Spark & Fire: Fuel Your Creativity
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Spark & Fire: Fuel Your Creativity
Every creative work you’ve ever loved has a hero’s journey behind it. On Spark & Fire, you'll hear creators tell the story of bringing one beloved work to life. Iconic creatives — like Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz, Pixar director Domee Shi, comedian Patton Oswald, musician Wynton Marsal...
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Introducing: Pioneers of AI
We’re excited to launch WaitWhat's newest weekly series, Pioneers of AI — your guide to the latest technological frontier. Hosted by AI thought leader...
Introducing: Offsite Adventures
From the team behind Spark & Fire, we're happy to share the first episode of Offsite Adventures, our newest show uncovering the gems, magical moments,...
Create from joy: Writer Phoebe Robinson on "You Can’t Touch My Hair"
There’s a commonly held belief that great creative work comes from pain. But comedian and writer Phoebe Robinson says that this is a myth. Instead, Ph...
5 ways to handle creative conflict
Creative conflict can destroy a work-in-progress — or it can push your work beyond good to great. What matters is how you respond. We’re going to hear...
Get to the fun part: Game creators Matthew Inman and Elan Lee on Exploding Kittens
To make something irresistible, get to the fun part — fast. That’s how Exploding Kittens became one of the world’s most popular games. When cartoonist...
Trust creates gold: Comedian David Cross on “Arrested Development”
Behind every masterpiece — comedic, artistic, or otherwise — is a deep well of trust. Case in point: the legendary sit-com, Arrested Development. As C...
Let emotion be your North Star: Composer Kris Bowers
This episode follows the composer Kris Bowers’ personal story about composing the score for the culture-shifting and emotionally devastating work When...
5 strategies for overcoming failure
Failure is a normal part — even an essential part — of any creative journey. But that probably isn’t what you want to hear after experiencing failure...
Fight for your dream: Comedian Cristela Alonzo
When the ABC show Cristela premiered in 2014, Cristela Alonzo made U.S. history, the first Latina to write, produce, and star in her own prime-time co...
Find the people who see your dream: Actor Aasif Mandvi
In the 1990s, Aasif Mandvi was a struggling actor looking for roles that didn’t seem to exist. So he wrote Sakina’s Restaurant — a solo show about an...
Always be iterating: Pomplamoose’s Jack Conte & Nataly Dawn
Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte started the band Pomplamoose together in 2008. The band found success with their viral YouTube videos, which have hundreds...
Take responsibility for your creativity: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a creativity master. Many of us know him as an actor and director, but Joseph also co-created the collaborative media platform...
5 strategies for starting something new
There’s an intimidating blank page. A blinking cursor staring you down. A looming deadline for a project you haven’t touched. Sometimes, starting some...
Tell a universal truth: “Wicked” composer Stephen Schwartz
Stephen Schwartz has a motto for songwriting: Tell the truth, and make it rhyme. In this episode, Stephen tells the story of composing the Broadway mu...
Sweat the details: Punchdrunk artistic director Felix Barrett
Felix Barrett, MBE, is the artistic director of Punchdrunk, a British theater company that specializes in immersive storytelling. In this episode, Fel...
Embrace your inner weirdo: Pixar’s Domee Shi on “Turning Red”
When Pixar asked Domee Shi to create a feature film, she ran to her friend’s office and rolled on the floor with joy. It was a dream come true. But Do...
Generosity creates magic: “Frozen” songwriters Robert Lopez & Kristen Anderson-Lopez
Finding the right collaborator, and growing together, is a creative feat. While songwriting duo Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez were writing t...
Replenish your sense of meaning: Musician Kayhan Kalhor on “Silent City"
Musician Kayhan Kalhor shares the story of composing and performing “Silent City,” his epic 25-minute piece for the kamancheh (Persian spiked fiddle)...
Find what you need to fuel your work: Mark Bradford’s “Unicorn Tapestries”
Deep in the pandemic, visual artist Mark Bradford began work on an epic series called “The Unicorn Tapestries.” It’s inspired by the iconic medieval w...
