The Roundtable: Recent Episodes
WAMC
WAMC's The Roundtable is an award-winning, nationally recognized eclectic talk program. The show airs from 9am to noon each weekday on wamc.org and features news, interviews, in-depth discussion, music, and much (much) more! Hosted by Joe Donahue and produced by Sarah LaDuke, The Roundtable tackles serious and lighthearted subjects, looking to explore the many facets of the human condition with civility, respect and responsibility.
George W. Bush, the forty-third president of the United States, almost single-handedly decided to invade Iraq. It was possibly the worst foreign-policy decision ever made by a president. The consequences dominated the Bush Administration and still haunt us today.
In Bush, Jean Edward Smith, demonstrates that it was not Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or Condoleezza Rice, but President Bush himself who took personal control of foreign policy.
A perilous romance. A tragic history. An infamous wager.
Shakespeare’s most controversial yet poignant play, The Merchant of Venice, offers a visceral display of courtship, prejudice, money and revenge, ending ultimately in a choice between life and death. Shakespeare & Company’s Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer reunites with longtime Company member Jonathan Epstein as Shylock, the Bard’s most memorable and highly charged outsider. Tamara Hickey plays Portia in the production.
This summer, The Williamstown Theatre Festival brings together professional theatre artists with Berkshire residents to create and perform new work. Born of the belief that theatre is central to understanding, building and maintaining community, this initiative invites the people of Western Massachusetts to be a part of the Festival’s creative process — not just as audience members, but on stage!
Obie Award-winning playwright Lucy Thurber puts a new spin on the Orpheus myth, set in Western Massachusetts. When Orpheus, a teenage girl, realizes that something is amiss in her neighborhood, she embarks on a treacherous journey to save her hometown. Helmed by Festival Associate Director Laura Savia, and developed in collaboration with community partners, this World Premiere features a cast of 75 Berkshire residents performing alongside Festival actors. Performances are July 14-16 at 7:30PM and July 17 at 5PM.
Ahead of the conventions, it’s anyone’s guess who will be tapped for the presidential tickets.
In today’s Congressional Corner, Massachusetts Representative Richard Neal tells WAMC’s Alan Chartock about his favorite.
he technological marvel of its age, the Erie Canal grew out of a sudden fit of inspiration. Proponents didn't just dream; they built a 360-mile waterway entirely by hand and largely through wilderness. As excitement crackled down its length, the canal became the scene of the most striking outburst of imagination in American history.
The Erie Canal made New York the financial capital of America and brought the modern world crashing into the frontier. Men and women saw God face to face, gained and lost fortunes, and reveled in a period of intense spiritual creativity.
The new book: Heaven's Ditch by Historian Jack Kelly illuminates the spiritual and political upheavals along this "psychic highway" from its opening in 1825 through 1844.
Jack Kelly will be at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck July 14, at the Schenectady Canal Festival at Mabee Farm Historic Site July 16, and at Northshire Books in Saratoga July 17.
When Diana Nyad arrived on the shore of Key West after fifty-three hours of grueling swimming across an epic ocean, she not only set a world record—becoming the first person to swim the shark-infested waters between Cuba and Florida with no cage for protection—she also succeeded in fulfilling a dream she first chased at age twenty-eight and at long last achieved when she was sixty-four.
Her memoir, Find a Way: The Inspiring Story of One Woman's Pursuit of a Lifelong Dream, is now available in paperback.
Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance will swashbuckle and sing their way onto Barrington Stage’s Boyd-Quinson Mainstage in Pittsfield, MA July 15th through August 13th.
The production is directed by John Rando, choreographed by Joshua Bergasse and stars David Garrison as Major General Stanley, Kyle Dean Massey as Frederic, Scarlett Strallen as Mabel, and Will Swenson as The Pirate King.
These talented and lauded performers joined us at The Linda along with Musical Director Darren Cohen and Barrington Stage Company’s Artistic Director, Julianne Boyd to talk about the show and perform a few songs.
Senator Bernie Sanders and his Democratic presidential primary rival Hillary Clinton are due to rally together next hour.
In today’s Congressional Corner, Massachusetts Congressman Richie Neal discusses the state of the race with WAMC’s Alan Chartock. This conversation was recorded before today’s rally was announced.
Now in its 5th year, Yidstock celebrates the best of klezmer and new Yiddish music with a wide-ranging lineup of concerts that demonstrate the diversity and breadth of the genre, along with workshops, talks, and other programs.
Headlined by the legendary Klezmatics, this year’s lineup also includes the Klezmer Conservatory Band, the Eleanor Reissa Trio, the Yidstock All-stars, and Sklamberg & the Shepherds and many more.
Yidstock Artistic Director Seth Rogovoy, author of The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover's Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music is here to tell us more along with Lisa Newman - Director of Communications at the Yiddish Book Center.
Dianne Ortmann and Carrie Knudsen from Chatham Bookstore in Chatham, NY join us with this week's Book Picks.
List: HHhH by Laurent Binet Underground Airlines by Ben Winters All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage Before the Fall by Noah Hawley Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer by Arthur Lubow Lion Lessons by Jon Agee Upcoming author events: LIFE Story by Gerald Moore Passed and Present: Keeping Memories of Loved Ones Alive by Allison Gilbert
This Summer, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival presents productions of The Bard’s Measure for Measure, As You Like It, and Macbeth in repertory in the tent at Boscobel House and Gardens in Garrison, NY.
