Episodes
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After the interval, Jonny hears how Matthew Broderick was pulled out of depression by a play from an unknown writer called Harvey Fierstein; doing things his own way as a young actor; the incredible story of the day his life changed forever- and the sadness underneath it; the last conversation he ever had with his father and how his dad’s example revisits him onstage; why he can drive directors mad; why Nathan Lane thinks he’s like the Warner Bros frog; the pressure to be funny; his love for Neil Simon and the failure that seems to always await the giants of American theatre; the rollercoaster of a life in American theatre and getting together with Robert de Niro to fight Donald Trump.
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In the last double episode of the current season, Jonny rounds off by talking to a bona fide star who’s been one almost all his acting life: two time Tony Award winner and, for a generation of movie-goers, the patron saint of being young- Matthew Broderick. Matthew is the star of movies like Ferris Bueller, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Election, You Can Count on Me and The Producers, but his career in the theatre has been immense, not least the five plays of his great mentor and collaborator Neil Simon. The last of these, Plaza Suite, with his wife Sarah Jessica Parker has brought him to London and in his dressing room at the Savoy Theatre, he tells Jonny about the magic of the magic of stage doors, reveals intimate details of his dressing room, the enduring fascination of Joan Collins, doing two shows on his birthday, Ferris Bueller and the pain of growing up, getting the silent treatment from John Hughes, acting with his dad, his triumph as Wall in Midsummer Night’s Dream and the tragic story of the big break that nearly broke him.
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Episodes manquant?
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In the second half of their live chat, Alison Balsom and Sam Mendes discuss what it’s like for him to have been everyone’s Dad professionally since he was 24 (just don’t take his sausage roll); being a woman in a predominantly male art form, changing the paradigm of the trumpet and the spirituality of playing music in church; Sam’s transformative memory of Jackson Pollock in Venice and the joy of throwing paint; where emotion lives in their work; the trumpet piece that reflects who you are at any stage of your life; being uningratiating onstage; why Sam was in a kind of dream-state directing Hills of California and what auditioning new-born babies taught him about performers.
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This week Jonny sees you “the coolest power couple in British theatre” (Jez Butterworth and Laura Donnelly, S3, E8) and raises you one “coolest power couple in British culture”, theatre and film powerhouse Sam Mendes and one of the world’s greatest classical and jazz trumpeters, Alison Balsom. In the first interview they’ve ever given as a couple, they treat SDJ Live at Jermyn Street Theatre to a voyage round their remarkable life and times: what is was for them both to be prodigies and whether they miss their younger selves; Alison’s calling to play the trumpet and not feeling like a soloist until she’d played the Last Night of the Proms; not feeling like a real film director until Sam directed his first Bond; where doubt exists differently in theatre and in classical music; the search for the perfect chord in art; Alison’s recording of her greatest mistake, never being able to duck the hardest challenge and why Simon Russell Beale as Uncle Vanya suddenly couldn’t stand up.
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This week’s guest is a man of many talents. James Shapiro is the Larry Miller Professor of English at Columbia university, he is the Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at the Public Theater in New York and he is the author of the mighty 1599, Baillie Gifford Award Winner for the best non-fiction book of the last 25 years. Jim has spent his life making Shakespeare come alive- on the page, in the rehearsal room and the lecture hall and no one does it better. This is a conversation that takes in: judging the Booker Prize; Hamilton’s 50 foot wave; working on the scary and tempestuous production of a Trump-imitating Julius Caesar; being Shakespeare’s agent and the director’s waiter; what stops you feeling the great plays as you once did and the erosion of democracy and its inextricable link to theatre.
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The second half of Jonny’s chat with actress Laura Donnelly and playwright Jez Butterworth, recorded live at Jermyn Street Theatre, delves into the twelve endings Jonny had to learn and perform for Jez’s play Parlour Song at Atlantic Theatre in New York; writing for the person you’re in love with; an actors contract with the audience and Sam Mendes’s opinion on Laura’s; what Jez believes is the foundation of drama; the ease of acting Butterworth; having daughters and writing women when you’re not one; Laura Donnelly’s locked door and Jez’s knack for finding the numinous in his everyday life; engineering an emergency in the theatre- and Hugh Jackman splitting his trousers.
