50 episodes

The Farm Theater's Bullpen Sessions are conversations with working theater professionals aimed at early career artists or any one interested in the journey of building a career in the theater. Season one features guests including: Aaron Roman Weiner ("The Americans"), Susan Pourfar ("Scandal"), Raul Castillo (El Chicano; HBO's Looking), Matthew Hallock (Chair of Centre College Theater Dept.), Portia (Sweat; Ruined), Kris Diaz (The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety), Lisa Arrindell (Madea's Family Reunion; Saints and Sinners), Megan Kingery (Broadway Producer, The Great Comet of 1812), Judy Bowman (Casting Director, Actors Theatre of Louisville), Rick Steiger (Broadway Stage Manager, An American in Paris; War Horse). The focus of the podcast is to have conversations with working theater professionals and to demystify the process of building a career in the theater. Hosts Lee Kaplan and Padraic Lillis will talk with artists from all disciplines in the theater to have them share: how they got to where they are, who and what helped them, what they carry with them into the room, and advice for early career artists.

The Farm Theater's Bullpen Sessions bullpensessions

    • Arts
    • 5.0 • 18 Ratings

The Farm Theater's Bullpen Sessions are conversations with working theater professionals aimed at early career artists or any one interested in the journey of building a career in the theater. Season one features guests including: Aaron Roman Weiner ("The Americans"), Susan Pourfar ("Scandal"), Raul Castillo (El Chicano; HBO's Looking), Matthew Hallock (Chair of Centre College Theater Dept.), Portia (Sweat; Ruined), Kris Diaz (The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety), Lisa Arrindell (Madea's Family Reunion; Saints and Sinners), Megan Kingery (Broadway Producer, The Great Comet of 1812), Judy Bowman (Casting Director, Actors Theatre of Louisville), Rick Steiger (Broadway Stage Manager, An American in Paris; War Horse). The focus of the podcast is to have conversations with working theater professionals and to demystify the process of building a career in the theater. Hosts Lee Kaplan and Padraic Lillis will talk with artists from all disciplines in the theater to have them share: how they got to where they are, who and what helped them, what they carry with them into the room, and advice for early career artists.

    Bullpen Sessions Episode 79: Eden Marryshow

    Bullpen Sessions Episode 79: Eden Marryshow

    Eden Marryshow is an award-winning Director/Writer/Actor from Flatbush, Brooklyn. For over a decade, Eden served NYC’s Department of Education as a Paraprofessional where he taught some of city’s most marginalized youth. Latina "Peanut" Bilbro, one of his most beloved students, would always tell him that she believed in him, she knew he was going to be on stage and make movies someday. On June 22nd 2006, Eden received a call that Peanut was killed in a drive-by shooting. He decided it was time to follow his dream... and prove Peanut right. Since that decision, Eden wrote, produced, directed and starred in the Nationally Theatrically released Feature Film Bruce!!!!, which garnered Marryshow multiple awards.  He is currently in post-production for his newest feature, Can You Stand The Rain, which is a love-note to his brother, Shawn Xavier Brown, who he lost last year. Theatre credits include INK (MTC/Broadway), Seven Guitars (Arena Stage), Pipeline (Actors Theatre), Game On (Kennedy Center). Marryshow recently recurred on Netflix’s Archive 81, and previously Jessica Jones and It’s Bruno. A huge thanks to my parents, Cesa, KMR, Victor Villar-Hauser, and The Boothe Group. To my Peanut… dreams do come true. 

    • 1 hr 6 min
    Bullpen Sessions Episode 78: Jake Brasch

    Bullpen Sessions Episode 78: Jake Brasch

    Jake Brasch (he/they) is a writer + actor + composer + clown and a graduating second-year playwright in the Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. Jake is a member of the 2024 Page 73 Writers Group and a 2023-2024 Alliance/Kendeda Finalist. His play The Reservoir was commissioned by the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Science & Technology Project and was presented at the 2023 Colorado New Play Summit at the Denver Center. Their work has been developed by New York Stage and Film, The Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Farm Theater, ArtHouse Inkubator, Letter of Marque Theater Company, Eden Theater Company, and LAByrinth Theater Company. He is currently under commission from the EST/Sloan Project and The Farm Theater’s College Collaboration Project. They're a proud graduate of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood, The Farm Theater's Development Workshop, and The LAByrinth Intensive Ensemble. As a composer, Jake has written music and lyrics for several films, plays, and podcasts. He works as a birthday party clown in the tri-state area and is currently developing a series based on his clowning career. They are also developing a Grotowski-based physical dramaturgy pedagogy for playwrights. BFA from NYU Tisch (Experimental Theatre Wing/New Studio on Broadway).