Davis McCallum and Annie Purcell join us.
Davis is Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s Artistic Director, he has been in the position for two full seasons. The award winning director has also directed this summer’s production ofMeasure for Measure -- which stars Annie Purcell as Isabella. Her Broadway credits include The Coast of Utopia, Dividing the Estate, and Awake and Sing!.
In his new book, Almighty, Washington Post Reporter Dan Zak reexamines America’s love-hate relationship with the bomb, from the race to achieve atomic power before the Nazis did to the solemn 70th anniversary of Hiroshima.
This life-or-death issue is unraveled in Zak’s account, with a cast that includes the biophysicist who first educated the public on atomic energy, the prophet who predicted the creation of Oak Ridge, and the Washington bureaucrats and diplomats who are trying to keep the world safe.
Zak shows that our greatest modern-day threat remains a power we discovered long ago. Dan Zak is a reporter for the Washington Post. He has written a wide range of news stories, narratives, and profiles while on local, national, and foreign assignments, from Oscar night in Los Angeles to the US military drawdown in Iraq.
This is the final week to see Berkshire Theatre Group’sproduction of the Tennessee Williams classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in Stockbridge, MA. It ends it’s run this coming Saturday.
Jim Beaver plays the doomed patriarch of the family, Big Daddy. Beaver is an actor best known for his roles on The CW’sSupernatural and HBO’s Deadwood -- where he played Ellsworth - a prospector with a good heart and (like everyone else on that show) an incredible affinity for creative cursing. He also recurred on FX’s Justified and several other shows and has appeared in film and on stage. He is playwright, a film historian, and a television and film writer.
Our Falling into Place series spotlights the important work of -and fosters collaboration between- not-for-profit organizations in our communities; allowing us all to fall into place. Falling Into Place is supported by The Seymour Fox Memorial Foundation, Providing a helping hand to turn inspiration into accomplishment. See more possibilities … see more promise… see more progress. Today we are going to learn about The Independent Living Center of the Hudson Valley. We are joined by Executive Director Denise Figueroa and Director of Development, Barbara Devore.
In the early sixties, Calvin Trillin got his start as a journalist covering the Civil Rights Movement in the South.
Over the next five decades of reporting, he often returned to scenes of racial tension. Now, for the first time, the best of Trillin’s pieces on race in America have been collected in one volume: Jackson, 1964: And Other Dispatches from Fifty Years of Reporting on Race in America.
Seth MacFarlane is the creative force behind TV's Family Guy,American Dad!, and The Cleveland Show. He was also the writer-director of the films Ted, its sequel Ted2, and A Million Ways to Die in the West.
He has also released three successful albums of standards including Music is Better than Words and No One Ever Tells You. MacFarlane's voice has been celebrated for its perfect phrasing, richness, and consistency. He has been nominated for 4 Grammys.
He has played to sold out audiences as London's Royal Albert Hall, New York's Carnegie Hall, and Symphony Hall in Boston. He will be back with The Boston Pops this Sunday at 2:30pm in The Shed at Tanglewood.
Nadine Sierra makes her debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and her first appearance at Tanglewood tomorrow night as part of the festival’s opening weekend concerts. Tomorrow night’s concert will hear the American singer in her acclaimed account of the soprano soloist’s role in Orff’s Carmina Burana. Jacques Lacombe will conduct the performance.
Praised for her vocal beauty, seamless technique, and abundant musicality, Sierra is being hailed as one of the most promising emerging talents in the opera world today. She is already making a name for herself through her performances with top opera companies and symphony orchestras around the world.
Barrington Stage Company, a professional award-winning Equity regional theatre located in the heart of the Berkshires, in Pittsfield, MA, was founded in 1995. Barrington Stage’s mission is three-fold: to present top-notch, compelling work; to develop new plays and musicals; and to find fresh, bold ways to bringing new audiences into the theatre—especially young people.
On their two stages they present new plays and musicals created by the best theatrical minds working today as well as classics.
Julianne Boyd is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Barrington Stage and she joins us now with an overview of the season.
Ellen Highstein, Director of the Tanglewood Music Center joins us along with two outstanding TMC fellows.
Cellist Francesca McNeeley - a Graduate of Princeton and Rice University and Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron was the 1st Prize Winner of the 2013 Liederkranz Competition. In 2016, Fleur was a Palm Beach Opera Young Artist, singing Mercedes and covering the title role in Carmen.
The Capitol Steps were founded in December, 1981 when some staffers for Senator Charles Percy were planning entertainment for a Christmas party. Since then, they’ve been putting the “mock” in democracy in Washington, D.C., on tour, on the radio, and – during the summer – here in Lenox, MA.
The musical satirists call The Cranwell Spa and Golf Resort their summer home – performing here every night except Tuesday through September 2nd.
We are joined this morning by longtime steppers, Bari Biern and Jack Rowles.
Tanglewood is a name that's recognized around the world. Just about every time we interview a conductor or musician, they mention the venue's reputation and cache.
That doesn't just happen by accident. There's a hard-working team of professionals that keeps Tanglewood on the lips of both audience-members and performers.
And, it is quite a season that gets underway tonight. To give us a State of Tanglewood report – we welcome back our friend Mark Volpe – the Managing Director of the BSO.
