Elizabeth Marvel (#309) - March, 2011

Elizabeth Marvel talks about whether being "a bad kid" has influenced her more daring stage performances, and discusses the challenges of remaining alienated from her on stage family in Jon Robin Baitz's "Other Desert Cities" while she grows ever closer to her castmates. She also discusses how she was drawn to theatre after a small town upbringing, including the moment when she knew she had to act; the influence of her Juilliard mentor, the late Michael Langham, both on her craft and her career; how she managed to get jobs at Canada's Stratford Festival, The Guthrie and A.R.T in her first year out of school; what it was like to switch between Mark Ravenhill's "Shopping and Fucking" and Wendy Wasserstein's "An American Daughter" in the same year; why she is so drawn to work with director Ivo van Hove on such classic plays as "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "The Little Foxes", and how that work has expanded her range as an actor; how her pregnancy informed her performance as a lizard in Edward Albee's "Seascape"; what it was like to work with playwright and director Woody Allen; how violence has been a recurring theme in her performances, including Michael Weller's "50 Words"; and how she handled the decidedly mixed response from audiences to Caryl Churchill's "Top Girls". Original air date - March 2, 2011.