ANN ARBOR, Mich.–EncoreMichigan is kicking off a bi-weekly podcast to run in weeks when the TheatreTalk report is not running on Michigan Public Radio’s Stateside.

“I have been running EncoreMichigan for five years, and the radio segment we do has been successful, so we wanted to expand our content offering,” said Publisher David Kiley.

EncoreMichigan is also kicking off TheatreTalk-Plus during its month-long “$5 and $10” campaign to raise some funds for the operation of the website.

The aim of the podcast, said Kiley, is to off “between the lines” coverage of Michigan’s professional theater scene. “We provide all the bread-and-butter coverage of the theater scene in Michigan in terms of reviews, audition info, previews and our show calendar which is the best, most complete show calendar in the state,” said Kiley. “But this podcast is going to allow me and our critics to talk about theaters, directors, shows and our own experiences in a way that is not practical in print.”

Because EncoreMichigan is optimized for mobile, you can play the podcasts easily from a phone in the car or at the gym from the website.

In TheatreTalk-Plus #1, for example, Kiley talks about his five years running Encore, The Beauty Queen of Leenane at The Detroit Public Theatre, The Hunchback of Notre Dame at The Dio, Encore Musical Theatre Artistic Director Matthew Brennan, the Dio Theater’s Technical Director Matthew Tomich, the summer season announcements of The Barn and Mason Street Warehouse, the harshest review Kiley has written in his five years at Encore, a bad play written by The Purple Rose Theatre’s founder Jeff Daniels, why Kiley hates the Nun shows, whether “lousily” is a word, and more. Kiley is joined on Podcast #1 by veteran critic Marin Heinritz.

“I feel like we have earned enough credibility covering Michigan theater that we are the authority on the statewide theater scene,” said Kiley. “And the podcast is going to allow us to have some fun that we hope carries over to the theater community,” said Kiley. “It’s going to feature a lot of opinion, and thoughts that we have about shows and productions that don’t necessarily get into our reviews.”

“The first podcast is about an hour, which is longer than what we will do in future installments,” says Kiley. “And we had a couple of tech issues, but we will get more polished each week.” Most of all, says Kiley, “We are going to have fun.”

If you would like to sponsor the podcast, email encoremediasales@gmail.