The Boston Cello Quartet was founded in 2010 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra cellists Blaise Dejardin, Adam Esbensen, Mihail Jojatu and Alexandre Lecarme.
Since its acclaimed debut concert, the BCQ has quickly won the hearts of music lovers through their own arrangements of staples of the classical music repertoire, as well as jazz, contemporary works, and even comic medleys, all which showcases the limitless possibilities of the instrument they love.
The Quartet will perform the Tanglewood Family Concert tomorrow afternoon at 2:30PM in Ozawa Hall.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra opens its 2016 Tanglewood season tonight at 8PM with an Opening Night at Tanglewood program featuring music by Ravel, Saint-Saëns, and Prokofiev, led by conductor Jacques Lacombe.
Jacques Lacombe is the Principal Conductor of the Bonn Opera in Germany beginning with the coming 2016-2017 season. He served as Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra for several years. He conducts around the world and we last spoke with him a year ago when he again opened up the Tanglewood season.
Tony Fogg has been Artistic Administrator of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1994 and assists the Music Director in the planning and selection of all BSO concerts and repertoire.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater grew from a now-fabled performance in March 1958 at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Led by Alvin Ailey and a group of young African-American modern dancers, that performance changed forever the perception of American dance.
In 2008, a U.S. Congressional resolution designated the Company as "a vital American cultural ambassador to the world" that celebrates the uniqueness of the African-American cultural experience and the preservation and enrichment of the American modern dance heritage.
Before his untimely death in 1989, Alvin Ailey named Judith Jamison as his successor, and over the next 21 years, she brought the Company to unprecedented success. Ms. Jamison, in turn, personally selected Robert Battle to succeed her in 2011, and The New York Times declared he "has injected the company with new life."
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will perform at SPAC in Saratoga Springs on July 8th and 9th.
The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College invites the public to its annual Frances Day, a community open house from noon to 6:00 pm Saturday, July 9, full of art, art-making, food, music, and more in honor of the museum's namesake.
Visitors can get an up-close view of what goes on behind the scenes in the Museum's Collections areas, and get a guided look at the exhibitions on view: A More Perfect Union, featuring Mel Ziegler's Flag Exchange, with flags collected from all 50 states; the photography exhibition Borrowed Light: Selections from the Jack Shear Collection; Liz Collins — Energy Field, a community lounge installation featuring a new work by artist E.V. Day; Elevator Music 30: Critter & Guitari, in which visitors can make their own music; and the student-curated exhibition According to What, which explores fact and fiction in contemporary art.
Ian Berry, is the Dayton Director of the Tang.
Even before the Declaration of Independence was signed, the founders established the post office as the circulatory system of America’s body politic. Unlike European postal systems, America’s Post was based on a radical goal: to create an informed electorate by delivering news about public affairs to every citizen.
Winifred Gallagher’s How The Post Office Created America recounts how the U.S. Post was instrumental in developing the national transportation grid, from stagecoach lines to airlines. It organized a wild, rural landscape with roads, villages, towns, and addresses. The postal service was the lifeline that supported the great migration and expansion West. It also enabled America to shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy, and was integral to the development of the publishing industry, consumer culture, and the political party system.
Election Day is about four months away.
In today’s Congressional Corner, Congressional Quarterly’s David Hawkings and WAMC’s Alan Chartock discuss the presidential race.
From renowned social critic, energy expert, and bestselling author James Howard Kunstler,The Harrows of Spring is a moving and gripping novel that completes the story of the quaint upstate New York town of Union Grove, thrown into a future world that in many ways resembles the nineteenth century.
In Union Grove, early spring is a challenging season, known as the “six weeks want,” a time when fresh food is scarce and the winter stores are dwindling. The town is struggling in particular this year as the Hudson River trade route to Albany has been halted by the local plantation tycoon Stephen Bullock, who has deemed it too resource-intensive and is now striving for self-sufficiency.
The Music Haven Concert Series presents world-class concerts in Schenectady, NY. All their shows are scheduled to take place in Schenectady's Central Park on the Agnes MacDonald Music Haven Stage – with a rain-site at Proctors in case of inclement weather.
The Music Haven Concert Series continues its tradition of ‘traveling the world one concert at a time’ with their 2016 season of free, open-air concerts in Schenectady’s Central Park. This year’s series is stacked with international touring talent that promises to transport Music Haven audiences to locales such as: Senegal, Nashville, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Jamaica, Harlem, Ukraine, Macedonia, Cuba and County Sligo, Ireland.
Mona Golub is the Music Haven Concert Series producing artistic director and she joins us to tell us about their schedule for this summer that runs Sundays at 7PM beginning this Sunday, July 10th.
Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-ass Wit of Molly Ivins is a staged reading with Nancy Rothman at PS21 in Chatham on Friday night at 8PM.
It’s an election year, so what better time to enjoy a play based on the famous witticisms of political columnist and humorist Molly Ivins? Her satirical insights into the American political system still ring true today, and twin-sister journalists Margaret and Allison Engel have written a very funny show celebrating Ivins’ courage and tenacity.
Nancy Rothman has acted on stages in NYC, regionally and abroad, as well as on film, television and radio. She is also a favorite with local audiences, and has graced the PS21 stage on numerous occasions. Nicola Sheara is directing Nancy in the reading and we welcome them both to The Roundtable.
