Episode 287 - The Stuff of Dreams (ft. Leah Hager Cohen)

Have you ever wondered about what goes on at your local community theatre?

Or have you, yourself, participated in community theatre and wished someone covered it in a book?

Today's guest of the podcast, Leah Hager Cohen, set out to do just that in her 2001 release "The Stuff of Dreams". This book covered a specific performance in a season of plays for her local community theatre, dubbed one of the oldest community theatres in the country. 

Despite having many other fantastic releases since her '01 release, she's on the show today because 'The Stuff of Dreams' was a formative book for Joe during his youth and he had her on the show to discuss all things community and theatre.

Please note: Unfortunately, there were some audio issues with Leah's Zoom connection and the quality is not up to the usual standards, we've cleaned it up the best we could but we hope you enjoy it nonetheless. We'll have Leah back again soon to continue this discussion!

Enjoy!

About Leah Hager Cohen

Leah Hager Cohen was born in Manhattan and raised at Lexington School for the Deaf in Queens (where her parents worked) and later in Nyack, New York. As a kid, she spent summers at Camp Kinderland, stiltdanced with the Bread and Puppet Theater, ran a follow spot at Elmwood Playhouse, and shelved books at Nyack Library. At age 16, Leah enrolled as a drama student at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, then transferred to Hampshire College a year later to study writing. She joined an arts brigade in Nicaragua, worked as a nanny in Berkeley, rode a Greyhound bus across the country, and freelanced as an ASL interpreter in NYC before attending Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The best praise she ever received came in a letter of recommendation by Edmund W. Gordon, her first boss after college: “She is impatient with institutional stupidity.” Her favorite quote about writing comes from the poet Joseph O. Legaspi: “My first memory of poetry was watching the rain on my windowsill when I was young, and touching the windowpane.” Leah is the author of 7 novels, 5 nonfiction books, one pamphlet, and the blog Love As A Found Object, as well as various and sundry essays, articles and reviews. As of September 2025, she has gone back to school, enrolled in the Master of Social Work program at Simmons University.

About 'The Stuff of Dreams'

In this unique theatrical memoir, novelist Cohen chronicles the ups and downs of her suburban community theater's struggles over the staging of David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly. The project is fraught with problems—the Arlington, Mass., theater and its conservative supporters are reluctant to stage a play that deals daringly with sexuality and race; meanwhile, it proves quite difficult to find an Asian man to play the transgendered lead (who also has a nude scene)—but the show must and does go on. Cohen, who loves working in theater, is a keen observer who never hesitates to pinpoint the problems and personality clashes endemic to the process of putting on a play. While she provides useful background, from the history of her theater (begun in 1913) to the importance of community theater in the U.S., she is best at describing the endlessly delicate negotiations between the small but award-winning theater's director, actors, designers and stagehands. Cohen is respectful of everyone's opinions and methods as they face M. Butterfly's considerable challenges to the theater's conventional approach to staging a production and moves us assuredly through her characters' process of political and artistic discovery. While never deeply probing the myriad social issues it raises, Cohen's backstage drama does give us a miniature yet nuanced glimpse into a world rarely explored.

 

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Thanks to Empire Toys for this episode of the podcast!

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