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...
Nov 13, 2018•23 min
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. Vis...
Nov 08, 2018•50 min
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...
Nov 01, 2018•50 min
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-Monsal...
Oct 30, 2018•12 min
Kurt Andersen talks with Sandi Tan, who shot a film as an 18-year-old in Singapore in 1992, but the footage disappeared. She finally got her hands on the footage a few years ago, and the mystery of its disappearance is the subject of her new documentary, “Shirkers.” Tanwi Nandini Islam is both a novelist and a perfumer — and she demonstrates how she applies both of those talents to create a fragrance based on the Toni Morrison novel, “Beloved.” And getting to the bottom of the hidden meanings an...
Oct 25, 2018•50 min
Speculative fiction — the catch-all term for non-realist genres — in its many forms. Remembering the irascible speculative fiction writer Harlan Ellison. How reading a sex scene in an Isaac Asimov book changes an adolescent’s understanding of gender identity. Colson Whitehead reads from his zombie novel “Zone One.” And tracing the sci-fi-themed Afrofuturist tradition in music, from Sun Ra to Janelle Monáe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Oct 18, 2018•50 min
Stacey Rose is a playwright in Saint Paul, Minnesota but by day -- and sometimes also by night — she’s a respiratory therapist. Stacey is also a fellow with the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab and her play, “The Danger: A Homage to Strange Fruit” just played in Brooklyn. As part of our Day Jobs series, Stacey told us about her two very different passions. This podcast was produced by Studio 360’s Sandra Lopez-Monsalve and Schuyler Swenson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adch...
Oct 16, 2018•10 min
Kurt Andersen and Theresa Rebeck discuss her new play about the most acclaimed actress of her day, Sarah Bernhardt. Justine Bateman’s new book examines being inside — and then outside — the fame bubble. A listener finds something surprising inside a book at a used bookstore — an inscription from the famous author of the book to an even more famous novelist. And how New York hip-hop pirate radio station WBAD rose — and fell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Oct 11, 2018•51 min
Kurt talks to the author Daniel Torday about his new book, “Boomer1,” a dark satire about the tension between millennials and baby boomers coming to a head. Then a segment about something boomers couldn’t stand about the generation that preceded them: its love for Lawrence Welk’s unapologetically wholesome variety show. For our Guilty Pleasures feature, listener Paul Fotsch explains how he couldn’t stand Lawrence Welk as a kid but grew to love the show. And finally, Argentine experimental musici...
Oct 04, 2018•51 min
It was late in 1971 when the singer-songwriter Don McLean released his song, “American Pie.” Today, everybody still seems to know all the words… but nobody seems to know what those words really mean. Who is the “jester [who] sang for the King and Queen/In a coat he borrowed from James Dean?” And what was it that “touched [the singer] deep inside/The day the music died”? Don McLean himself helps break down the song, as well as author Raymond I. Schuck. And the singer Garth Brooks talks about his ...
Oct 02, 2018•14 min
Ethan Hawke came of age as a Gen X heartthrob, but he’s stayed relevant and is as busy as ever. He’s appeared recently in Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” and the Nick Hornby adaptation “Juliet, Naked,” and the fourth film he’s directed, “Blaze,” is out now. Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” has become so strongly associated with film noir, it’s hard to know whether film noir was more influenced by the painting or the other way around. And the members of Balún explain how they developed a sound they ...
Sep 27, 2018•50 min
Swingin’ on the flippity-flop in the PNW. Sub Pop CEO Megan Jasper on her legendary hoax on The New York Times with her lexicon of grunge terms. Carrie Brownstein on Sleater-Kinney and the difference between TV stardom and music stardom. What residents in the Washington towns where “Twin Peaks” was filmed love — and hate — about the show. And the generation-defining album that is Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Sep 20, 2018•50 min
BoJack Horseman , Netflix’s animated series about a washed-up ’90s sitcom star living in the Hollywood Hills, is beginning its fifth season. Its protagonist is half-horse, half-man, and its tone is half-jokes, half-existential-angst. That’s a study in contrasts that seems inexplicable—until you talk with the show’s creator, Raphael Bob-Waksberg. Bob-Waksberg is about as introspective, funny and dark as you can be at the tender age of 34. In 2017, he talked with host Kurt Andersen about why so ma...
Sep 18, 2018•23 min
Ann Dowd, who won an Emmy for her portrayal of Aunt Lydia on “The Handmaid’s Tale,” joins Kurt to talk about playing characters — many of them terrifying — for three decades. In the 1960s, when hippies turned to Christianity in what’s commonly called the Jesus Movement, Christian rock was born. And so was a belief that the end of the world was coming any minute. And how the guitarist Stephane Wrembel’s life was changed when he discovered Django Reinhardt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ...
Sep 13, 2018•50 min
Only 12 entertainers have won the EGOT sweep: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. In this hour of Studio 360, we look back at some of our favorite stories about EGOT winners. Composers Robert Lopez and Marvin Hamlisch both perform in our studio. Mel Brooks’ classic comedy skit, “The 2,000 Year Old Man.” And finding inspiration in Whoopi Goldberg’s stand-up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 06, 2018•50 min
Young guitarists emulate standard-bearers like The Kinks’ Dave Davies, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton. But when those guitarists were making their mark in the 1960s, they worshipped their own guitar hero: Link Wray. Sixty years ago, in 1958, Wray released “Rumble,” an instrumental song that had the 12-bar form of blues but pioneered the distortion effect that would become a defining element in rock. It’s what you hear in the very first notes of songs like The Kinks’ “You Really Got ...