Voice Theatre in Woodstock, NY creates new productions and explores relevant dimensions of classic works. From play development readings and in-school workshops, to full-scale productions and international tours, Voice Theatre cuts through barriers of ethnicity, language and nationality, bringing together diverse peoples seeking mutual respect because of their shared experiences of humanity.
They join us to talk to talk about their Summer Youth Workshop which creates a fun supportive environment for young people to explore skills that develop confidence, social skills, focus, independent inquiry and collaboration while having fun in a creative environment.
We are joined by Voice Theatre artistic director Shauna Kanter and ensemble member Christa Trinler.
Who will wind up on the presidential tickets?
In today’s Congressional Corner, Congressional Quarterly’s David Hawkings and WAMC’s Alan Chartock play the veepstakes game.
The Green River Festival, Western Massachusetts' favorite music and hot air balloon festival will take place July 8, 9, and 10 on the grounds of Greenfield Community in Greenfield, MA.
Presented by the record label, Signature Sounds, the first Green River Festival took place in 1986 as a free one day headlined by NRBQ, who are returning to the festival this year to help celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Headliners include Dawes, Tedeschi-Trucks Band, Shovels & Rope, and Shakey Graves. There will be music on three stages, family events, hot air balloon rides, a new sustainability partnership with Klean Kanteen and more.
Jim Olsen is the President of Signature Sounds and he joins us to tell us more about this weekend’s Green River Festival.
In her new novel, Judy Blume, the New York Times#1 best-selling author of Summer Sisters and of young adult classics such as Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, creates a richly textured and moving story of three generations of families, friends and strangers, whose lives are profoundly changed by unexpected events.
She joins us to talk about the new novel, her magnificent career, and how much she likes working in her bookstore.
Andy Lazris, MD, is a practicing primary care physician who experiences the effects of Medicare policy on a daily basis. As a result, he believes that the way we care for our elderly has taken a wrong turn and that Medicare is complicit in creating the very problems it seeks to solve. Aging is not a disease to be cured; it is a life stage to be lived
His new book is Curing Medicare: A Doctor's View on How Our Health Care System Is Failing Older Americans and How We Can Fix It.
The Iroquois Indian Museum in Howes Cave, NY is celebrating its 35th anniversary and has many exciting and educational events going on this season including: artist demonstrations, a fall exhibition, A Soldier's Heart a Sister's Hands: Haudenosaune [ho deh neh show nee] Women Veterans, Iroquois storytelling and the Iroquois Festival on Labor Day weekend.
They will be hosting a party on July 9th to celebrate 35 years with vendors, live music, children's activities, silent auction and more.
Here to tell us more are Dr. Christina Hanks, Founding Director of the museum and Stephanie Shultes, Current Director.
Donald Trump has a big choice to make.
In today’s Congressional Corner, Congressional Quarterly’s David Hawkings and WAMC’s Alan Chartock continue their discussion about the veepstakes.
It’s hard to believe that Tedeschi Trucks Band has only been around for six years, because they’re the kind of group that sounds permanent. The blues and rock juggernaut released its third album Let Me Get By in January, and it quickly earned popular and critical praise. And if it’s summer, it means Derek Trucks, widely considered one of the greatest guitarists in the world, is on the road. Trucks joined the Allman Brothers Band as a teen and has toured and collaborated with a who’s who of the music industry in the years since.
This week's Book Picks from Amy Lane at The Open Door Bookstore and Gift Gallery in Schenectady, NY.
List: All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage The Only Rule Is It Has to Work by Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller Free Days with George by Colin Campbell How to Set a Fire and Why by Jesse Ball The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer A Child's First Book of Trump written by Michael Ian Black, Illustrated by Marc Rosenthal
Vassar and New York Stage and Film’s first Musical Workshop of this Powerhouseseason is a brand-new adaptation of The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd. The production involves a commissioned by The Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City and is directed by Scott Ellis - responsible for Roundabout’s recent productions of She Loves Me and On the Twentieth Century.
The show will keep its original score by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley -- but replace the duo’s book with a new one by Santino Fontana.
Fontana co-stars as Greg on the CW’s musical television comedy, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. He was the voice of Hans in that tiny-little Disney movie, Frozen. Broadway and off-Broadway credits include: The Fantasticks, Sunday in the Park with George, Billy Elliot: The Musical, Brighton Beach Memoirs, A View from the Bridge, The Importance of Being Earnest, Sons of the Prophet, Act One, and Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella.
In this week’s Classical Music According to Yehuda, we learn bit about Yma Sumac "The Peruvian Songbird" - who lived from 1922 to 2008.
Vassar and New York Stage and Film’s first main stage Powerhouse production this season is Lucy Thurber’s Transfers.
As two young men from the Bronx vie for acceptance to an elite college, their shared past threatens to overshadow their bright futures. Class, ambition, and expectations are called into question when higher education – and its life-changing potential – is just within reach.
Thurber is a Lilly Award winner and won a 2014 OBIE Award for her theatrical cycle, The Hill Town Plays. She was also a member of the influential Obie-winning playwrights’ collective, 13P.
This month, Vassar College and New York Stage and Film’s summer Powerhouse season in Poughkeepsie, NY will present two fully staged productions, three Musical Theater workshops, two Inside Look workshops, and a number of readings. In addition to all of that, their training program is in full swing.
Ed Cheetham is the Producing Director of Powerhouse Theater at Vassar.