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Stage Door Jonny goes live with “the hottest power couple in theatre” (Vogue Magazine). This week’s episode talks to the doyenne of 21st Century playwrights, Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem, The Ferryman, Hills of California) and the leading actress in his last three plays, Laura Donnelly, partners in life as well as art. Act 1 of this live show at London’s Jermyn Street theatre covers: their first meeting in an, ahem, audition room for Jez’s play The River and Laura’s observation that made the future father of her children sit up and take notice; Jez’s myesthesia, 1,000 oranges and the dangers of exaggeration for an actor; the tragic events in Laura’s life that inspired Jez to write The Ferryman; why Laura wouldn’t get on the table and dance when Jez asked her to and why Jez was terrified of writing The Ferryman until an event in both their lives meant he had to.
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In Act II of Jonny’s chat with Simon they discuss the difference between immersion and identification; how much mystery Simon leaves in his understanding of a play; the director’s 3am thinks; why Simon has no problem with leaving a show; how directing can be like working in HR, his love of first days; Shakespeare’s school of life; what Simon fears most in the theatre- and why A Christmas Carol at The Tabard theatre is so special to him.
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This week’s guest is Simon Godwin, one of the finest directors on either side of the Atlantic. Simon sits down with Jonny in majestic surroundings (work with me here) and they discuss how Simon (and Hamlet) came to Jonny’s aid when he was trying to buy a house; how Simon assembled the site-specific Macbeth that is currently playing; his three play collaboration with its star, Ralph Fiennes; the difference between certainty and confidence; why he suddenly stopped his directing career to go and train his body- and what Rupert Goold said to him as he was leaving; the moment that sticks in Jonny’s memory when he was directed by Simon - and Simon’s lockdown Romeo and Juliet starring Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley.
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In this week’s chat Jonny takes a stroll down memory lane with acclaimed director Dominic Cooke. They both started at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the early 90’s and Dominic rose to become artistic director of the Royal Court, Olivier-award winner, CBE and now the director of a new blockbuster stage production based on The Biggest TV Show in History. No not Seinfeld. Jonny and Dominic chat about the very particular flavour of the RSC when they met, their problem with stage violence, the “liberating duality of the theatre”, why we don’t talk enough about being bored, the unsung hero of modern British directors, telling an actor “I don’t believe you” and the problem with anger on stage.
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In the second part of Jonny’s chat with director Dominic Cooke they discuss getting the end of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom wrong, some strategies actors use to avoid being vulnerable, Sophie Okonedo and giving her performance up to the gods, experiencing vulnerability as a director and having to be dragged back to see his own shows, his fears for free expression in young writers right now, his long collaboration with Caryl Churchill- and how Caryl was right in her play Seven Jewish Children.
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In the second act of Jonny’s chat with Dame Harriet Walter the conversation ranges over: age in the theatre; Harriet’s extraordinary encounter with her childhood hero, Rudolf Nureyev; being rejected by drama schools and what made her carry on; what she does and doesn’t want from a director; being robbed of time and power by other actors onstage; her search for a great comedy - and how the world expects too much from its mothers.
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This week’s guest is none other than a walking trifecta: a Dame, a national treasure and a star of Succession. Dame Harriet Walter sits down with Jonny and powers through a windy chimney and the sound of a little light bricklaying to talk about the unforgettable visual images of theatre; Rebecca Frecknall’s production of The House of Bernarda Alba; how she stays connected to the life of the play night after night; how she wishes a play could always have a live conductor; undressing Hitler; what trying to effect change through the theatre means to her now; being an ensemble player, hiding under her desk to avoid the school play, all-women Shakespeare, sympathy for the overdog and what she thinks of Jonny’s pleas to her to play Macbeth.
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In the first Act of this week’s conversation Jonny talks to the pride of Nempnett Thrubwell, the internationally renowned director of Mamma Mia on stage and screen, Phyllida Lloyd. Phyllida directed Meryl Streep to an Oscar for playing Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady but her visionary work in the theatre long preceded that. Phyllida’s remembers Jonny in a pond, talks about her most recent stage production at the National Theatre in 2023- a verbatim play based on the testimony of the survivors of the Grenfell fire-and how theatre can play a part in bringing a public outrage to account. They also discuss how Mamma Mia was a cultural disrupter, Phyllida’s problem with spreadsheets, the power of art in prison and what it takes for an actor to endure through a lifetime.
