Peter Riegert's Vocal Heroes

During the Spring and Summer of 2020, with the police murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Jacob Blake, and the Covid pandemic surpassing 215,000 American deaths, Peter felt it important to have another conversation with Cassie Schwerner about this terrifying and transformative new moment in our country’s history. We spoke via Zoom on September 30, 2020, 7 months after our initial meeting. www.vocalheroes.com

At the outset of 1964's "Freedom Summer," the KKK murdered civil rights workers Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Schwerner's brother Steve and niece Cassie talk with Peter about the lasting impact of Mickey's death, and how inspiring it has been to see the civil rights movement's aims taken up with renewed passion by global Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020. www.vocalheroes.com

In 1972, Holtzman became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Defeating 50-year-incumbent Emanuel Celler, she shortly became the only Judiciary Committee member gutsy enough to ask Gerald Ford whether he'd pardoned Nixon as a quid pro quo, then filed suit to halt our illegal bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. She's still not one to pull a punch. www.vocalheroes.com

Director, playwright, author, and kickass warrior for cultural excellence Perloff met Peter in 1988, when she cast him as the seductively sinister Goldberg in Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party. The two discuss language, wit, doom, humor, childhood dreams of archaeology, and how the communal catharsis of fine theater helps us all survive catastrophe. www.vocalheroes.com

Rubén and Peter examine the influence of family on building a life's credo, the decisions and luck affecting that life, and the perennial search for a true and just "America." www.vocalheroes.com

Matthew Goodman and Peter discuss creativity, the undertow of corruption snaking through New York City's--and America's--history, and Goodman’s book The City Game. This, his fourth work of historical non-fiction, recounts a mid-century tale of college basketball triumph-and-tragedy so iconic, it inspired sportswriting's very first use of the phrase “A Cinderella Story.” www.vocalheroes.com

Karen Allen made her film debut playing Katy to Peter’s Boon in Animal House. On the road to that moment? Two hands seen typing all winter through a distant apartment window, a four-hour play in Polish, and an index card tacked up inside a Manhattan theater school’s door. http://www.vocalheroes.com

Can small decisions spark immense change? Riegert’s heroes disclose how to ignite adventure, creativity, and social justice. vocalheroes.com