Studio 360 With Kurt Andersen

An hour on continuing innovations in American dance. Choreographer Donald Byrd uses dance to illuminate what it means to be black in America. Elizabeth Streb speaks with Kurt Andersen about how she defies gravity with her “extreme action” techniques. And how the salsa pioneers Celia Cruz and Johnny Pacheco got the world on its feet.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this Studio 360 extra, we’re sharing a great new podcast called Aria Code. Produced by WQXR and the Metropolitan Opera, it features singers and other thinkers decoding the magic of a single piece from an opera, followed by the music uninterrupted. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests reflect on the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah, the trope of the femme fatale, and how composer Camille Saint-Saëns created this unforgettable moment that sounds as if Dalila’s slowly removing her clothing, one note at a time. Plus, you'll hear mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča sing the complete aria from the Metropolitan Opera stage. This podcast was produced by The Metropolitan Opera and WQXR. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thanks to a new exhibit at the Guggenheim, the art world is rediscovering Hilma af Klint. How was this Swede so ahead of her time, and will she finally get her due? Lee Israel’s memoir about forging letters by famous writers, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” is now a terrific movie starring Melissa McCarthy. Israel died in 2014, but here she is in an interview with Kurt Andersen in 2008, where she talks about how — and why — she decided to start impersonating the likes of Dorothy Parker and Noël Coward. When Shane McCrae was a depressed teen in the ’90s, he found inspiration and hope in the strangest of places: the poetry of the famously tragic Sylvia Plath.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The story of “Doug,” the Nickelodeon cartoon from the ’90s that used a minimalist approach but had a profound impact on young viewers. Kurt Andersen talks with Rina Banerjee, who makes enchanting installations and who is the subject of a retrospective show at just 55. And the breathtaking backstory and staging for “The Jungle,” the play that replicates an Afghan restaurant in a migrant camp. This episode is brought to you by Doctors Without Borders. Donate today at doctorswithoutborders.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John August, the host of Scriptnotes, explains his approach to screenwriting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some of our favorite stories from the past year. First, Kurt Andersen speaks with Daniela Vega, who delivered a stunning performance in "A Fantastic Woman." Casey Trela is a musician in Los Angeles with a Kafkaesque day job: he watches movies and TV shows over and over and over again looking for the tiniest production glitches. Lauren Groff has a complicated relationship with her adopted state, and nowhere is that more evident than in her recent short story collection, “Florida.” And an oral history of how, in ’90s New York,  hip-hop pirate radio station WBAD rose — and fell. This episode is brought to you by Doctors Without Borders. Donate today at doctorswithoutborders.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some of our favorite stories from the past year. First, the musical equivalent to stock art, library music, where composers anonymously churned out some of the strangest, funkiest — and most recognizable — music of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. The Domino’s Pizza mascot, The Noid, was just a whimsical advertising mascot — until it became part of a really dark story. And Kurt Andersen talks with Angélique Kidjo, a superstar of African music, about her recent album: a song-by-song cover of the 1980 Talking Heads classic “Remain in Light.”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here in America, despite the hysteria whipped up in the weeks leading up to the November midterm elections, there was no influx of migrants from the south. In other words, nothing like what happened a few years ago, when hundreds of thousands refugees from the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa arrived in Europe. There’s a new play about that migrant crisis called The Jungle — which was the nickname of the notorious migrant camp in Calais, France.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An American Icons segment about “The Searchers,” John Ford’s problematic masterpiece featuring John Wayne. Kurt Andersen talks with Carol Stabile about an aspect of the Red Scare that’s received scant attention: the 41 women who were blacklisted from radio and television. And how Mariame Kaba, a prison activist who’s black and Muslim, falls hard for something very white and very Christian: Hallmark Christmas movies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The stuff you love as kids — that still deserve love when you’re grown up. Kurt Andersen talks with author Bruce Handy about how the best children’s literature can still enthrall adults — and then Bruce’s and Kurt’s kids join them to weigh in. Jim Henson always thought of his creations, the Muppets, as adult entertainment, but thanks to “Sesame Street,” they ended up being beloved by kids. And finally Kurt talks with design critic Alexandra Lange about the history of playgrounds — and how lawyers and bureaucrats have ruined fun. