Austin Pendleton is a well-known character actor who became a playwright. He’s written a play about Orson Welles, whose amazing early triumph with Citizen Kane (Welles was 26) turned into a career of embarrassing failures and unfinished projects. In Orson’s Shadow, based on real events, a theater critic tries to restart Welles’ career by getting him a new job — directing a newfangled piece of absurdist theater called Rhinoceros. Pendleton joins Kurt in the studio to talk about Orson’s Shadow, and the cast performs a scene for us.
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