ON AIR
STAR
00:00:00 | 3:02:50

DONATE!

close

PROFILE

Anthony Byrnes Host
Anthony Byrnes

host of 'Opening the Curtain'

Anthony Byrnes is a director, producer, educator, critic and arts administrator, based in Los Angeles, California. He has served as the founding Artistic Director of Burning Wheel & the Umbrella Company, a weekly columnist on KCRW, Director of Cultural Relations for the University of Southern California, and Associate Producer of New Play Development for Center Theatre Group.

Byrnes received an MFA from CalArts and currently teaches at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts.

FROM Anthony Byrnes

Being a Ghost Story of Christmas
Opening the Curtain

Being a Ghost Story of Christmas When you enter the Geffen Playhouse for “A Christmas Carol” it feels like you may have entered a victorian funeral home.  The lights are dim, there’s a waft of fog blowing on stage and what appears to be a coffin surrounded by black floral arrangements. It’s spooky. It feels like you’re about to hear a ghost story.  Which you are.

4 MIN Nov 12, 2018

Midterm Elections and the theatre
Opening the Curtain

Midterm Elections and the theatre Anthony Byrnes speaks with Steve Chiotakis about theatre and the upcoming elections on All Things Considered.

4 MIN, 22 SEC Nov 05, 2018

An absence of responsibility
Opening the Curtain

An absence of responsibility At first Eliza Clark’s play “Quack” feels like a thinly veiled take-down of a Dr. Oz-like TV doctor.

3 MIN, 31 SEC Oct 29, 2018

A Lie to make you care
Opening the Curtain

A Lie to make you care Beyond the 6 Tony Awards and the record setting box office, what’s fascinating about the musical “Dear Evan Hansen” is how it gets an audience to care.

3 MIN, 19 SEC Oct 22, 2018

Breaking free from Shakespeare's Ghetto
Opening the Curtain

Breaking free from Shakespeare's Ghetto What if “The Merchant of Venice” were told from Shylock’s daughter’s perspective? That’s the conceit behind Sarah Mantell’s play “Everything that never happened”.

3 MIN, 16 SEC Oct 15, 2018

A blue Jello spit take of truth
Opening the Curtain

A blue Jello spit take of truth When’s the last time, in the theater, that you saw a really good, slow spit take?

3 MIN, 34 SEC Oct 08, 2018

An argument for Dramaturgy
Opening the Curtain

An argument for Dramaturgy Watching Jose Rivera’s play “The Untranslatable Secrets of Nikki Corona” is a bit like flipping through the sketchbook of a talented artist who can’t figure out exactly how all those sketches turn into a big painting.

3 MIN, 29 SEC Oct 01, 2018

The glory of subversion
Opening the Curtain

The glory of subversion Branden Jacobs-Jenkins plays aren’t quite what they seem on the surface. Or maybe a better way to say that is - they are everything they seem to be ... and more. Take his play “Appropriate” or “Appropriate” that played at the Taper in 2015.(That was a couple years ago but stick with me - because he’s doing something very similar now).

3 MIN, 32 SEC Sep 24, 2018

Catching glimpses of a great play
Opening the Curtain

Catching glimpses of a great play It’s easy to see why Lynn Nottage’s play “Sweat” won a Pulitzer prize. “Sweat” chronicles what happens to a union factory town when the old way of doing things isn’t doing it anymore. It’s set mostly in a local dive bar. The kind of place you go after your shift to grab a beer. The kind of place you celebrate every birthday since - well, hell you can’t even remember it’s been so long.

3 MIN, 33 SEC Sep 17, 2018

The present soul of a classic
Opening the Curtain

The present soul of a classic The question of the classical soul is always looming in the air for the Getty Villa’s annual outdoor drama. Calling upon those classical Greek and Roman plays, one always wonders how academic, how true to form (and perhaps devoid of soul) will the work be? That question is particularly poignant when Anne Bogart and SITI Company are tackling the Greeks, as they are for the third time this year, with Euripides “Bacchae.”

3 MIN, 44 SEC Sep 10, 2018

Too little water; too much drama!
Opening the Curtain

Too little water; too much drama! It’s in roughly the third scene of Circle X’s world premiere of “Hole in the Sky” that the moon rises behind the actors.  Not a prop moon or a piece of scenery - the actual moon…because we’re sitting on the edge of horse stable deep in the Valley - Lake View Terrace to be exact.

3 MIN, 30 SEC Aug 27, 2018

‘Cabaret’ as cover band
Opening the Curtain

‘Cabaret’ as cover band The tricky thing with a musical like “Cabaret” is that it’s so iconic.

3 MIN, 17 SEC Aug 13, 2018

"Who gets to be a mom?"
Opening the Curtain

"Who gets to be a mom?" Yes, this is a play about new mothers but because child-rearing is inextricably linked to privilege and class it becomes about much, much more than that. To say this is play that could only be written by a women is like saying only a woman can give birth - both overly simplistic and more complicated than we can fully grasp.

3 MIN, 39 SEC Aug 06, 2018

Getting lost in a playwright’s mind
Opening the Curtain

Getting lost in a playwright’s mind With most plays and playwrights, you track story, character, plot. There’s a sense that while the source of the drama may have been the playwrights mind that’s not the setting. That’s not how it works with a Murray Mednick play.

3 MIN, 28 SEC Jul 30, 2018

Falling for young fruit
Opening the Curtain

Falling for young fruit You know how you feel about brussels sprouts? You know you should probably eat them. “A Month in the Country,” the Turgenev classic, is basically the theatrical equivalent of brussels sprouts. Fortunately, the Patrick Marber adaptation of “Three Days in the Country,” - is like the chef that throws in a little bacon into the brussels sprouts and makes you reconsider the whole affair.

3 MIN, 38 SEC Jul 23, 2018

Moms will do anything
Opening the Curtain

Moms will do anything The story behind the play "Hostage" is incredible.

3 MIN, 26 SEC Jul 16, 2018

Recommended

Rep. Schiff’s priorities for the House Intelligence Committee
Press Play with Madeleine Brand

Rep. Schiff’s priorities for the House Intelligence Committee In January, Burbank Congressman Adam Schiff is expected to be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. We ask what investigations he will open, and what recourse there will be if Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker shuts down Mueller’s Russia probe.

48 MIN, 54 SEC Nov 13, 2018

What both sides of the US-Mexico border look like as migrants arrive
Press Play with Madeleine Brand

What both sides of the US-Mexico border look like as migrants arrive The migrant caravan has started arriving at the border. Thousands are expected over the coming days in Tijuana, where there has already been violence between locals and migrants. North of the border, some 6000 U.S. troops have been waiting. We visit both sides.

48 MIN, 39 SEC Nov 16, 2018

Rauschenberg at LACMA
Art Talk

Rauschenberg at LACMA Hunter Drohojowska-Philp recommends walking his quarter mile of art

4 MIN, 20 SEC Nov 16, 2018

Good Food’s Thanksgiving tips
Good Food

Good Food’s Thanksgiving tips Evan Kleiman and Dorie Greenspan answer your questions about making a memorable Thanksgiving meal. Culinary technologist Dave Arnold is bringing his Thanksgiving hacks to the potluck, too. There’s a new film in theaters about a chef prodigy named Flynn McGarry. Plus: Los Angeles pie queen Nicole Rucker dishes on her holiday treats.

56 MIN, 36 SEC Nov 16, 2018

iTUNES SPOTIFY
AMAZON RDIO
FACEBOOK TWITTER

Player Embed Code

COPY EMBED
CLOSE
CLOSE
CLOSE
Copy Embed
Copy Embed