with the principles of physicians.[00:38:03] LM: it's also just not accurate. I mean, like, okay, let's talk about long COVID, which is real. I have a patient who has, I'm not satisfied with the diagnosis, by the way, like he carries a diagnosis of long COVID. But I look at the diagnosis of long COVID in this patient as a placeholder for when we actually get the diagnosis. I think COVID tripped a wire such that he has myriad. I mean, he has every organ systems on the fritz.[00:38:30] He has profound dysautonomia. He has neuropathy. He has new anemia, renal insufficiency. I'm like a dog with a bone with my patients. We're going to figure out what's going on. He's going to have a bone marrow biopsy, a kidney biopsy. But my question is about long COVID. What is it? What is it not? And how did we get to a place where some of my patients and the general public are really afraid of it.[00:38:57] MG: So I think that three and a half years and almost four years in, unfortunately we've done a disservice in terms of catching too many things into the long COVID diagnosis and not really being clean about our examination of data. So, What it looks like through all that noise and the WHO calls it an infodemic because you can put out papers that aren't very good and that's too much information and then you really look into it and you see that analyses were done improperly or it was observational confounded data or you didn't control for X or was ICD 10 not codes and it wasn't, you know, really understanding if they're inflammatory biomarkers.[00:39:33] And if you put all the data together, it does look like any severe illness, sepsis. Influenza, COVID causes longer symptoms, but we knew that because as a specialist in infectious disease, I knew that from influenza. And that's why the incidence of this has gone down with the reduction of severe disease.[00:39:52] So that's one good thing. That's good thing because we have the tools to prevent severe disease. Second is that we don't know all the contributors to. Why when you've had a severe infection that you get lingering symptoms, but in general, it has something to do with inflammation. We knew that for a long time in HIV and the anything that's even remotely promising or being tested as promising has anti-inflammatory properties, meaning like metformin looked promising in an observational study and it has anti-inflammatory. Property. So it's gonna go ahead and there's gonna be a study of randomized metformin, or a paxlovin study, like trying to kill the virus that actually closed early at Stanford. They are gonna study it more, but that would really imply that there was persistent R N A virus in multiple parts of the body.[00:40:37] And we haven't seen that with other R N A viruses like hepatitis C, which is an RNA virus, does stay. But only with hepatocytes, only with liver cells. So we haven't seen that with other coronaviruses either and we do have six other coronaviruses. So that'll be studied but I'm more interested in the anti-inflammatory and I'm very interested, actually committed to preventing severe disease among, you know, the entire planet.[00:41:01] And again, we have those tools to do that now with the vaccines and therapeutics. We need therapeutic access globally. We need something besides Paxlovid, which is Shinogi Protease inhibitors being studied. There's a Gilead nucleoside analog that's being studied. We're gonna have two more antivirals if they work.[00:41:18] Hope they come soon because we need ongoing therapeutics and ongoing booster vaccination for people who are at persistent risk like older people and those on immunosuppressants in perpetuity for COVID because just like influenza, it will never go away.[00:41:32] LM: Right. And we also need, as you talk about in your book, vaccine equity[00:41:38] MG: Yes. It was so unfair.[00:41:40] LM: The travel bans. I mean, as someone said early in the pandemic, that's like create it, trying to create a urine free zone in a swimming pool,[00:41:47] MG: Oh no. Yuck. Yeah,[00:41:50] LM: …until we vaccinate the world. First of all, that's just not, that's just not right. But secondly. Helping the collective [00:42:00] with immunity helps[00:41:59] MG: It does. And that is, there's a long chapter on the book or like extensive on global equity and also how we should have learned more from HIV equity. And again, the same people who were urging HIV equity and of antiretrovirals weren't beating the drum. I thought for COVID vaccine and therapeutic equity, there was a lot of judgment being applied to human beings in this pandemic.[00:42:19] I hope we get past this polarization, this politicization. I hope we increase trust in public health. We're going to have other problems in life and other pathogens, and we shouldn't be at this point.[00:42:30] LM: I mean, if I were going to follow any guidance for the next pandemic, it would be your book.[00:42:36] MG: It is a step by step, so I hope people do. The last chapter is a 10 point step by step.[00:42:42] LM: It's a brilliant book. You're brilliant, Monica. And you kind of embody the humility and kindness that we hope other physicians and public health leaders adopt.[00:42:51] MG: Thank you, but that's why I was drawn to you too, because I find you very compassionate, very kind and very loving with your patients. And that is the only duty of a doctor is to be kind, compassionate, meet them where they are and consider the entire patient. When I disappear into a room with a patient, it's just that patient and I, and that's, it is all about that person and it is holistic, every aspect of their life.[00:43:16] LM: Monica, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and I hope to see you next time you're in[00:43:21] MG: Thank you so much. I will.[00:43:24] LM: Thank you all for listening to Beyond the Prescription. Please don't forget to subscribe, like, download, and share the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you catch your podcasts. I'd be thrilled if you liked this episode to rate and review it. And if you have a comment or question, please drop us a line at info@lucymcbride.com. The views expressed on this show are entirely my own and do not constitute medical advice for individuals. That should be obtained from your personal physician. Get full access to Are You Okay? at lucymcbride.substack.com/subscribe

