Directed by Les Waters Read by Charles Shaw Robinson From a perch beyond this life, an actor observes as a group of masked people finally return to the courtyard of Berkeley Rep — to the theatre, the place we made to gather, breathe together, and share the stories that remind us of our humanity.

Repisodes: The Berkeley Rep Podcast

Place/Settings: Berkeley: 10 - "The Character Actor" by Sarah Ruhl

It's 1959, and tobacco smoke snakes across the bustling café from its prized corner table, where artists and students debate political treatises, muse on philosophy, and share thrilling new poetry.

Place/Settings: Berkeley: 9 - "Suicide on Telegraph" by Richard Montoya

Read by Steven Anthony Jones and BD Wong On a chilly autumn night, an old fisherman makes his way to the lake in the dark. He casts a line...and reels in the ghost he's been seeking.

Place/Settings: Berkeley: 8 - "night fishing" by Philip Kan Gotanda

Straddling the worlds of her divorced parents, Yasmine doesn't feel fully at home in either. Desperate to see her best friend in San Francisco, she embarks on the voyage across the Bay alone, exhilarated at her newfound independence.

Place/Settings: Berkeley: 7 - "The Third Sphere" by Kamala Parks, read by Denmo Ibrahim

How do you find your people in middle school — especially when you don't quite fit the mold? A girl experiments, assimilates, adapts, and journeys towards genuine self-love and community.

Place/Settings: Berkeley: 6 - "West Berkeley West Indian" by Aya de León

Bored, lost, and lonely, a teenager stumbles into a café. While eating a cup of soup, he hears a wondrously inscrutable sonata, and begins to sense that being lost might not be such a lonesome condition after all.

Place/Settings: Berkeley: 5 - "The Black Mass Sonata" by Daniel Handler, read by Lance Gardner

Sometimes music becomes indelibly linked to specific memories, invoking the people with whom we shared them. Songs by Isaac Hayes, Peter Tosh, Stevie Wonder, the Doors, the Knight Brothers, and Patti LaBelle conjure a deep friendship, one that began on a hot night in 1986 outside Leopold's Records.

Place/Settings: Berkeley: 4 - "For the Record" by Sean San José

Hope, fear, excitement, and a dizzying array of possibilities unspool across an expectant dad’s imagination, as he and his partner navigate medical uncertainties and rediscover each other as almost-parents.

Place/Settings: Berkeley: 3 - "20 Weeks" by Adam Mansbach

A young oboist kisses a pianist on a street corner. At long last! But the kiss unlocks pressures, expectations, dreams, and fears. Can we learn to live with uncertainty? To ask for what we need?

Place/Settings: Berkeley: 2 - "The Fundamental Kiss, With Overtones" by Eisa Davis

A neighborhood park — its playground, sloping hillside, and basketball court; its tunnel to a rose garden and many paths — bears witness to a boy, growing up and growing old.

Place/Settings: Berkeley: 1 - "The Slide" by Itamar Moses

This is the last Repisode in the 19/20 season! This is Part Two of our special two-part Core series on SCHOOL GIRLS. In this series, Berkeley Rep directing fellow Nailah Harper-Malveaux, who also worked as the assistant director on the show, speaks with two local artists about recent exhibits that connect to the work onstage. In this conversation, Nailah speaks with Toshia Christal, co-curator of the SOMArts exhibit, Unbound Roots: a Paradigm for Healing. They explore the parallels between the wellness industry and the beauty industry, what visual art can teach us about capturing a moment in time and how to take care of yourself during this period of increased physical isolation. Learn more about Toshia Christal's work: https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Toshia-Christal/26E8C28D0BD0641A Learn more about SOMArts and check out the exhibit: https://www.somarts.org/ Follow Berkeley Rep on SoundCloud to keep up with the whole series. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. Music credit to Peter Yonka. THANK YOU FOR LISTENING! WE MISS YOU ALL!