    • 1 hr 6 min
    Bullpen Sessions Episode 77: Tricia Alexandro

    Bullpen Sessions Episode 77: Tricia Alexandro

    Tricia Alexandro is an actor, writer and native New Yorker. She has studied acting with Seth Barrish and Lee Brock at The Barrow Group, Bob Krakower at Manhattan Film Institute and attended Playhouse West in LA where she studied the Meisner Technique. She is an alumni of The Labyrinth Theater Company’s Master Class. Her latest credits include the Off-Broadway play Seven Deadly Sins, written and directed by Tony nominated and Obie winner Moisés Kaufman, a recurring role on the TV show Bridge and Tunnel (written and directed by Ed Burns) which premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival, The Blacklist (NBC), she guest starred on BULL (CBS) and Law and Order: SVU and recently appeared on The Other Two (with Wanda Sykes and Molly Shannon) on HBO Max. In 2023 she won the Best Actress Award in India for her lead role in the sci-fi film Life Quest, which is currently playing in festivals worldwide. Tricia was in the one woman show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, at Cape May Stage where she played 9 characters, and We, the Invisibles at the Humana Festival, in which she played 14 characters. Tricia’s performance in John Yearley’s collection of one acts called The Unrepeatable Moment at The Barrow Group Theater was singled out in The New York Times: “bravely acted, a high point of the show”. Next up, Tricia will do a staged reading at 59 E 59, for The Labyrinth Theater Company’s Barn Series, of Mel Nieves’ new play La Potencia, in which she plays the title character, a boxer from the Bronx who is past her prime, but unwilling to leave the boxing ring behind. Tricia also teaches at The Barrow Group School in NYC, and is a certified life coach who loves helping creative folks flourish. Find her on IG: @triciaalexandro

    • 56 min
    Bullpen Sessions Episode 76: Ajay Naidu

    Bullpen Sessions Episode 76: Ajay Naidu

    Ajay Naidu 
    On screen, Naidu starred in the cult film Office Space, as well as appearing in films such as K-Pax, Subway Stories, π, Requiem for a Dream, Bad Santa, The War Within, The Guru, Waterborne, and Loins of Punjab Presents. He co-starred as a series regular in the sitcom LateLine and had guest starring roles on the television dramas The Sopranos,The West Wing and Bored to Death. Naidu has been working extensively with musicians from the Asian underground music movement for many years as a breakdancer and an M.C. His vocals have appeared on many records, most notably Talvin Singh's mercury award winner "OK". In 2006, Naidu directed his first feature film Ashes which had its release in 2010 and for which he won Best Actor accolades from the MIACC Film Festival in New York and the London Asian Film Festival. Naidu's most recent theatre credits include The Kid Stays in the Picture at the Royal Court Theatre, The Master and Margarita with Complicite, a world tour of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure with Complicite, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui alongside Al Pacino, directed by Simon McBurney, The Little Flower of East Orange alongside Ellyn Burstyn at New York's Public Theater directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Waiting for Godot at TFANA directed by Arin Arbus. In 2001 Naidu's solo theatre piece Darwaza was a sold-out hit at New York's Labyrinth Theatre, where he is also a member of the company. In 2019, Naidu was awarded the Excellence in Performing Arts Award by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.

    • 1 hr 2 min
    Bullpen Sessions Episode 75: Jessi D. Hill

    Bullpen Sessions Episode 75: Jessi D. Hill

    JESSI D. HILL (she/her) is a NYC-based director, theatre-maker, teacher and runner (8 Marathons and counting!) whose play development projects have included work at New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater/Joe’s Pub, Playwrights Horizons, The Playwrights’ Center, Primary Stages, Labyrinth, Keen Company, The Women’s Project, 59E59, The New Group, Rattlestick, HERE Arts Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Culture Project, The Acting Company, The Barrow Group, New Dramatists, P73, Clubbed Thumb, The Lark, The Playwrights Realm, PS122, Baruch Performing Arts Center, New Georges, Premiere Stages, Luna Stage, The Wild Project, Abingdon, Naked Angels, Jewish Plays Project and others. Her work has been seen internationally in Edinburgh, London, New Zealand, Bucharest, Berlin, Hamburg and Rome.. www.jessidhill.com

    • 54 min
    Bullpen Sessions Episode 74: Lori Vega

    Bullpen Sessions Episode 74: Lori Vega

    Lori Vega is a New York-based stage and screen actor whose most recent TV credits include work on Pretty Little Liars, And Just Like That (HBO), Bull (CBS) and FBI (CBS) and El Deafo (Apple TV+). Coming from world class training at LAMDA and Cornell University, her on stage credits include both classical and contemporary plays with Off-Broadway theaters such as Playwrights Horizons, Target Margin Theater, Classical Theater of Harlem, and Ensemble Studio Theater (EST). She has also worked at regional theaters such as Trinity Rep, The Rep St Louis, Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF), Portland Stage Co., Lake Tahoe and Idaho Shakespeare Festivals, and many more. www.lorivega.net

    • 49 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
18 Ratings

18 Ratings

drape junky ,

Covers the gamut...beautifully

The Farm's Bullpen sessions, is a throughorly engaging hour or so of stage director Patric Illis speaking with theater professional. As an interviewer, he humbly gives 95% of the time to his interviewees-- letting and encouraging them to go as deep as they like into any given area of their careers and the personal stories behind those careers. It's exciting to listen to the wild and varied trajectories of actors' and writer's lives and what fuels them. Zero fluff, zero pretense. Wish all theater podcasts were this on point. If you love hearing about 'process' it's all here!

cooltheatergeek ,

Giving Thanks

Great podcast! Very inspiring. Thank you, Padraic and Lee for creating this.

MCPocket ,

Love this show

Padraic is brilliant and Lee asks great questions. Their guests are working artists who share gems of knowledge that I find incredibly helpful!

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