Island Shakespeare Festival, off the coast of Seattle, has committed to produce THREE YEARS of Expand the Canon plays! ISF Artistic Director Olena Hodges chats with Hedgepig's Artistic Director Emily Lyon –– who is directing the first ISF partnership play, A Bold Stroke for a Husband –– about the 'bold' move to partner with us and produce these titles. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-is-a-classic-the-expand-the-canon-theatre-podcast/donations

New law breaks down barriers for local hemp farmers; Grassroot Institute of Hawaiʻi concerned over high cost of rail; HPR's Cassie Ordonio highlights printmaking artform and its ties to activism; Shakespeare hits the stage in upcoming festival

Independent Shakespeare Company: Julius Caesar at the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival 7.6 out of 10! Above Average! July 5 - July 30, 2023.

Performances of William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" begin at Southmoreland Park on June 13. This story features exotic creatures, conjuring, comedy, a love story, live music and beautiful language.

Get more LVwithLOVE Thank you to our Partners! WXPN Wind Creek Event Center Michael Bernadyn of RE/MAX Real Estate  Molly's Irish Grille & Sports Pub VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/TmboaNOrx3I Join us on the latest episode of the Lehigh Valley with Love Podcast as we sit down with Jason King Jones, Artistic Director of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, taking place at DeSales University all summer. GET MORE INFO HERE: pashakespeare.org Discover the exciting plans for the upcoming Summer season, gain insights into the festival's innovative strategies for keeping Shakespeare fresh, explore the enduring significance of Shakespeare's work, and get a sneak peek into what festival goers can expect. Don't miss this captivating conversation that celebrates the magic and relevance of Shakespeare in our modern world. GUESTS Jason King Jones: Artistic Director, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival Links Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival: https://pashakespeare.org/

The city business leaders hoped the Shakespeare Festival would do OK, but just in case it tanked, they insisted that it share the stage with a series of prizefights. The boxing matches bombed badly; luckily, the Shakespeare plays did not. (Ashland, Josephine County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704a.shakespeare-festival-vs-boxing.html)

