Isaac Butler is a cultural critic and historian, a theater director, and a podcaster based in Brooklyn, NY. He is the co-author (with Dan Kois) of "The World Only Spins Forward," an oral history of the play "Angels in America" and its era, which was named one of the best books of 2018 by NPR. His next book, "The Method: How The 20th Century Learned to Act" will be published in February 2022 by Bloomsbury. Spanning a century on two continents, "The Method" tells the definitive history of how a revolution in acting transformed American popular culture. A frequent contributor to Slate, Isaac previously created and hosted the Shakespeare and politics podcast "Lend Me Your Ears," and currently co-hosts "Working," a podcast about the creative process. Butler’s writing has appeared in New York magazine, the Guardian, American Theatre, the Village Voice, and other publications. With Darcy James Argue and Peter Nigrini, he co-created and directed Real Enemies, a multimedia song cycle exploring conspiracy theories in the American psyche that was named on of 2015’s ten best live events by the New York Times.