Commit to your best work (always!): Novelist Ann Patchett on “The Dutch House”
When Ann Patchett sat down to read through her first draft of The Dutch House, she realized she had made a terrible mistake. A wrong turn, on page 36,...
How to recover your creative voice: Comedian Patton Oswalt on “Annihilation” & “I Love Everything”
What do you do when you fear you’ve lost touch with your creative voice? You let yourself feel it, and then open yourself up to inspiration.
Wh...
5 ways to get creatively unstuck
You hit a creative dead end. You’re lost in the forest of thought. Let’s face it: you’re stuck. But getting stuck is part of the creative journey.
Be utterly honest: Musician Ben Folds on “Whatever and Ever Amen”
Capturing an honest moment is one of the riskiest ways to create. But the results are real, and they stand the test of time. As musician Ben Folds tel...
How to spark others: Yo-Yo Ma on the Silk Road Project
The Silk Road Project was an impossibly ambitious, creatively expansive idea to not only create a category of music that had never been heard before,...
Stick with it: "The Queen's Gambit" producers Allan Scott and Bill Horberg
When you fall in love with a project, stay with it – for as many years as necessary. Its time will come. When screenwriter Allan Scott acquired the fi...
Trust your instinct: Salsa legend Rubén Blades on the iconic song “Pedro Navaja”
“It’s too long. It’s too sad. It’s not danceable.” Just some of the feedback salsa legend Rubén Blades got from DJs and record labels about his iconic...
Stay authentic to yourself: Randall Park on making "Always Be My Maybe"
How do you create something an audience will love? Start with everything YOU love. Actor Randall Park ("Veep," "Fresh Off the Boat," "WandaVision"…) t...
Create the conditions for your own creativity: Yaa Gyasi on "Transcendent Kingdom"
To make a creative leap, get to know your creative self. After publishing a blockbuster first novel, "Homegoing," followed by a year of touring (and t...
Play to an elevated purpose: Wynton Marsalis on "The Democracy! Suite"
“Everything you do in the arts gives meaning to your way of life." In a year of pandemic, racial reckoning, and threats to democracy, Wynton Marsalis...
Cultivate a child's sense of wonder: "Knives Out" director Rian Johnson
How do you create deeply imaginative work? There’s a method behind the magic. As Rian Johnson (Last Jedi, Looper, Brick) takes us on the journey of jo...
How to build your creative vision: Photographer Stephen Wilkes on the 2021 Inauguration Photo
Making art is a distillation of all your life experiences – from the half-remembered images from your childhood to your fascination with what's happen...
Great collabs start with trust: Apollo Theater’s Kamilah Forbes on “Between the World and Me”
"I want to make this into theater, in a way that’s never been done before." When Kamilah Forbes first reads "Between the World and Me," by her friend...
Creativity starts with play: Designer Thomas Heatherwick on NYC's The Vessel
How do you change the creative brief? You start with play. The designer Thomas Heatherwick was asked to create a monumental public work for the plaza...
Turn crisis into art: Choreographer Bill T. Jones on “Afterwardsness," his pandemic masterpiece
When faced with a crisis, how do you move forward? Sometimes, you look backward first. It’s March 2020, and legendary choreographer Bill T. Jones is w...
Turn memory into art: Isabel Allende on “The House of the Spirits”
How do you write the stories of your life? Any time, any place, any order. Isabel Allende was 39, and a refugee from her native Chile, when she starte...
How to find inspiration: Chip Kidd on the "Jurassic Park" book cover
What do you do when you’re stuck? Something else. Designer Chip Kidd got a dream assignment: Create the book cover for a soon-to-be-blockbuster: Micha...
How to begin: Susan Orlean on "The Orchid Thief"
How do you move past that "wobbly moment" in your creative journey? Just move. From the moment she heard about it, Susan Orlean knew she had to tell t...
Oscar winner Pixar's Kemp Powers on "Soul": The best person for the project
How do you create an authentic character? Start with your authentic self. When Kemp Powers joined the writers' room at Pixar, he found a story waiting...