In this episode, Adam and Budi speak with the Co-Head of Acting at UC Irvine's Clair Trevor School of the Arts, Andrew Borba. As a stage performer, Andrew has appeared in numerous productions at South Coast Repertory; the Pasadena Playhouse; The Old Globe; the Theatre @ Boston Court; The Antaeus Company and Chalk Rep.; The Rubicon; La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts; Laguna Playhouse; Berkeley Repertory Theatre and the title role in Richard III at the Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis. He has spent twelve seasons with The Chautauqua Theatre Company and four seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He has also worked with Dallas Theater Center; Portland Stage Company in Maine; Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn.; Delaware Theatre Company in Wilmington; Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival; and Hangar Theatre, in Ithaca, N.Y., among others.Borba's film credits include The Sweet Life (2016); F. Gary Gray's Straight Outta Compton (2015); Taken 3 (2014); Interstellar (2014); Answers to Nothing (2011); Charlie Wilson's War (2007); Nine Lives (2005); Live from Baghdad (2002), Path to War (2002) and A Bright Shining Lie (1998). He also starred in the 2011 short film Dead in the Room.His TV credits include recurring roles on ABC's Modern Family, CBS's Criminal Minds and Jericho, FX's The Shield, Lifetime's The Client List, UPN's Star Trek: Enterprise, and guest appearances on more than 30 television series.As a director, Borba helmed Go West! The Mythology of American Expansion, a multidisciplinary piece with more than 400 performers (dance, opera, theater, visual arts, and a full symphony orchestra) presented in the historic 4000-seat Amphitheater at The Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY. He created and directed a multidisciplinary piece around Gorecki's 3rd Symphony, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (2016), and directed Peter Boyer's Ellis Island (2015) both with Maestro Rossen Milanov and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra; He has directed Hamlet: The First Quarto at Los Angeles' Theatre of Note (multiple awards including Los Angeles Times: Critics Best 2003, 2 Garland awards (5 nominations), Ovation award nominee. Photos of this production, citations, and quotes from Mr. Borba appear in the current New Cambridge edition of Hamlet: The First Quarto and are referenced in The Arden's most recent edition of Hamlet: The First Quarto; He has served on the faculty of the University of Southern California; University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Irvine; Juilliard; University of Tennessee; and New York University. Andrew is the Artistic Director of the prestigious Chautauqua Theater Company and is a member of The Antaeus Theater Company. He is a cum laude graduate of Brown University and received his MFA from New York University.Support the showIf you enjoyed this week´s podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. To submit a question: Voice- http://www.speakpipe.com/theatreofothers Email- podcast@theatreofothers.com Support the Theatre of Others - Check out our Merch!Show Credits Co-Hosts: Adam Marple & Budi MillerProducer: Jack BurmeisterMusic: https://www.purple-planet.comAdditional compositions by @jack_burmeister

Sean and Dayna deliver Las Vegas entertainment reports for the Highway Radio network. Here is this week's report. VegasNearMe App If it's fun to do or see, it's on VegasNearMe. The only app you'll need to navigate Las Vegas. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showFollow us on Instagram: @vegas.revealedFollow us on Twitter: @vegasrevealedFollow us on TikTok: @vegas.revealedWebsite: Vegas-Revealed.com

Next month, the Idaho Shakespeare Festival will start a new season on the grassy hillside in South Boise. This year includes the return of a carnivorous plant, an electropop comet and Dracula. Oh, and there will be some Shakespeare too!

And Suke isn't happy about it

Jefferson Public Radio's Jane Vaughan reports on the effort to save the 90-year-old theater company's future.

The be-all and end-all of the Bard is on show at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Taranaki this month. Back for the first time in a decade, the event boasts performances from luminaries such as Michael Hurst, features drive-in movies and culminates in Baldrick's Big Day Out. Taranaki Whanganui reporter Robin Martin went along to take a look.  

Tom Ridgely, the Producing Artistic director of the non-profit organization, The St. Louis Shakespeare festival shares all things Shakespeare. Not only does Ridgely and podcast co-host, Marissa, drop fun facts about the one and only bard, but he also gives listeners insight into what makes the show go on! From Shakespeare in the park, to Shakespeare in the streets, this organization provides an accessible and entertaining experience for a variety of neighborhoods within the St. Louis area. Listeners learn what shows to attend during the 23rd season, how to appreciate the language and performance, and how to support the non profit. So make haste St. Louis! The show is about to begin!Directed by Lisa Portes (Chicago, IL), Twelfth Night, will begin public performances in Shakespeare Glen on Wednesday, May 31. Opening night is set for Friday, June 2, at 8:00 p.m.; it will run Tuesday - Sunday nights through June 25.THE FULL 2023 SEASON INCLUDES:-CONFLUENCE NEW PLAY FESTIVAL-TOURCO MERRY WIVES-WORLD PREMIERE “SHAKESPEARE IN THE STREETS: SOCCER IN STL” -THE HIP-HOP HOLIDAY SHOW Q BROTHERS CHRISTMAS CAROLSupport the show

