Episodes Witch, Please

photo credit: @wildflowersyegGood evening witches and magicians and wizards of all ages! Welcome to this evening’s musical performance of Witch, Please!This fornight has Marcelle “in the field” interviewing Konstantine Kurelias and Amanda Brace, two staff members of the Winspear Centre, about the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s enchanting production of The Music of Harry Potter! As a special treat, you’ll also hear Marcelle debrief the performance with longtime friend and basically brother Stephen Tchir—a Master of Music and member of the band The Provincial Archive.As always, don’t forget to listen all the way through for our latest #trywitches tournament challenge and the answer to this episode’s #witchpleasetellme question!http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/s2e6-witch-please-and-the-symphonic-discourse.mp3Download this spell-bindingly symphonic episodeCredits: In this episode you’ll hear a LOT of music, including tracks from Kesha’s new album Rainbow, which is streaming for free on

Hey witches! We’re popping into your feed on a Friday to drop the newest episode of Hannah’s new podcast, Secret Feminist Agenda! We thought this conversation about witchcraft and embracing your inner Hagrid would be particularly up your alley. Enjoy!This week I’m joined by authors/witches extraordinaire Jaya Saxena and Jess Zimmerman to talk about their forthcoming book Basic Witches (preorder it here!). If you’re in the New York area, you can head to the launch at The Astoria Bookshop on August 29th! If you think Jaya and Jess sound dope as heck (which they are, why not check out some of the other stuff they’ve written?Jess references this piece about cultivating ugliness, which is part of her “Role Monsters” series (go read all of them, they’re all great)Want some more Jess? Of course you do. Here it is.This book isn’t Jaya’s first witch-rodeo (first coven meeting? first midnight gathering?) either, as this great Kitchen Witch piece demonstratesActually, while you’re at it, check out all of Jaya’

By popular demand, we sat down and watched A Very Potter Musical and boy did we have some thoughts. Some… thoughts.ANYWAY, if you still like us after this episode and you’d like to chip in to send us to Orlando, you can do that here. If you like the sound of boring self care, check out Hannah Daisy and maybe buy some of her stuff.Don’t forget to listen all the way to the end for our latest #trywitches tournament challenge and the answer to this episode’s #witchpleasetellme question!http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Witch-Please-and-the-Fan-Made-Musical.mp3Download this fan-made episode.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Queue neatly and check your ticket, because we’re heading back to England for the Warner Bros. Studio Tour with special on-location guest Rachelle Saunders (of Episode Sigma fame).Check out the photos Hannah took on the tour!Don’t forget to listen all the way to the end for our latest #trywitches tournament challenge and the answer to this episode’s #witchpleasetellme question!http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Witch-Please-and-the-Stunning-Studio-Tour.mp3Download this not-entirely-immersive episode   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Howdy partners! Grab yer ten galleon hats and join us as we impose our critical feminism on Calgary, Alberta during the Stamp—er………. that is the Comics and Entertainment Expo that took place this past April. Marcelle hosted a one-witch panel wherein she discussed the rise of fascism in the Harry Potter series. You’ll notice references to slides during the talk; you can view or download them from the links below

Well hello again, witches! Thanks for tuning in for this week’s mega super long but mega super lovely episode featuring the Foggo Family. An under-slept Marcelle joins the Foggos as they discuss what the Harry Potter series and the podcast Witch, Please mean to them as a family and as fans.***** OH AND MEGA SUPER APOLOGIES FOR THE AUDIO SHENANIGANS IN THIS EPISODE. IT IS 50% TOO LITTLE SLEEP 50% I FORGET HOW TO PODCAST *****In keeping with our seasonal format, Hannah and Marcelle play catchup before the main event of the episode, and then at the end we get into our new seasonally-appropriate features. We hope you enjoy!http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/WitchPlease_S2E2_Phenomenal_Foggos.mp3Download this familial episodeCredits: In this episode we plug Cheryl Foggo’s books; if you’d like to learn more about her work check out her Facebook page here.We also play the song Cheryl discusses from her daughters’ DADA playlist, “Ain’t Gonna

Welcome back, witches! We sure have missed you, and we’re excited to get started on Season 2 (new numbering system TBA). The focus of this season will be the Harry Potter fandom, and Hannah kicked things off by attending Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in London with HP megafan, author, and journalist Anna James. Join us for a conversation about the liveness of theatre, three-piece suits, and harpsichords!After Marcelle and Hannah are done catching up, this episode gets pretty danged spoilery, so here’s a little chapter guide if you want to avoid them:10:47: first spoiler alert (no spoilers before this)22:03: convo with Anna James starts (so many spoilers in this)1:14:15: new segments and goodbyes (spoiler free again!)Do listen to the end, because we introduce some new segments and their accompanying hashtags. Oh yes, and if you want to take Hannah and Anna’s advice and reproduce your own Cursed Child experience, here’s a completely illicit link to some of the tunes.Speaking of illicit t

