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Brian James Polak

Playwright and Minneapolis-based host of American Theatre magazine's The Subtext podcast, a monthly interview show by and for playwrights since 2015.

Oct 8, 2026

20:56
You've said those words differently than I ever imagined them in all the time of I- I've been writing them down"?
21:01
It, it happens frequently.
21:02
And to use The Call List as a great example, uh, I first...
21:06
I workshopped it at DCAF in 2023 with Ava Nimmer, who is going to be performing it.
21:12
And, uh, we spent a week together, uh, just the two of us talking about the script and going through scene by scene by scene, and Ava would improvise lines that were better and now exist in the script because they're just...
21:26
They're good.
21:27
And when you have that kind of trust with the actors and you trust that their goal is your goal, which is to make the play better, it's easy to do that.

9 MINS LATER

30:17
Does that matter?

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