Democrats have made gun reform a daily priority of late.
In today’s Congressional Corner, Congressional Quarterly’s David Hawkings tells WAMC’s Alan Chartock about the recent sit-in by House Democrats.
Since 1985, Vassar and New York Stage and Filmhave been partners in the Powerhouse season, a collaboration known for being the springboard for new stories that go on to theaters across the country and around the world. This year’s Tony Award winning and nominated shows The Humans, Bright Star, and Hamilton, can all claim incubation periods at Powerhouse.
The 2016 season began with a reading festival last weekend and its first main stage show, Transfers by Lucy Thurber, opened last night and runs through July 10th. Johanna Pfaelzer is the Artistic Director of New York Stage and Film and she joins us to talk about the 2016 season.
Ron Kovic was really born on the 4th of July. Forty years ago the Vietnam vet — wounded in combat and in a wheelchair ever since — published his classic war memoir, later made into a film with Tom Cruise – Born on the Fourth of July. The new anniversary edition features a foreword by Bruce Springsteen.
In addition, Kovic - who continues his activism - has written a new memoir entitled Hurricane Street, which chronicles the 1970s activism of the American Veterans Movement.
llusionist dance company MOMIX, under the direction of Moses Pendleton, will make their third appearance at the The Mahaiwein Great Barrington, MA this Saturday and Sunday.
Based in Washington, Conn., this innovative dance company seemingly defies categorization as easily as its dancer-illusionists defy gravity. Their show, VIVA MOMIX, features a collection of company and audience favorites.
Artistic Director Moses Pendleton has been one of America’s most innovative choreographers and directors for over 40 years.
Shadowland Stages in Ellenville, NY began this summer season with John Cariani’s Last Gas. The are currently presenting the Hudson Valley premiere of John Logan’s RED – and the season to come includes Miracle on South Division St., 8-Track: Songs of the 70’s, and God of Carnage all of that and the Acting Academy at the Shadowland Stages is entering its ninth year.
Brendan Burke is the Artistic Director at the Shadowland Stages and he joins us.
The Supreme Court has released some of its highly-anticipated rulings — but with only eight justices weighing in.
In today’s Congressional Corner, Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern — a Democrat from the 2nd district — tells WAMC’s Alan Chartock that Merrick Garland hasn’t gotten a fair shake.
A gifted, versatile and always busy guitar master is coming back to our region on Friday. Warren Haynes, known for his work with The Allman Brothers Band, Gov’t Mule, and The Dead, will be at Tanglewood for the latest stop on his Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration. Joining the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Haynes will be performing the music of Jerry Garcia starting at 8 p.m. Haynes will continue the tour at Bethel Woods in Sullivan County August 6 and returns with Gov’t Mule to Utica August 16.
Mississippi plantation owner, the cantankerous Big Daddy, is celebrating his 65th birthday. His family has returned for the occasion, including his favorite son, the masculine Brick, and Brick’s wife, the lonely and longing Maggie.
Brick and Maggie’s strained marriage plagues Big Daddy’s mind, and he demands answers to why they haven’t given him a grandchild yet.
However, Big Daddy’s family holds a powerful secret, and an ulterior motive as to why they have returned to the plantation. The families’ troubled relationships and emotional lies become exposed in the timeless American treasure by Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Berkshire Theatre Group presents Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as part of their season this summer. The show opened on Saturday after a few previews and runs through July 16th.
We are joined this morning by Rebecca Brooksher and Michael Raymond-James – who play Maggie and Brick on BTG’s Fitzpatrick Stage.
The Felice Brothers' new album, Life in the Dark, is out on Yep Roc records and they’re heading out on a huge tour this summer.
We’re lucky to have them playing several spots in the greater WAMC listening region -- they’ll be at Green River Fest in Greenfield, MA on 7/9; Troy Riverfront Park on 7/20, The Catskill Brewery in Livingston Manor, NY on 8/6; and the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in Hillsdale, NY on 8/7.
We were very excited to have them stop by The Linda to talk about what’s new and play some tunes.
House Democrats recently shut down the chamber with a daylong sit-in.
In today’s Congressional Corner, Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern — a Democrat from the 2nd district — discusses the action with WAMC’s Alan Chartock.
Scott Woolley's new book, The Network: The Battle for the Airwaves and the Birth of the Communications Age is the origin story of the airwaves - the foundational technology of the communications age - as told through the forty-year friendship of an entrepreneurial industrialist and a brilliant inventor.
He is one of the most prolific writers ever with 156 published books that have sold more than 325 million copies worldwide.
James Patterson is on a mission to get even more people to read in this digital age. He is introducing BookShots-- a new line of short and propulsive.
Feminism has hit the big time. Once a dirty word brushed away with a grimace, “feminist” has been rebranded as a shiny label sported by movie and pop stars, fashion designers, and multi-hyphenate powerhouses like Beyoncé. It drives advertising and marketing campaigns for everything from wireless plans to underwear to perfume, presenting what’s long been a movement for social justice as just another consumer choice in a vast market. Individual self-actualization is the goal, shopping more often than not the means, and celebrities the mouthpieces.
But what does it mean when social change becomes a brand identity? Feminism’s splashy arrival at the center of today’s media and pop-culture marketplace, after all, hasn’t offered solutions to the movement’s unfinished business.
