On this podcast, on a beautiful night in Old City, I caught up with playwright, director, teacher, and actor James Ijames, whose latest play, WHITE, is enjoying a critically acclaimed world-premiere production at Norristown's Theatre Horizon. Meanwhile, this Barrymore and F. Otto Haas Emerging Artist Award winner's The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington opened at the Ally Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 30, 2017; another, Kill Move Paradise,opens at New York's National Black Theatre on May 31, 2017. Ijames also recently won the $50,000 Whiting Award for "emerging writers who exhibit great promise."

"A jazz guy"

Philadelphia audiences already know he's delivered on that promise. Here we discuss the creative process and how Ijames's work was enhanced after development at PlayPenn's new-play conference. We also touch on provocation in art, a playwright's responsibility to their audience, and the Whitney Biennial's Emmett Till controversy. While WHITE traverses some rocky territory, it's very funny. Ijames explains, "I'm a jazz guy, not a blues guy." So what play does Ijames really adore? The answer may surprise you.

For Wendy Rosenfield's review of WHITE, click here.

Scottish playwright Stef Smith isn't yet 30, but her plays show a power beyond her years. Philadelphia's Inis Nua Theatre Company, which focuses specifically on presenting contemporary work from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, is a perfect fit for her unique voice.

Here, we speak with Smith and director Claire Moyer about Inis Nua's production of Swallow. Smith's tale about a trio of lonely adults all in the midst of life-changing events finds a kind of universality in alienation from the modern world. Smith has received an Olivier Award for her play RoadKill and is an associate artist at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. This is the third play Moyer has directed for Inis Nua. Together they discuss the play's symbolism, getting into the heads of these characters, and the reactions from audiences around the world.

To read Mark Cofta's review of Swallow, click here.

On this podcast, award-winning Philadelphia-based playwright Jacqueline Goldfinger talks about her newest production, The Arsonists. This "play with music" marks the third and final installment of her Southern Gothic trilogy, after The Terrible Girls and Skin and Bone. A National New Play Network (NNPN) rolling world premiere, it will open first under the aegis of Azuka Theatre Company and then head to theaters around the country.

Swamp things

Goldfinger grew up in rural Florida and, captivated by the region's literature and music, decided the Southern Gothic form was worefully underutilized onstage. The Arsonists, inspired by Sophocles's tragedy Elektra, follows a father-daughter arson team who reside deep in Florida's swamplands. A live band will play during the show and, on certain nights, give concerts afterward. Here, Goldfinger discusses how the play and its predecessors came to be, NNPN's rolling premiere process, and much more.

This week, we grabbed our magnifying glasses and followed the clues to New Paradise Laboratories' site-specific mystery Gumshoe, which takes place deep in the bowels and throughout the corridors of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Afterward, we went even further and tracked down the company's innovative founder and artistic director, Whit MacLaughlin.

On the case

MacLaughlin, who arrived in Philadelphia after more than 20 years with the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, brought New Paradise Laboratories' (NPL) founding ensemble here in 1996. Some of the company's members have gone on to become this city's most recognizable onstage faces (Lee Ann Etzold, Jeb Kreager, Matt Saunders, Mary McCool), and the company and its members have also seen much success in New York (NPL won an Obie Award for 2000's The Fab 4 Reach the Pearly Gates) and elsewhere. NPL has created roughly one original work per year since its founding, and this year, they've paired with the Free Library and Rosenbach Museum to present Gumshoe. Listen in to learn the difference between fact, fiction, and falsehood, and -- perhaps most importantly -- how to escape a maze.