This episode begins our investigation of the business of adult entertainment. A team of Civilians’ artists conducted interviews with performers, directors, agents, producers and more in Las Vegas and the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. This episode features monologues and a song crafted from interviews with several adult entertainment stars. They discuss the dos, don’ts, and won’ts of shaping a career, how they got into the business and more.
Here, Mia Barron plays Katie Graham; Emily Swallow plays another female performer; Paul Provenza and Bess Wohl play one of porn’s on and off-screen leading couples; and Emily Swallow sings “Beautiful” by Michael Friedman. These interviews inspired the new musical “Pretty Filthy” — book by Bess Wohl, music by Michael Friedman — which opens in NYC in January 2015. The material in this podcast was recorded live at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles.
This episode contains sexually explicit material and is not appropriate for children under the age of 18.
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The Civilians is a company that creates new theater from creative investigations into the most vital questions of the present. Through a number of artistic programs, the Civilians advances theater as an engine of artistic innovation and strengthens the connections between theater and society. An artist-led company, the Civilians creates and produces new theater and pursues its artistic mission through programs serving artists and the public. The company’s work is grounded in investigative theater, an artistic practice rooted in the process of creative inquiry that brings artists into dynamic engagement with the subject of their work. Artists look outward in pursuit of a question, often engaging with individuals and communities in order to listen, make discoveries, and challenge habitual ways of knowing. The ethos of investigative theater extends into production, inviting audiences to be active participants in the inquiry before, during, and after the performance. Since its founding in 2001, the Obie Award-winning company has supported the creation of 14 original shows, and its work has been produced at many theaters in New York, nationally, and internationally. Last season saw two highly successful shows: "Mr. Burns: a Post-Electric Play" at Playwrights Horizons, which was included in eight Top 10 of 2013 Lists, and "The Great Immensity" at The Public Theater. The Civilians’ work has been published by Dramatists Play Service, Oberon Books, Ghostlight Records and Playscripts, Inc.