Andi Zeisler, a founding editor of Bitch Media, draws on more than twenty years’ experience interpreting popular culture in this biting history of how feminism has been co-opted, watered down, and turned into a gyratory media trend in her new book,We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement.
Barrington Stage Company’s second St. Germain stage production of this season is Kimberly Akimbo by Pulitzer Prize winner, David Lindsay-Abaire.
Starring Debra Jo Rupp and set in the wilds of suburban New Jersey, Kimberly Akimbo is a hilarious and heartrending play about a teenager with a rare condition causing her body to age faster than normal. When she and her family flee Secaucus under dubious circumstances, Kimberly is forced to reevaluate her life while contending with a hypochondriac mother, a rarely sober father, a scam-artist aunt, her own mortality and, most terrifying of all, the possibility of first love.
Debra Jo Rupp was last seen at Barrington Stage in Dr. Ruth: All the Way and will return to the St. Germain stage later this season to perform in Love Letters with Mark H. Dold.
What will Great Britain do next?
In today’s Congressional Corner, Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern — a Democrat from the 2nd district — discusses the Brexit vote with WAMC’s Alan Chartock.
Jacqueline Kellachan from The Golden Notebook in Woodstock, NY joins us with this week's Book Picks.
List: The Girls: A Novel by Emma Cline SweetBitter: A Novel by Stephanie The Second Life of Nick Mason by Steve Hamilton Joe Gould's Teeth by Jill Lepore Robert Winthrop Chanler: Discovering The Fantastic edited by Vizcaya Museum and Garden/The Monacelli Press Events: "By The Book"with Marshall Karp, Joe Donohue and James Conrad - June 29, 7PM The Mommy Group by Elizabeth Isadora Gold - July 2, 4PM Sex Object by Jessica Valenti - July 3, 3PM
We have probably all seen the movies, TV shows and books which tell the story about lawman Wyatt Earp. But, very few make mention of his wife. Married for nearly 50 years, Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp was beautiful, gusty and Jewish.
Thelma Adams has delved into the life and times of Mrs. Wyatt with her new novel, The Last Woman Standing. At once an epic account of an improbable romance and a retelling of an iconic American tale, The Last Woman Standing recalls the famed gunfight at the O.K. Corral through the eyes of Josephine. For over two decades, she has penned celebrity features and criticism for high-profile publications. While covering film for the New York Post, Us Weekly, and Yahoo Movies, Thelma Adams became a regular at film festivals from Berlin to Dubai, Toronto to Tribeca. Her debut novel was Playdate and it is always a pleasure to welcome Thelma back to The Roundtable.
In the early seventeenth century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a book. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from reading too many books of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That book, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history. Cervantes did more than just publish a bestseller, though. He invented a way of writing.
In The Man Who Invented Fiction William Egginton explores Cervantes's life and the world he lived in, showing how his influences converged in his work, and how his work--especially Don Quixote--radically changed the nature of literature and created a new way of viewing the world.
Our Falling into Place series spotlights the important work of -and fosters collaboration between- not-for-profit organizations in our communities; allowing us all to fall into place.
The goal of the all-volunteer Reading Is Fun Program (RIF) in Schenectady, NY is to keep helping Schenectady's needy 4-9 year olds in pre-K, Kindergarten, and Grades 1-3, to learn reading-readiness and conversational skills and vocabulary. We are joined by Founder and Executive Director Alvin Magid and Chief Operating Officer Mary Lou Russo.
Falling Into Place is supported by The Seymour Fox Memorial Foundation, Providing a helping hand to turn inspiration into accomplishment. See more possibilities … see more promise… see more progress.
The opioid crisis has worried officials across the Northeast.
In today’s Congressional Corner, New York Representative Paul Tonko — a Democrat from the 20th district — tells WAMC’s Alan Chartock about a recent forum he hosted in Albany.
Over the past three years, American writer Ben Ehrenreich has been traveling to and living in the West Bank, staying with Palestinian families in its largest cities and its smallest villages. Eventually Ehrenreich moved to Ramallah, and started writing what would become his new book: The Way To The Spring: Life and Death in Palestine.
Ehrenreich was moved by the injustices that he witnessed, and by the general silence about them in most U.S. media. As well informed as he was on the Arab-Israeli conflict, he nonetheless was consistently shocked by what he saw, and by how little the vast majority of people in the U.S. (and even in Israel, just few miles away) understood about the lived realities of the occupation. He felt strongly that he wanted to write to break through those silences. In cities and small villages alike, men and women, young and old, shared their lives with Ehrenreich and made their own case for resistance and resilience in the face of life under occupation. The Way to the Spring makes clear that conditions on the ground are changing--and getting worse.
Dr. Steven A. Leibo, the Sherman David Spector Professor in the Humanities at the Sage Colleges in New York, specializes in Modern International History & Politics.
He joins us to discuss the Referendum of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union – or Brexit.
One of our favorite Brits, Tina Packer - founding Artistic Director of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA joins us to share her thoughts and feelings on the Referendum of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union.
Matthew Amroliwala is the host of Global with Matthew Amroliwala on BBC World News each weekday.
As BBC/US partners, WAMC reached out to their pressroom and Matthew agreed to join us today to talk about the Referendum of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union – or Brexit.
Tim Vercellotti, political science professor and director of theWestern New England University Polling Institute, is in London for a university summer program.
He has had a front row seat for the so-called “Brexit” referendum campaign.