Sep 04, 2018•6 min
Kurt Andersen talks with the celebrated architect Liz Diller about how making buildings is like making movies, and she picks some of her favorite examples of films that use architecture brilliantly. How court-ordered psychotherapy helped spur the material Richard Pryor performed for his album “Wanted: Live in Concert,” which marks its fortieth anniversary this year and has been inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry. And poet Maya Phillips joins Kurt to talk about “B...
Aug 30, 2018•50 min
What happens when artists get political. Kurt talks to conservative painter Jon McNaughton about protest art in the age of Trump. The dramatic use of masks in the paintings of Detroit’s Tylonn Sawyer. Our American Icons series looks at the song “Dixie,” the Confederate symbol that’s impossible to remove. And Roya Hakakian and Reza Aslan on Iranian politics and poetry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 23, 2018•50 min
The excellent new movie Blindspotting deals in complex ways with issues of race, gentrification, and police brutality. But it’s a drama both leavened and enhanced by its unique use of rap and verse. Co-writers and stars Daveed Diggs ( Hamilton ) and Rafael Casal ( Def Jam Poetry ) play best friends Collin and Miles who, over the course of the last few days of Collin’s probation, navigate their rapidly gentrifying hometown of Oakland as well as their relationship to each other. That Diggs and Cas...
Aug 21, 2018•20 min
Some of the greatest film music of the 20th century came from readymade stock albums recorded by virtually anonymous musicians. Author David Hollander and composer Keith Mansfield tell the story of vintage library music. How Lucille Fletcher’s thrilling 1943 drama “Sorry, Wrong Number” shocked American radio listeners. And writer Matt Novak uncovers the surprising movies watched by American presidents inside the White House. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Aug 16, 2018•50 min
Studio 360 presents a special bonus episode of another great podcast — Hit Parade. This week, one of music's most iconic personalities — Madonna — is turning 60 years old, and Hit Parade is here to celebrate her. Host Chris Molanphy, a music journalist and pop-chart historian, digs through Madonna's large catalog, particularly at a time when she found herself at a career crossroads. If you like this episode of Hit Parade, subscribe to their podcast. Every month, you'll get new episodes that expl...
Aug 15, 2018•1 hr 15 min
In “Walden,” Henry David Thoreau helped shape the way we think about nature and our place in the world. An American Icons segment examines why many readers think that Thoreau was a genius while others think he’s a hypocrite. A second American Icons segment remembers Leonard Bernstein’s “Young People’s Concerts” with the New York Philharmonic, which not only captured the genius and wit of the conductor but also showed the power of the then-young medium of television. And 40 years ago, Gloria Gayn...
Aug 09, 2018•50 min
This month, the music world is celebrating what would’ve been Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday. As conductor of the New York Philharmonic, he changed the way audiences understood classical music. Five musicians from the Philharmonic remember playing under Bernstein’s baton. This story was produced by WNYC’s Sara Fishko. (Originally aired September 26, 2008. Violinist Oscar Ravina died in 2010.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Aug 07, 2018•10 min
Ken Jennings got famous for his record-breaking run on “Jeopardy!” But he stayed famous for his keen wit, and he joins Kurt Andersen to talk about his new book on the history and future of comedy, “Planet Funny.” Mira T. Lee explains how a Picasso painting, “Girl in a Mirror,” found its way into her debut novel. And the versatile 8-person vocal ensemble, Roomful of Teeth, performs their hauntingly beautiful music in our studio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Aug 02, 2018•50 min
Pressing play — stories about children and how recreation is a form of creation. Kurt Andersen takes a field trip to Governors Island with design critic Alexandra Lange to learn about the history of playgrounds — and see some extraordinary slides. Paola Antonelli tells us the humble beginnings of the Frisbee, its origins being in a pie-baking company whose pie plates — college students discovered — were impressively aerodynamic. Producer Jessica Benko talks to an 8-year-old about her imaginary f...
Jul 26, 2018•50 min
It was 40 years ago when Steve Martin released the concert album, “A Wild and Crazy Guy.” These days Martin is known as an actor, a novelist, a playwright, an accomplished banjo player, a major art collector. But before all that, he was best known for wearing a stupid joke arrow on his head – or a pair of rabbit ears. He wears those rabbit ears, and a white suit, on the cover of “A Wild and Crazy Guy,” his second stand-up comedy album. That record proved he had command of the full comic spectrum...
Jul 24, 2018•10 min
The coasts are not the only cultural centers in America: Kurt Andersen takes a trip to the FRONT International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. A musician pays the bills as a Mastering Quality Control Technician for movies and TV shows. And what we can learn about the Bible from Beyoncé. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 19, 2018•50 min
An ode to animals, read by the late poet Marianne Moore. Plus, since the dawn of humanity, more or less, people have used representations of animals to tell stories. But some artists have wanted to buck that trend, depicting animal stories from the animals’ point of view. Laline Paull is one of these artists. Her novel The Bees was dubbed " Watership Down for the Hunger Games generation,” but it might be more accurate to call it 1984 in a beehive. And Chicago filmmaker Jim Trainor thinks that au...
Jul 17, 2018•12 min
Biologist Roger Payne discovered whale song when he started studying a mysterious recording in 1966. The recording came from a sound designer doing military research, Frank Watlington, who was trying to record undersea dynamite explosions.Payne became obsessed with the recording, and made a startling discovery: the sounds were repeating. That means that they were scientifically classified as songs. Over the following years, Payne pressed the recordings on musicians, composers, and singers, inclu...
Jul 16, 2018•16 min
Laurel Braitman is a historian of science and the author of Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves . She’s particularly interested in animals held in captivity. “If their minds aren’t stimulated and challenged they can end up with all sorts of disturbing behaviors,” she explains. Braitman wondered if music could help counter animal anxiety and depression? This question led Braitman to arrange a series of concerts for all-anima...
Jul 15, 2018•23 min