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Welcome to Act 2 of Jonny’s chat with Phyllida Lloyd (unless you left at the interval, like Phyllida sometimes does…). Phyllida discusses her dreams of a Rusisian theatre commune, her relationship with Harriet Walter, and whether it’s always easy to direct a friend, chasing the artistic utopia of her schooldays with her famous trilogy of all-female Shakespeares, the one woman show that changed her and why there’s no excuse for making dull theatre. Not to mention how she wouldn’t direct the Tina Turner musical now and why it’s over for blokes like Jonny.
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The most cracked out of all theatre junkies is Jonny’s guest this week. At least 10,000 nights in the theatre and counting after over 50 years as the doyen of British theatre critics, Michael Billington was THE arbiter of critical taste for the entirety of Jonny’s life. In this chat Michael opens up about his trouble with mime, air-kissing C list celebrities, how even critics are joining in the rise in audience participation, spaghetti in the stalls, hearing Laurence Olivier in his head, the “inexhaustible surprise” of the theatre, missing Harold Pinter, never finding Marilyn Monroe, how Chekov understood his 20 year old feelings and the way criticism completes the cycle of creation.
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The second part of Jonny’s chat with Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola recorded live at Jermyn Street Theatre introduces the potent memory and presiding spirit of Emily’s extraordinary father, Sir John Mortimer. From his heckling of Sarah Kane’s legendary “Blasted” to his meeting with Tom Cruise, from Alessandro’s Broadway debut opposite Helen Mirren and a catalytic biting incident, from an elderly actor calling in sick to the stage door of the RSC, to sharing a dressing room with a pep-talking Bradley Cooper, to what transgression and freedom means onstage today, the spirit of Sir John was alive and well and appearing for one night only at Jermyn St theatre.
Buy tickets for Jonny's next live show with Jez Butterworth & Laura Donnelly here
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Welcome to this season’s first live recording! This episode is brought to you in association with the wonderful people at Jermyn Street Theatre in London and if there’s a more richly enjoyable podcast released this week, we want to hear it. Jonny talks to the blissfully honest, vulnerably human and wildly entertaining power couple that is Emily Mortimer (Mary Poppins, Paddington 3, Lovely and Amazing) and Alessandro Nivola (American Hustle, Many Saints of Newark, Jurassic Park) and the conversation ranges from furries to fairies, from shyness, fear and how Robert de Niro overcomes them, from first kisses to problematic acting teachers, from vomiting in Moscow, via breaking into Laurence Olivier’s trailer to the truly harrowing story of Emily’s Scottish Portia in The Merchant of Venice.
Buy tickets for Jonny's next live show with Jez Butterworth & Laura Donnelly here
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Join Jonny in the Old Vic dressing room of one our finest - and most fragrant - actors, Bertie Carvel. Bertie is a double Olivier and Tony Award winning star and as deep a thinker about his life in the theatre as he is a transformational chameleon onstage. He and Jonny share a forensic discussion about larping, the inner body, Bertie’s magic trick, why he now reads his reviews (and why he thinks acting companies should hold post-review therapy sessions), wanting the play to end just after you’ve opened, what it felt like to play Donald Trump and doing 652 performances of Missy Trunchbull in “Matilda”. This really is a conversation that captures what it sounds like to hear a great actor in the awkward and exhilarating throes of creativity. He’s also the first guest to use the word “shriven”.
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Welcome to the big kick off of SDJ Season 3! Who better to launch us than one of the most electric young actors there is, Paapa Essiedu. Paapa welcomed Jonny into his bijou dressing room in London’s National Theatre and the conversation ranged over: drinking during a show, Paapa’s risky superstition, how Jamie Lloyd doesn’t want you to know where to stand, what a famous director in the audience can do to you, two actors nightmares that launched Paapa on the stage, separation anxiety and what it does to his brain and what onstage chemistry is and how to preserve it. Happy New Year everyone, its Streetcar Time.
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