Nearly every market move over the last two weeks has been attributed to the British referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain with or leave the European Union.
When a poll showed the British might want to leave? Stocks would go down. Then it looked like the U.K. would stay in the political and economic bloc and stocks would bounce up. Now that the U.K. has officially voted in favor of leaving, markets are going wild. Investors around the world went into crisis mode as British voters chose to leave the European Union in a stunning decision with far-reaching implications. Hugh Johnson of Hugh Johnson Advisors in Albany, New York joins us live in Studio A to discuss the impact of the vote on the world and US economies.
This listener essay is by Steve Lewis.
I Liked Ike
I liked Ike. He looked like a nice man on the red, white and blue button I saw on someone’s lapel at the Bohack’s. Somebody’s grandpa. He also looked kind of snappy saluting the troops in that tan Army uniform on the newsreels at the Roslyn Movie Theater.
My parents, Jewish immigrants from the boroughs, liked Stevenson, the tall bald guy famous for having a hole in the sole of his shoe. They said, with that adult shake of the head, that he was “very smart, very smart,” which I figured meant that Ike was probably not so sharp. So when my first grade teacher asked who we were voting for I made the brainy choice and raised my right hand for Adlai, my left hand pushing my right elbow up above Joan Nordlinger’s hand waving furiously next to mine. But I privately hoped the nice man with a kindly smile on the button would win.
This Spring, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY has hosted Mark Dion as Vassar artist-in-residence.
Dion is a New York and Pennsylvania-based visual artist known for his “cabinets of curiosities” that incorporate found objects into site-specific installations.
He co-taught a course with anthropology professor Anne Pike-Tay, culminating in a work comprised of items drawn from the collections of the Art Center, Special Collections, and Vassar College Artifacts Project. This wealth of resources includes materials as diverse as nineteenth-century scientific instruments, Native American objects, examples of taxidermy, sculpture, geological specimens, and antique books. Universal Collection: A Mark Dion Project will be on view at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY through December 11th.
Vermont's Weston Playhouse Theatre Company is turning 80 and their summer 2016 season boasts a line-up that includes groundbreaking partnerships, collaborations with major stars, and the Vermont Premiere of one of Broadway's longest-running hits.
Producing Artistic Director, Steve Stettler, joins us now to tell us all about it.
The Orlando nightclub shooting has inspired new debate over gun control.
In today’s Congressional Corner, New York Representative Paul Tonko — a Democrat from the 20th district — tells WAMC’s Alan Chartock it’s time for a new approach.
Shawn Stone joins us to talk about what he's seen lately and what cultural events are coming up this week in our region.
Seen: Finding Dory
Upcoming: Michelle Shocked performs “Short Sharp Shocked”, plus Dryer - Putnam Den, Saratoga Springs, Thursday 6/23 Beware of a Holy Whore - Time + Space Limited, Hudson, Thursday-Friday, 6/23-24 (6:15 PM) Troy Night Out - Downtown Troy, Friday 6/24, 5-9 PM Miranda Lambert, plus Kip Moore, Brothers Osborn - SPAC, Saratoga Springs, Friday 6/24 Chris Botti - Tanglewood, Lenox, Mass., Friday 6/24 The Suitcase Junket - MASS MoCA, Saturday 6/25 Don Byron’s Junior Walker Tribute - Helsinki Hudson, Hudson, Saturday 6/25 Pretty Much the Best Comedy Show: Anthony DeVito - Underground at Proctors, Saturday 6/25 Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival - SPAC, Saratoga Springs, Saturday-Sunday, 6/25-26; Sat: Isley Brothers, Steps Ahead; Sun: Smokey Robinson, Chick Correa, Lizz Wright A Very Intimate Evening with Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo - The Egg, Albany, Monday 6/27
New Movies: Independence Day: Resurgence, Dheepan, Free State of Jones,The Neon Demon
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, as Britain, France, Spain, and the United States all jockeyed for control of the vast expanses west of the Mississippi River, the stakes for American expansion were incalculably high. Even after the American purchase of the Louisiana Territory, Spain still coveted that land and was prepared to employ any means to retain it. With war expected at any moment, Jefferson played a game of strategy, putting on the ground the only Americans he could: a cadre of explorers who finally annexed it through courageous investigation.
Julie M. Fenster is the author of many works of popular history, including The Case of Abraham Lincoln, Race of the Century, the award-winning Ether Day, and, with Douglas Brinkley, Parish Priest, which was a New York Times bestseller. She also co-wrote the PBS documentary First Freedom, about the founders and religious liberty. Her new book is Jefferson's America: The President, the Purchase, and the Explorers Who Transformed a Nation.
Shakespeare & Company was founded in 1978 and since then they’ve been presenting world-class classical and contemporary theater with a focus on none other than The Bard of Avon in Lenox, MA.
The season includes three Shakespeare plays: The Merchant of Venice, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Twelfth Night, plus Regional Premieres by three women playwrights: of Or, by Liz Duffy Adams; The Taming by Lauren Gunderson and Ugly Lies the Bone by Lindsey Ferrentino, a bracing drama fresh from an acclaimed Off-Broadway production.
Additional titles include Sotto Voce by Pulitzer Prize-winner Nilo Cruz, and the return of Stephan Wolfert in Cry "Havoc!", and a new adaption of Aphra Behn’s Emperor of the Moon by Jenna Ware.
