Spark & Fire
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 Marsalis, and novelist Isabel Allende — share the endless iterations, the inevitable setbacks, and the breakthrough ideas along the epic process of creation. But this isn’t an interview show. It’s a story — told entirely in the artist’s own words.
Follow and listen to Spark & Fire wherever you get your podcasts
Spark & Fire is a WaitWhat original series in partnership with the BBC. With host June Cohen, cofounder of WaitWhat and the former executive producer of TED Talks.
Featured on Season 2…
Creativity Master: 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 HitRECord. Joseph shares the journey of developing HitRECord: how it evolved from a single page of HTML to a global community of creative collaborators.
Joseph’s story reveals that you have to take responsibility for your own creativity.
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 joyfully reinventing the murder-mystery, you’ll hear the way he draws on childhood memories to inspire his work.
“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 musical Wicked.
Not only does Stephen reinvent a beloved classic for the stage, he also commits to drawing out the universal truths — like the experience of friendship, betrayal, and love — that connect us all. This allowed Wicked to resonate with audiences in a real way, making it one of the most successful musicals of all time.