Stagecraft: Jesse Eisenberg, Playwright of “Happy Talk”

The Stagecraft podcast is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of interviews with playwrights (and musical book writers) of shows opening on Broadway and off-Broadway.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Guest: Jesse Eisenberg, Playwright of “Happy Talk”
Jesse Eisenberg has written and starred in the plays Asuncion, The Revisionist alongside Vanessa Redgrave and Daniel Oreskes and The Spoils, which was directed by Scott Elliott in New York and on the West End. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker magazine and McSweeney’s and author of the collection “Bream Gives Me Hiccups” from Grove Press and the upcoming novel “The Ziegfeld Files” from Audible. He is also a movie actor best known for his Academy Award nominated role as Mark Zuckerberg in the 2010 film “The Social Network”. His other films include “The Squid and the Whale,” “Adventureland,” “The Education of Charlie Banks,” “30 Minutes or Less,” “Now You See Me,” “Zombieland” and the 2016 film “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” in which he played Lex Luthor.

Lorraine (Susan Sarandon) is a saint of the suburbs. On top of trying to save her dying mother, miserable husband and estranged daughter, she’s starring as Bloody Mary in the Jewish Community Center production of South Pacific. When her mother’s home aide, Serbian immigrant Ljuba (Marin Ireland), asks for help finding a husband, Lorraine takes on her most challenging role to date: matchmaker. In Jesse Eisenberg’s hysterical and devastating play, Happy Talk, he reveals the absurd lengths people go to save themselves in the name of saving others.

Happy Talk is the new title for this play, formerly named Yea, Sister!

Happy Talk is playing through June 16, 2019

The New Group
The Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West 42nd Street 

Host: Jan Simpson | [email protected] | Facebook | Twitter
Broadway & Me
JAN SIMPSON is the Director of the Arts and Culture Journalism Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and also writes for TDF Stages, American Theater and has her own blog at Broadway & Me. She sits on the executive board of the Outer Critics Circle and is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association.