Mimi Lieber has performed on Broadway, television and film! Her credits include: Indecent; also, Indecent at Vineyard Theater, NY, Yale Rep, La Jolla Playhouse; other Broadway: Act One, Brooklyn Boy, I'm Not Rappaport (revival). Off-Broadway: Distracted (Roundabout). Regional: Two Things You Don't Talk About at Dinner (Denver Center Theatre); Persephone, The Sisters Mimi Lieber has worked in theatre, TV, and film. Her credits include: Rosensweig (Huntington); We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay! (Long Wharf); Taking Sides, The Greeks, Love Council, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress (Odyssey); Leon, Lena and Lenz (Guthrie); Figaro Gets a Divorce (La Jolla); Sirens (Humana Festival); Potestad (Stages); Much Ado About Nothing, Othello (L.A. Shakespeare Festival); U.S. Comedy Arts Festival w/E.S.T. (winner, Best of Fest); LATC; Taper, Too; Ford's Theater; Kennedy Center. Nat'l tour: The Heidi Chronicles. Film includes The Thing About My Folks; Arranged; Cold Souls; Permanent Midnight; Bulworth; Corrina, Corrina; Wilder Napalm; Just Another Story. Select TV: “The Good Fight,” ”The Sopranos," "Law & Order (recurring)” "Medium," "Friends," "The Practice," "Seinfeld," "ER," "X-Files," "NYPD Blue," "Judging Amy (recurring),” “Early Edition (recurring),” “L.A. Law,” 50 or so other episodes of television. Choreography: Broadway: Act One; The Snow Geese (MTC); Merchant of Venice.  For NYSF/ Delacorte: Cymbeline (Calloway Fin.),. Comedy of Errors, As You Like It (Callaway Fin.), The Merchant of Venice, All's Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night. Info about Blue Card Holocaust Survivor Charity available at https://bluecardfund.org/For more info about her classes, visit https://www.facebook.com/MimiLieberAdvancedSceneStudyNow is a great time to act on your dreams! If this episode helped you, please share to a friend!https://www.instagram.com/HyphensHaven/http://www.dreamofdrea.com/Watch on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/DreamofDréa

The Idaho Shakespeare Festival takes a look back at the last year of performances and gives us an idea of what we can expect to see in 2023.

Racial justice advocates and Ashland City Council members go on record condemning death threats that prompted the hiring of security detail for OSF Artistic Director

October 27-30 is the annual Ojai Storytellers Festival, one of the premier events on the storytelling circuit. This year they've added what Kara called "a mini-Shakespeare Festival" with Deb Newbold's acclaimed "King Lear, Retold," the music group Merry Wives of Windsor, the Sheriffs of Schroedingham and the return of Ojai's own Madrigali Singers. Sheila Arnold will be the master of ceremonies, and Kevin Kling, Izzy Tooinsky, Josh Goforth, Mara Menzies and Adam Booth. Katz, who has been a storyteller for decades, talks about the ancient art and craft, the camaraderie on the circuit and how important stories are as the connective tissue of our culture. We also talked about the National Storytellers Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee which both Michael and Kara said was/is a life-changing event, the process of creating stories, the back-and-forth with the audience, different approaches to reaching the audience and the importance of connection. We did not talk about the lattice theory of quarks, the bronzes of Benin or the great lost libraries of Alexandria and Constantinopole.

This year marks the 34th anniversary of the Nashville Summer Shakespeare Festival, which puts on free, outdoor performances of The Bard and other playwrights' work. This year, the festival includes Cymbeline and, starting on the 25th, August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean. To learn more about how the festival got its start and how it relates to Nashville's broader theater community, we're joined by the executive artistic director and managing director. Then, we'll hear from the directors of both plays about their productions and what meaning we can take from them today. But first, WPLN enterprise reporter Damon Mitchell shares his reporting on rebuilding efforts in Waverly as we approach the one year anniversary of last year's devastating flood. Guests:  Damon Mitchell, WPLN enterprise reporter Denice Hicks, Nashville Shakespeare Festival executive artistic director Robert Marigza-Yeo, Nashville Shakespeare Festival managing director Leah Lowe, director of Cymbeline and associate professor of theater at Vanderbilt University Chuck Smith, director of Gem of the Ocean and resident director of the Goodman Theater in Chicago Additional reading: WPLN: Waverly's flood recovery has a long way to go, and the deaths and departures make for an uncertain future

Another cult classic take the stage at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival!