Ariel Bock and Jonathan Croy are serving as co-interim Artistic Directors at Shakespeare & Company. They join us along with Daniella Varon who is directing Ugly Lies the Bone.
Tony Award-winning Fiorello! is a big-hearted look at Mayor La Guardia and his battle for the people of New York City. With music and lyrics by Tony Award-winners Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick and book by Tony Award and Drama Desk-Winner George Abbott and Jerome Weidman, the Berkshire Theatre Group production is directed by Playwrights Horizons founder, Bob Moss. Fiorello! is one of only nine musicals to have been awarded the esteemed Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Berkshire Theatre Group presents Fiorello! through July 23rd on their Unicorn Theater in Stockbridge.
Cast members Katie Birenboim and Austin Lombardi join us now. They play Marie and the title character, Fiorello, respectively.
Herbert Clark Hoover was the thirty-first President of the United States. He served one term, from 1929 to 1933. Often considered placid, passive, unsympathetic, and even paralyzed by national events, Hoover faced an uphill battle in the face of the Great Depression.
Many historians dismiss him as merely ineffective. But in Herbert Hoover in the White House,Charles Rappleye draws on rare and intimate sources—memoirs and diaries and thousands of documents kept by members of his cabinet and close advisors—to reveal a very different figure than the one often portrayed. The real Hoover, argues Rappleye, just lacked the tools of leadership.
New England in the late nineteenth century was home to a set of high-spirited and ambitious writers who were, for the first time, creating a distinctly American literature. From this close-knit literary society emerged Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who were known to be friends. In The Whale: A Love Story, novelist Mark Beauregard explores the boundaries of this friendship.
Through a nuanced reading of Melville’s real letters and other original sources, Beauregard offers the fictionalized story of two men who shared a deep, emotionally charged bond that may have transformed the writing—and meaning—of Moby-Dick. Scholars, academics, and essayists have written about Melville and Hawthorne’s relationship, trying to suss out what may have really happened between them.
Mark's events:
Wednesday, June 22 @ 6:00PM / Talk, Q&A, and Signing THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 115 Derby Street Salem, MA 01970
Thursday, June 23 @ 4:00PM / Author-led tour of Herman Melville’s home BERKSHIRE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY AT ARROWHEAD 780 Holmes Road Pittsfield, MA 01201
Thursday, June 23 @ 7:00PM / Talk, Q&A, and Signing THE BOOKSTORE 11 Housatonic St. Lenox, MA 02140
Friday, June 24 @ 7:00PM / In Conversation with editor Carole Desanti, Q&A, and Signing ODYSSEY BOOKSHOP 9 College St. South Hadley, MA 01074
Saturday, June 25 @ 11AM / Talk, Q&A, and Signing MARKETBLOCK BOOKS 290 River St. Troy, NY 12180
Jackie Mercurio lives with her husband, five children, and black Lab in New York. She is a freelance writer and editor, who teaches at Concordia College and the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute.
My Rock
When I plant flowers near my grandfather's grave, my trowel strikes rock, and I think of the many years I have planted flowers right here in this very spot and have never encountered it. I dig around the stone. I scoop it from the earth. I roll it onto my hand. The rock is smooth and round, slightly smaller than my open palm, and with my index finger I brush away dirt, wondering if it's been buried here all along, the same three decades as my grandfather.
Her Again is an intimate look at the artistic coming-of-age of the greatest actress of her generation, from the homecoming float at her suburban New Jersey high school, through her early days on the stage at Vassar College and the Yale School of Drama during its golden years, to her star-making roles in The Deer Hunter, Manhattan, and Kramer vs. Kramer.
New Yorker contributor Michael Schulman brings into focus Meryl’s heady rise to stardom on the New York stage; her passionate, tragically short-lived love affair with fellow actor John Cazale; her marriage to sculptor Don Gummer; and her evolution as a young woman of the 1970s wrestling with changing ideas of feminism, marriage, love, and sacrifice.
When our tech guru, Jesse Feiler is here – we talk quite a bit about Apple Technologies. This morning we are going to focus on news from Microsoft.
Jesse is a developer, consultant, and author specializing in Apple technologies. He is the creator of Minutes Machine for iPad, the meeting management app and Saranac River Trail app a guide to the Trail that includes location-based updates as well as social media tools.
The Northeast has America’s oldest infrastructure.
In today’s Congressional Corner, Connecticut Representative Elizabeth Esty tells WAMC’s Alan Chartock there is some good news on the rail front.
Brilliant Traces, by Cindy Lou Johnson is a roller-coaster of a play about feelings of isolation and people's need to be understood. Both comic and anguished, Brilliant Traces is set in a recluse's cabin in an Alaskan blizzard where a runaway bride seeks shelter.
Performing Arts of Woodstock is opening a production of the play at the Mescal Hornbeck Community Center this week.
The production is directed by Sande Shurin and stars Maria Elena Maurin as Rosannah. They join us along with President of Performing Arts of Woodstock, Adele Calcavecchio.
Today's Book Picks list comes from Rachel Person of The Northshire Bookstore.
List: They May Not Mean To, But They Do by Cathleen Schine Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick Cook Korean! A Comic Book with Recipes by Robin Ha (to be released 7/5) Just My Luck by Cammie McGovern The Great American Whatever by Tim Federle The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubraker Bradley