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lee Israel’s memoir, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” tells the story of her years forging letters by famous writers like Dorothy Parker and Noel Coward. Her book has recently been adapted into a new film starring Melissa McCarthy as Israel. Kurt Andersen interviewed the real Lee Israel in 2008, and with the film adaption now in theaters, he revisits his conversation with the literary con artist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why is contemporary culture obsessed with how well-endowed men are and yet in classical art men are so small? Kurt Andersen unravels the mystery with a classics scholar, Andrew Lear. Stacey Rose is a playwright, but when she’s not working to take audiences’ breath away on stage, she’s doing the opposite in her day job: she’s a respiratory therapist. And finally, a Studio 360 holiday tradition in the making — a Christmas-themed radio drama based on a short story by Kurt Andersen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt-ain call — a show about what goes into making great theater. First, a look at Alan Jay Lerner on the centennial of his birth. The lyricist for “My Fair Lady,” “Gigi” and “Camelot” was as complicated as he was talented. Then Jack Viertel, the theater impresario, gives Kurt a master class on all the elements of successful musical theater that audiences will recognize but may not have had a name for — like the “I want” song. Finally, Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer-winning play “Sweat” about factory workers reeling from layoffs won over New York audiences. So how’d it go over when its New York cast toured the production in the Rust Belt? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One day at school in the early 1990s, Shane McCrae watched a TV movie about teen suicide. The first half was all exactly what you would have expected: cheesy platitudes, heroic teachers, and feathery haircuts. Then, a character quoted the poetry of Sylvia Plath. “I don't want to be hyperbolic, but it did feel like a kind of an electric shock,” McCrae remembers. “I had never heard anything like it. I never had a feeling like that.” That day, he wrote eight poems at school. Then he took the bus home and wrote some more. From there, McCrae dived deeper into Plath’s life, checking out a book of her poems from the library and never returning it. Today, McCrae is a professional poet. And even though Plath is no longer his “central poet,” she remains his emotional and creative bedrock. We talked to McCrae to learn how a long-dead, white, East Coast writer known for her depressing verse gave purpose and uplift to a young black teenager living in suburban Oregon. This podcast was produced by Justin Glanville for Studi

Three American Icons that embody our nation’s counterculture. First: it’s not the fastest or fanciest bike out there, but Harley-Davidson has become synonymous with the motorcycle for many Americans. Then, why Georgia O’Keeffe fled the East Coast for New Mexico, where she found her muse in sun-bleached bones that littered the desert. And finally, how Jimi Hendrix captured the sound of bombs falling overseas and screaming protestors, using only a whammy bar and a fuzz pedal.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with Missy Mazzoli and Karen Russell about Mazzoli’s new opera, “Proving Up,” based on a short story by Russell about a family’s bleak prospects in post-Civil War Nebraska. Buffalo Tom singer Bill Janovitz talks about how, when the band scaled back its touring and recording, he found a less hip — and yet surprisingly satisfying — career in the Boston suburbs. More from Beantown as Kurt talks with Kelly Horan about the podcast she co-hosts, “Last Seen,” which is about biggest art heist ever — at Boston’s Gardner Museum. And conceptual artist Rutherford Chang’s delightfully obsessive art project — buying as many original copies of the Beatles’ “White Album” as he can get his hands on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new theatrical version of To Kill a Mockingbird is opening on Broadway next month, adapted for the stage by Aaron Sorkin and starring Jeff Daniels as Atticus Finch. So in anticipation of this Broadway debut, we’ve put together some of our favorite segments about America’s most beloved novel. First, we check in with the residents of Monroeville, Alabama — Lee’s hometown and the real-life "Maycomb" — to see how public opinion about the book has changed since its initial chilly reception in 1960. Psychologist Mufid James Hannush weighs in on Atticus Finch’s parenting methods. And indie rocker Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot explains how the band found inspiration in the novel. Lastly, Kurt talks to book critic David Ulin about the controversy surrounding the publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman in 2015. This podcast was produced by Studio 360’s Zoe Saunders, along with Anna Boiko-Weyrauch, Jenny Lawton, Becky Sullivan, and Lynn Levy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with Amy Cappellazzo of Sotheby’s and filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn about the art market and Kahn’s new documentary, “The Price of Everything.” How the masterful Talking Heads album “Remain in Light” drew on inspiration from radio preachers, newspaper headlines, recordings of former slaves and John Dean’s Watergate testimony. And Kurt talks with the Oscar-winning writer Kenneth Lonergan about his play that’s on Broadway, “The Waverly Gallery.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with Morgan Neville about his documentary that focuses on an Orson Welles film that was completed long after Welles died. Maria Schneider’s album “The Thompson Fields” took a circuitous path, and she discusses it both as it’s being conceived and a year later, when it’s in the can. Neuroscientist Heather Berlin tells Kurt how the creative brain gets revved up — and how the brain helps to focus and complete projects. And how the band School of Seven Bells finished an album when a key member tragically wasn’t there to finish it with them.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lynn Nottage’s play Sweat won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2017. It tells the story of a group of friends who work in a factory in Reading, Pennsylvania and are reeling from layoffs and racial tension. The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit took the show to the road and visited 18 places in the so-called Rust Belt. One of these unconventional venues was a public library in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Studio 360 was there to capture the moment. This podcast was produced by Studio 360’s Sandra Lopez-Monsalve. Invaluable production assistance on the ground in Minnesota was provided by Allison Herrera. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices