Speakeasy Stage Company’s next production is a big one—in more ways than one. Starting on March 7, they’re staging Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale, a tragicomedy about a morbidly obese man making one last desperate attempt to connect with his teenage daughter. We chatted with the star of the show, John Kuntz, about smells, prosthetics and the fat suit.

When Nicky Silver’s agent called and told him about an opportunity to work on an unproduced, unpublished Kurt Vonnegut script, he leapt at the chance—but not for the reasons you might imagine.