Arts Alive! podcast: LAB playwright Oded Gross

This week on Arts Alive! we’re going up close on As We Like It, the drama that’s just started its first weekend (of three) at the intimate LAB Theater Project in Ybor City.

New Jersey playwright Oded Gross joins us for an in-depth discussion of his play, which takes place in a deep, dark Polish forest during the second world war.

There, a refugee family is hiding from a Nazi unit that’s hunting them.

Certain members of the family are determined to distract from the constant fear by recruiting everyone for a woodland performance of Shakespeare’s As You Like It (yes, that’s where Gross’ play gets its title from).

It’s heady stuff, and emotionally taut.

Which makes it just the sort of drama LAB’s artistic director Owen Robertson – who joins Gross for the discussion – believes is perfect for his intimate, risk-taking black box theater.

Click on the arrow to listen to the conversation. And this episode marks the debut of our podcast theme music, composed by the prodigiously talented Jeremy Douglass.