With performance venues closed since March, how are theatre companies surviving? Many are using relatively new technologies – Zoom and other video conference platforms, for example – but a small SF theatre company has turned to a much older media format to keep its artists and audience engaged.

New Conservatory Theatre Center – one of two LGBTQ-focused San Francisco companies – has launched an “episodic podcast” patterned after serial radio plays that were all the rage in the 1930s and ‘40s. In Good Company is fictional, yet essentially autobiographical – it’s about a small queer theatre company struggling to survive a pandemic.

You’ll hear a scene from In Good Company on this edition of Out in the Bay, and two of the series’ many creators — author and playwright Jewelle Gomez and NCTC Artistic Director Ed Decker — describe the challenges and joys of adapting their work to audio.

NCTC is also working on a radio adaptation of The Law of Attraction, a stage play that was scheduled for its world premiere as part of NCTC’s 2020-2021 season. It is slated for release in October.

Guests:

Ed Decker, founding artistic director of New Conservatory Theatre Center

Jewelle Gomez, one of five playwrights who’ve each written at least one installment of the 10-episode In Good Company series. Among her other writings are eight books including the first Black Lesbian vampyre novel, The Gilda Stories, in print for nearly 30 years, and a trilogy of plays for New Conservatory Theatre Center — Waiting for Giovanni, Leaving the Blues and Unpacking in Ptown, which is scheduled for its world premiere in 2021.

Learn more and hear NCTC’s serial podcast In Good Company here.

Thanks to a $20,000 fund established by NCTC’s Board of Directors, all gifts to New Conservatory Theatre Center will be matched until October 15th. No gift is too large nor too small. Donate at NCTCSF.ORG