Image from page 375 of “The Haverfordian, Vols. 26-27, 1904-05” (1905) Hey witches! We’re dropping back into your feed momentarily to let you know about three upcoming events! On Sunday, April 23, at 1pm UPDATE: 3:30PM, Hannah and previous guest Rachelle Saunders will be hosting a meet-up at the Parcel Yard in King’s Cross. Come hang out! On Sunday, April 30, at 1:30pm, Marcelle (and the robot of our hearts!) will be giving a talk at the Calgary Expo on “Harry Potter and Social Justice” in room Palomino FG. “What can the Harry Potter series teach us about fighting the surge of what is popularly known as “white nationalism” in North America? Lots, as it turns out! This talk looks at allyship and how to resist systems of power that seek to eliminate difference.” On Thursday, May 25, from 5-7pm, HANNAH AND MARCELLE TOGETHER AT LAST will be doing our long-promised Toronto meet-up at The Lockhart Bar. Please be advised that, while it is Hannah’s bi

Image courtesy of Huffington Post Hold onto your hard drives, witches, because we have an announcement for you! We’ve been thinking over the past months about ways to make Witch, Please sustainable. After two years of fortnightly episodes, we’re worried about fizzling out over the next year. We don’t want to fizzle out, dear witches, because hanging out with you is too much fun. And so we have arrived at: A PLAN. Proudly announcing: Witch, Please 2.0, this time with seasons, and maybe an even more incomprehensible numbering system? Starting this summer, we are going to begin producing annual seasons of new episodes. Shorter seasons will let us keep going for longer, and ensure that we can stick around to talk about the next 4,000 Harry Potter movies. Episodes this summer will include Hannah’s visit to London, our promised viewing of A Very Potter Musical, a discussion of the music of the wizarding world, and more! Until then, we’ll stay on Twitter and in your hearts. But for now:

HAPPY 2017, WITCHES!We don’t believe in resolutions because they are a neoliberal conceit intended to keep you politically docile by convincing you that your very being is a perfectable project. But we do believe in trying to educate yourself every damn day, and in that spirit, this minisode is accompanied by some recommended readings. Enjoy!Content Warning for this episode: discussion of racialized violence and murder.Fantastic Beasts is Not So Fantastic With DiversityTilda Swinton’s Email To Margaret Cho Is Textbook White Feminism How to Make White Movies What Doctor Strange Got Wrong About Asian Representation Light And Dark: The Racial Biases That Remain In Photography10 Black Female Directors You Need To Have On Your Radarhttp://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/WitchPlease-20170116-E18B-FantasticAsks.mp3Download Episode  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Image source: Miss Nobody on tumblrGreetings from the Roaring Twenties, witches!In this excitingly lengthy new beast of an episode, Marcelle and Hannah are joined by your favourite Guy with a Film Degree: Neale Barnholden! Your hilarious hosts FINALLY talk about that new venture into the Wizarding World by money machines JK Rowling and Warner Brothers: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them!Get cozy, because this episode is fantastically long!http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/WitchPlease-20161219-Episode18-RoaringAnachronismsAndWhereToFindThem.mp3Download this roaringly cute episodeCredits: The jazzy interlude rounding out our six minute CW conversation comes to us from bensound.com  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Image credit: Ashley Hostetter “The Charming Classroom”Welcome back, witches! We are gearing up to tackle Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them! In this fantastic minisode, Marcelle sits down with Harry Potter marketing wiz and wandmaker-in-training Rachelle Saunders (of Science for the People fame) to talk about branding and Harry Potter. So grab your House Scarf and an official Witch, Please mug of hot cocoa and cozy up for this magical exploration of marketing in the Potterverse!http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/WitchPlease-161205-EpisodeSigma-HarryPotterAndTheBrandOfLoyalty.mp3Download this totally on-brand minisodeCredits: The sound effect of the melodious human singing “Sexyyyyyyyyyy” came from maurolupo.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Photo credit: Max Lalanne / The Tufts DailyHowdy, witches! This extended universe not-so-mini minisode comes to you hot off the mics in America! Hannah and Marcelle (and Trevor!) (and the hippogriff baby, too!!) had the pleasure of visiting Tufts University to deliver a workshop on podcasting and to speak on a panel with Tufts Experimental College Professor Lydia XZ Brown about disability, race, and queerness in the Harry Potter series. It was awesome!If you’d like to learn more about Lydia and their work (and you really should!), visit their website: autistichoya.netThanks to everyone who came out to the workshop, the panel, AND OUR AWESOME MEETUP AT GRENDEL’S DEN! You fantastic humans truly inspire us and we are stoked to be chipping away at the white supremacist patriarchy by your sides.http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/WitchPlease-20161121-EpisodeRho-LiveAtTufts.mp3Download this awesome minisode   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out inform

