Meet the man who brings Greek drama to the military and Ibsen to climate-change activists

On this episode, Elisabeth and Peter interview Brian Doerries, founding artistic director of Theater of War Productions. The group is made up of dozens of well-known actors, including the likes of Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright and Elizabeth Marvel — and Peter has been known to join it, too. Theater of War travels the country and the globe with readings of plays that inspire and provoke audiences, including “Antigone in Ferguson,” “Oedipus the King,” and a recent “An Enemy of the People” on Times Square. The company’s latest project is a collaboration with WNYC that has it reading long-form pieces of journalism, starting with “How Daniel Penny Was Found Not Guilty in a Subway Killing That Divided New York” (originally published in The New Yorker) read by Chad Coleman, Amy Ryan and David Strathairn.
As Doerries explains in a wide-ranging conversation, it’s the audience’s contributions that are the key to Theater of War’s success. But where will you stand, dear listeners, in the debate that came up between him and Elisabeth?