I was searching the Internet recently and came across these theater-related news posts. They might have value for you. Take a look! – David
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Natasha Katz (#302) – January, 2011
“The Addams Family” and “Elf”‘s lighting designer Natasha Katz talks about the path of her career, beginning with a high school community service requirement that saw her volunteering at a (now-defunct) Off-Broadway theatre and her semester away from Oberlin College as an intern/observer of designer Roger Morgan on the musical “I Remember Mama” which brought her into immediate contact with such notables as Liv Ullmann and Richard Rodgers. She discusses her on the job training (sans graduate school) with such figures as special effects whiz Bran Ferren and lighting designers Marcia Madeira and Ken Billington; explains why she thinks it takes longer now to mount a musical than it did when she began; how a tumultuous relationship with director Clifford Williams led to her Broadway debut at a very young age; what she learned from her work Off-Broadway and in regional theatre, including some 30 productions at the Dallas Theatre Center; why her task is to focus on two key elements — people and sets — and to both separate and unite them; how she comes to love a show that she didn’t necessarily enjoy reading simply by virtue of working on it; when she joins the creative process with the director and other designers — and whether that’s always at the right time; how she constantly references and stays familiar with lighting in other shows and even other mediums; what it was like to be part of a triumvirate of designers for “The Coast of Utopia”; and why she thinks lighting design was initially very open to female designers and why she believes it’s headed in the wrong direction today. Original air date – January 12, 2011.
Katie Finneran (#276) – July, 2010
“Promises, Promises” scene stealer Katie Finneran talks about creating the character of Marge McDougall for only two scenes and why she had to be “the anti-Kristin,” what it’s like having so much free time during the course of a performance and what’s beyond the secret door in her dressing room’s bathroom. She also talks about why she left Carnegie Mellon’s theatre program after a short stay; how she came to New York intent on studying with Uta Hagen and managed to do so, on and off, for some 15 years; why we’ve only seen her in three musicals over the course of almost two decades of Broadway gigs; how instrumental Lincoln Center Theater has been in her career, providing her with parts in such shows as “Two Shakespearean Actors”, “The Heiress” and “My Favorite Year”; what it has been like working with Neil Simon on the “Promises” revival and, earlier, on his new play “Proposals”; how she handled performing in the lengthy “The Iceman Cometh” — and why she compares that experience to “Love, Loss and What I Wore”; and the often dangerous experience of appearing in the 2001 revival of “Noises Off”. Original air date – July 7, 2010.
David Caban
Producer/Host of Sunday Matinee