Image source: Fantastic Beasts “Final Trailer”Welcome to the future, witches! In this episode, Marcelle and Neale tackle the trailers for the first (of FIVE?!?!) movie in the Fabulous Beasts and Their Locations Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film franchise. We honestly cannot believe we are going to do this five more times, but for sure by the second or third movie release we’ll live in the same city as Hannah again so these minisodes will be even more hilarious!HEY! Speaking of being in the same city: Marcelle and Hannah and Trevor and the hippogriff baby will be in Medford/Boston, MA on Monday November 14th and Tuesday November 15th, so check out our twitter account (link to your left) for details about your Fantastic Hosts and Where to Find Us! Here’s the Facebook event for our panel at Tufts with Lydia XZ Brown!http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/WitchPlease-20161107-FabulousTrailersAndTheirLocations.mp3Download this fabulous minisodeCredits:

Image from page 988 of “Popular electricity magazine in plain English” (1912) (Internet Archive Book Image)This arbitrarily-categorized Extended Universe Episode saw one of your brave hosts venture out of her cozy living room and into stormy Vancouver in search of a real live theatrical BUT TOTALLY COMMUNITY-DRIVEN AND FREE SO IN NO WAY LEGALLY LIABLE reading of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.Thanks to Laura Fukumoto, Nicole Yukiko, and everyone who took part in this magical event, for letting me record SHORT AND THUS COVERED BY FAIR DEALING segments of the reading, as well as a number of delightful interviews. Enjoy!http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WitchPlease-20161024-EOmicronWitchPleaseLiveandCursed.mp3Download this cursèd episode  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Image: filmratings.comGather ’round, witches! We’re back with another minisode! This week, Marcelle asks resident Guy With A Film Degree Neale Barnholden all about trailers and somewhat ironically they talk for an hour!PSA: we had a LOT of unexpected technical difficulties before, during, and after recording, so please think of this episode as a rather rough cut.http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WitchPlease-20161010-TeasersTrailersAndSpoilersOhMy.mp3Download this re-cut minisode  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Pull out your rulers, witches, and start measuring your margins, because this episode we’re getting into the nitty and the gritty of book design. Hannah is joined by book designer (and brand new colleague at her brand new job!) Mauve Pagé in a discussion of three different editions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. We talk about kerning! We talk about x-height! We talk about widows! And as all those exclamation marks indicate, you should be excited!P.S. Things get visual in this one, so you might want to follow along with the gallery below.http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/WitchPlease-20160926-E155HarryPotterandtheDubiousKerning.mp3Download this well-designed minisode   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Welcome back, witches! Today’s episode wraps up our discussion of the second half of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and after this we’ll never speak of it again—at least, not until the next edition of play script gets published with all that sweet, sweet paratext you know we crave…….. Seriously, though, we’re stoked for the re-issuing of the post-production script with, like, photos and shit. But for now we make do with the incomprehensible stage directions and many, many title pages.Enjoy!Credits:Dramatic reading background music once again care of Bensound. In fact, we like Ben’s work so much that this week the delightful tune “Cute” accompanies the Twitter list! And the melodious songstress singing “Sexyyyyyyyyyy” came from maurolupo.http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/WitchPleaseEpisode20160912CuriouserAndCuriouser.mp3Download this even curiouser episode  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Image: Tasha Chawner, flickrGrab your contraband Time Turners, witches, because we’re zipping back in time to episode 15A: the first half of our discussion of the play script for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child!Speaking of time, in this episode Hannah and Marcelle dive into recording from two different timezones! The results are PRETTY GOOD!Dramatic reading background music by Bensound.http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/WitchPlease160829CuriousChild-Hawtfix.mp3Download this Curious Episode  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Source: Flickr, The CommonsGrab your opera glasses, witches, because this week Hannah is joined by actor, director, and playwright Jeremy Mason for a discussion about the pleasures of reading plays, and why Rowling might have turned to the theatre for her newest addition to the Harry Potter canon. Don’t forget to take notes, because we’ll be asking you for your questions about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in the coming weeks.http://ohwitchplease.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/WitchPlease-20160815-E1655JeremyMasonandtheCursedChild.mp3Download this Theatrical minisode  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.