Partner with Lehigh Valley with Love! Thank you to our Partners! Made Possible in Lehigh Valley Michael Bernadyn of RE/MAX Real Estate Molly's Irish Grille & Sports Pub With an acting career spanning more than 30 years, Tony Todd has an extensive list of credits in all genres. Todd has appeared in more than 100 theatrical and television films and has played opposite many major Hollywood stars. His movie credits include: Platoon (1986), Night of the Living Dead (1990), Candyman[4] (1992), The Crow (1994), The Rock (1996), Wishmaster (1997), the Final Destination series (2000–2011), Minotaur (2006), and Beg (2010).[5]  On stage he has received accolades for numerous roles including a coveted Helen Hayes Award nomination for his performance in The Captain's Tiger at the La Jolla Playhouse, Manhattan Theatre Club, and The Kennedy Center;  And while we'll definitely touch on those accolades, we're here to talk about his upcoming return role in August Wilson's ‘Fences” this summer a the Labuda Center for the Performing Arts at DeSales University in Center Valley, PA!  Fences will preview at 7:30pm on July 27 and 28. Opening night is Friday, July 29 at 7:30pm, and the production runs through August 7. Single tickets start at $25 and can be purchased online at www.pashakespeare.org or by calling the box office at 610.282.WILL [9455]. VIDEO VERSION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri6xB2baehE GUESTS Tony Todd Links Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival The Lehigh Valley is rich with possibilities. A proud heritage and bright future that has long attracted makers, innovators, and those with great vision. Everything you need to create the life you want… on your terms. Vibrant downtowns. Charming Main Streets with surprises around every corner. And lots of open spaces to explore. Live, work, learn, play. Discover all that's Made Possible in Lehigh Valley at lehighvalleymadepossible.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri6xB2baehE

Our friend Maxine Davidowitz recently introduced me to Hank Neimark, telling me that Hank was getting ready to work on the Summer 2022 Woodstock Shakespeare Festival production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. After talking with Hank for just a short time, I asked if he would like to talk about the play on the podcast, and he agreed.  At Hank's suggestion, we were joined on the podcast by David Aston Reese, the Producing Artistic Director of the Bird-On-A-Cliff Theatre Company in Woodstock. David has acted, directed and produced works for Bird-On-A-Cliff Theatre Company's Woodstock Shakespeare Festival and The Woodstock Playhouse. David is the Director of the Summer 2022 Woodstock Shakespeare Festival production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Hank is working with him.  Hank and David, both extraordinarily knowledgeable and enthusiastic Shakespearians, discussed A Midsummer Night's Dream's often misguided or misdirected lovers, the Kings and Queens, marriages, and dreams, the irrepressible Bottom and Puck, and the other “mechanicals” and fairies, the play within the play, and the tension between what some think of as one of Shakespeare's most sexual plays, and also as the one most suitable for children. An unlikely but highly effective combination.  Lots of discussion as well about the production of the play, the direction embedded in the language of the play, and the “choreography”, i.e. the blocking, and stage direction, that comes together with the music that is embedded in Shakespeare's words. Our discussion culminates with Hank's Mel Brooks impersonation from “Queen Alexandra and Murray”.

Idaho heats up as one of the greatest love stories hits the Idaho Shakespeare stage.

Amir Arison stars as Aram Mojtabai on NBC's hit series “The Blacklist. Notable recurring roles in television include work on HBO's “Girls,” the Emmy Award-winning “Homeland,” NBC's “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Zero Hour,” “Dallas,” “True Justice,” and “State of Georgia,” as well as Julia Stiles' hit web series “Blue.” Recent guest star appearances include “American Horror Story,” “NCIS,” “The Mentalist,” “Major Crimes,” “Once Upon a Time in Wonderland,” “Gossip Girl,” “Fringe” and “See Dad Run,” among others. Arison has also been a series regular on Bryan Singer's acclaimed Digital Series “H+” for Warner Bros. Arison's film credits include “A Merry Friggin' Christmas” with Robin Williams, “Big Words,” “I Hate Valentine's Day” with Nia Vardalos, Tom McCarthy's “The Visitor,” “Today's Special,” “Vamps” with Alicia Silverstone, and the upcoming “Jane Wants a Boyfriend.” Arison also has an extensive background in theater, which includes the New York premieres of Stephen Belber's “The Muscles in Our Toes,” “Aftermath” (Drama League Nominee), Christopher Durang's “Why Torture Is Wrong… ,” Charles Mee's “Queens Boulevard,” “A Very Common Procedure,” “Modern Orthodox,” “Omnium Gatherum” (Pulitzer Finalist), “Candy & Dorothy” and “A First Class Man.” Internationally, Amir starred in Michael Kahn's award-winning “Love's Labour's Lost” (RSC's Complete Works Festival). Notable regional credits include appearances in productions at The Shakespeare Theatre D.C., The Huntington Theatre Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, Paper Mill Playhouse, The Long Wharf Theatre, Portland Center Stage, The Lyric Theatre, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, Olney Theatre Center and the Dorset Theatre Festival. Amir grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and attended Columbia University in New York City. He recently made his Broadway debut playing the leading role of Amir in The Kite Runner on Broadway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Val Winkelman and John Dodd June 18, 2022 In Texas, when something delightful has been marinating for 36 years, you know you're in for a treat. The Texas Shakespeare Festival has been a staple of East Texas since the 1980's. For five decades, TSF's own John Dodd and Val Winkelman have helped to feed (literally) and nurture hundreds of theatre artists. They share advice, anecdotes and a who's who of TSF Alum (including at least one who will be familiar to SoS listeners ;) This is one Shakespeare Festival that is aged to perfection. Follow them on all platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Flicker Watch a time lapse of their changeover between shows.

