From sign to stage

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A Sign

Episode: "Prologue One: Community" | Podcast: Seen And Not Heard | 8m46s

Clever drama series about a newly deaf woman called Bet trying to navigate her changed life. This is one of four shorter prologues to the main series of longer episodes, and it tells the story of her first attempt to go to a sign language class. The other participants make assumptions about her, leaving her nervous and prickly, and she finds that she can feel just as alone among people signing as she can with her inconsiderate family. The whole show is well suited to audio, using sound design to share Bet's auditory perspective (8m46s)

Costly Flop

Episode: "From Page To Stage" | Podcast: Out for Blood: The Story Of Carrie The Musical | 47m17s

Very detailed oral history of an infamous Broadway disaster — Carrie: The Musical. The hosts discovered a bootleg recording of the show's brief run in the late 1980s during the pandemic and decided to investigate the full story of a production that has become legendary in the trade for technical malfunctions, ballooning budgets and critical disdain. This first episode focuses on where the idea to translate Stephen King's original plot into musical theatre came from and includes interviews with those who took the initial steps (47m17s)

Keep Talking

Episode: "A Romantic Revival" | Podcast: Where Should We Begin? With Esther Perel | 49m05s

High point of a very good and rightly popular podcast. Each episode is a recording of a therapy session with the host and her clients. This one features a couple coping with a long history of trauma: she has experienced sexual assault and he lost his first wife to suicide when their children were small. As their therapist, Perel has an intriguing focus on the present physical ramifications of these events. Her practical advice to breathe, sing and move at moments of great difficulty makes a lot of sense (49m05s)

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