S19-20, Repisode 17: The Core - "a paradigm for intentional healing"

In a grand finale to our prematurely closed play, we are launching a special two-part CORE series around SCHOOL GIRSLS: OR, THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY. In this series, Berkeley Rep directing fellow Nailah Harper-Malveaux, who also worked as the assistant director on the show, will speak with two local artists about recent exhibits that connect to the work onstage. If you’re not able to see the play online, know that this conversation is still for you! We’ll reference the play as a jumping off point, but the majority of the conversation will delve into how the play’s themes connect with the Black is Beautiful exhibit, which was recently shown at the Museum of the African Diaspora. Joining us is Mark Sabb, the Senior Director of Innovation and Engagement at the museum, as well as an artist, writer and creator of the art collective, FeltZine. Learn more about Mark: http://mark.feltzine.us/portfolio Learn more about MoAD and check out the exhibit: https://www.moadsf.org/ Follow Berkeley Rep on SoundCloud to keep up with the whole series. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. Music credit to Peter Yonka.

S19-20, Repisode 16: The Core - “How to Find the Beauty in the Stillness"

For the Audio Program portion of Repisodes, we read out loud from the dramaturgy material from the show’s program in an effort to make the information around our shows accessible to all audiences, in multiple formats. It's like we are reading you a short series of stories. For the SCHOOL GIRLS; OR, THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY Program, we hear Charlie Dubach-Reinhold’s essay on colonialism, Ghanaian education, and international beauty standards and pageants. SCHOOL GIRLS; OR, THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY was unfortunately closed down due to coronavirus concerns before it was even able to open. However, if you’re a subscriber or managed to snag a ticket within a tiny window last week, you will receive a link to a filmed version on BroadwayHD and get to experience the one and only full run of it that a few Berkeley Rep staff members were lucky enough to see live. We are so sad that not all of you will be able to experience the show, but we hope that this Repisode can illuminate some of the serious and historical undertones of Jocelyn Bioh’s wonderful comedy! Follow Berkeley Rep on SoundCloud to keep up with the whole series. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. Music credit to Peter Yonka.

S19-20, Repisode 15: School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play Audio Program

As many of you know, we very sadly had to close our show CULTURE CLASH (STILL) IN AMERICA early. But we still had two conversations with our cultural partners outstanding and ready to roll...so the art continues! This Core episode, where we connect the play to the real world, is entirely in English (the last one was in Spanish). We talk with Anna Flurry, a paralegal with East Bay Sanctuary Covenant House, about the work she does with asylum seekers here in the Bay Area. and how all of that work is changing with COVID-19. Learn more about the work East Bay Sanctuary Covenant House does on their website: https://eastbaysanctuary.org/ Follow Berkeley Rep on SoundCloud to keep up with the whole series. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. Music credit to Peter Yonka.

S19-20, Repisode 14: The Core - “exposing inequalities that already existed”

Yes, performances for Jocelyn Bioh's SCHOOL GIRLS; OR, THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY were cancelled. Which makes us incredibly sad. but if you are a Berkeley Rep subscriber or already bought an e-ticket, you received a link to a video of the one and only performance the play had on our stages. Here, we feature an interview writer Jocelyn Bioh did with Katie Craddock, our artistic associate. Jocelyn is a first-generation Ghanaian-American writer/performer from New York City. Jocelyn is a commissioned playwright with Manhattan Theatre Club, Second Stage, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and the Atlantic Theater Company, and was a Tow Playwriting Fellow in 2018/19. Her plays include the multi-award-winning School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, which had two celebrated runs at MCC Theater and is also playing at the Goodman Theatre this spring; Nollywood Dreams (Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College, 2016; upcoming at MCC Theater this spring; Kilroy’s List 2015); and the new musical Goddess (Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College, 2019) of which she is the book writer. She has her BA in English and Theatre from The Ohio State University and MFA in Theatre-Playwriting from Columbia University School of the Arts. Follow Berkeley Rep on SoundCloud to keep up with the whole series. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. Music credit to Peter Yonka.

S19-20, Repisode 13: In Conversation with Jocelyn Bioh

Berkeley Repertory Theatre is a national leader in innovative theatre known for its core values of imagination and excellence.

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Repisodes: The Berkeley Rep Podcast

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