Morning Edition host George Prentice sits down with the creator of the musical Ain't Misbehavin to talk about it's history and journey to Idaho.

Southern Shakespeare Company's (SSC) Free Shakespeare in the Park Festival will be held May 5th-8th on the Capital City Amphitheater stage in Cascades Park in beautiful downtown Tallahassee. This year's multi-day event features a mainstage production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing starring Kevin McDonald of Kids in the Hall fame. Saturday, May 7th and Sunday, May 8th will also feature performances from Renaissance-themed artists and SSC's junior acting troupe, The Bardlings. Other highlights through the weekend include readings from our 2022 Sonnet Contest winners, local vendors, food trucks, and MORE! Patreon » patreon.com/genxgrownup Discord » GenXGrownUp.com/discord Facebook » fb.me/GenXGrownUp Twitter » GenXGrownUp.com/twitter Website » GenXGrownUp.com Podcast » GenXGrownUp.com/pod Merchandise » GenXGrownUp.com/merch Theme: “Grown Up” by Beefy » beefyness.com Apple » itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/genxgrownup-podcast/id1268365641 Google » GenXGrownUp Podcast (google.com) Pocket Casts » pca.st/8iuL Stitcher » www.stitcher.com/s?fid=146720&refid=stpr TuneIn » tunein.com/radio/GenXGrownUp-Podcast-p1020342/ Spotify » spoti.fi/2TB4LR7 iHeart » www.iheart.com/podcast… Amazon Music » amzn.to/33IKfEK Show Notes Southern Shakespeare Festival » https://southernshakespearefestival.org/free-festival/ Email the show » podcast@genxgrownup.com Visit us on YouTube » GenXGrownUp.com/yt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Another visit to 1890’s London to housesit for Dr. Watson leads Madison on a new adventure with Sherlock Holmes. This time they attend a Shakespeare Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon – only to end up being shot at! But was it on purpose or merely an accident? With a femme fatale, a bookish husband and a handsome young actor, Madison will join the world’s most famous sleuth to try and prevent a murder! TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE: MadisonOnTheAir.com Interested in Madison's first visit with Sherlock Holmes? Check out Episode 7.

Another visit to 1890’s London to housesit for Dr. Watson leads Madison on a new adventure with Sherlock Holmes. This time they attend a Shakespeare Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon – only to end up being shot at! But was it on purpose or merely an accident? With a femme fatale, a bookish husband and a handsome young actor, Madison will join the world’s most famous sleuth to try and prevent a murder! TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE: MadisonOnTheAir.com Interested in Madison's first visit with Sherlock Holmes? Check out Episode 7.

The guys welcome Keith back to the podcast.  Keith and Brad tell more stories about shoplifting, including the time Keith worked an overnight shift for Brad.  Meanwhile, Brad was at Mardi Gras in New Orleans having a ball while Keith was doing 360s holding a would-be shoplifters hair.  Keith details a story about coming out of American Pie in Montgomery and getting on an episode of Cops in Montgomery.  Later, Brendan discusses the night he, Tray, and Ben were pulled over at the Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery, but somehow were released, but still had to have the cops jumpstart Tray's cotton scouting vehicle.Listen, download, share, and enjoy.  Thanks for listening.