Podcast appearances and mentions of max sparber

Many of us are familiar with the butter head sculptures and crop art that have become beloved traditions of the Minnesota State Fair. But there's a whole other side to the fair's history — one filled with strange exhibits and peculiar attractions. MPR News arts editor Max Sparber wrote an article exploring some of the fair's most unusual moments.He spoke with MPR News host Cathy Wurzer about it.

Minneapolis band Red Thread joined the Minnesota Now arts takeover to celebrate their recent album release. The album is called Immigrantke, which means “female immigrant” in Yiddish. The songs are a mix of originals and traditional, sung in English, Serbian and Yiddish. MPR News arts editor Max Sparber reviewed the band's album and invited them into the studio to perform songs live for the show.Red Thread is made up of Sarah Larsson on banjo and lead vocals, Erika Lantz providing harmony vocals, Pat O'Keefe on clarinet and Dex Wolfe on guitar.Red Thread will perform Saturday, May 4 at the Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis as part of a celebration of a Serbian sculptor. The event begins at 7 p.m.

The holiday season is upon us, and seasonal music, theater, dance and more come with it.For many Minnesotans, this is a season of traditions, some old, some new, some classic and some happily eccentric. But what is it that makes these traditions special? How do we decide what traditions are ours? And how do we make new traditions?The MPR News arts team guest hosts a special holiday hour. Join arts reporters Jacob Aloi and Alex Cipolle, and arts editor Max Sparber, as they talk with performers, show directors, each other and listeners about some of Minnesota's most distinctive seasonal art and culture offerings. Guests  Steven C. Anderson, a Minnesota-based musicianChris Berry, Penumbra arts directorPeter Brosius, outgoing artistic director at Children's Theatre CompanyNat Fuller is a Minnesota-based actor, currently in the Guthrie Theater's “A Christmas Carol”Joseph Haj is the artistic director of The Guthrie TheaterRuss King, who plays Miss Richfield 1981 in “Bad Advice for Christmas”Kevin Kling is a performer/storyteller from “Tales from the Charred Underbelly of the Yule Log”Tod Petersen, performer/cocreator of “A Christmas Carole Petersen”Janelle Ranek, performer and co-creator of “Letters to Santa ... Shaken, Not Stirred”Tyrone Schenk, founder and president of Minnesota Krampus  Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.  Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.    

This year's summer blockbusters had people returning to theaters in record numbers. The culture phenomenon known as “Barbenheimer,” the theatrical release of Barbie and Oppenheimer the same weekend, boosted attendance in movie theaters across the country.  While summer is officially over and the hype has settled down, a new season of entertainment is here. And your entertainment options span from your couch to the big screen and even your local theater.  MPR News host Angela Davis talks with Star Tribune columnist Neal Justin about what shows are worth a binge, and with MPR News arts editor Max Sparber about the local productions you won't want to miss.  Here's a list of popular shows, movies and plays Justin and Sparber think might be worth your time. Lessons in Chemistry on Apple TV.   Frasier on Paramount+.  Fargo on FX but streams on Hulu.   Morning Show on Apple TV.  Killers of the Flower Moon will be released in theaters on Oct. 20.  The Cine Latino Film Festival starts Thursday, Oct. 12 and runs through Sunday, Oct. 15. Twelfth Night at Ten Thousand Things Theater Company.  Life Sucks at Open Eye Figure Theatre.  For the People at the Guthrie Theater. Fetal at Frank Theatre. Afro-Atlantic Play Festival starts Friday, Oct. 13 and runs through Sunday, Oct. 15.  Guests:  Neal Justin is a columnist and reporter for the Star Tribune and covers the entertainment world, primarily TV and radio. Max Sparber is an award-winning author and journalist. He's also the arts editor for MPR News.  Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.  Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.    

Author and dear friend of the program Max Sparber (Twitter: @MaxSparber) is back with us this week. We talk about the conservative protests against quarantine and social distancing, and what the crisis means for how we dream. Unsurprisingly, our high notes are all about media we're consuming.

Our friend Max Sparber (Twitter: @maxsparber) is back with us to talk about Irish whiteness(?) and accusations of antisemitism against Ilhan Omar. Max shares some of his own Irish writing, and we find the pot of high note at the end of the rainbow.

Author Max Sparber continues our month of Spooktober with a reading of one of his original horror tales, and we talk about Jason Kander dropping out of the Kansas City mayoral race and the University of Oklahoma dropping their law dean over sexist comments. Original music generously provided by Twitter friend @soup_reviews!

Max Sparber was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1969 and adopted after 11 weeks by a middle class Jewish family in the St. Louis Park suburb of Minneapolis. As a child, he grew up a few blocks from where the Coen brothers had grown up, and was baby-sat by both Dan and Matthew Wilson, both later of the band Trip Shakespeare (as well as Semisonic, in the case of Dan Wilson). Sparber's family had some links to the world of entertainment - his mother is cousins with Judd Hirsch, while his father is a distant cousin of Academy Award-winning composer Lalo Schifrin.Sparber attended public schools throughout his childhood, but for a tw-year stint at a shirt-lived Jewish high school. He attended the University of Minnesota, from which he never attained his degree (at first in Jewish Studies, later in theater). In his early twenties, Sparber moved to Los Angeles. Quickly broke and jobless, he spent three months in Citrus House, a homeless shelter run by the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center of Los Angeles, although Sparber is not gay. This experience would continue to inform his later work as a playwright, which has often addressed gay themes. Through the Teen Canteen, another program for homeless youth, Sparber became part of a theater program begun by actress Shelley Winters (started as the result of a promise by Winters to Marilyn Monroe). Sparber quickly became the program's writer, penning two plays, both of which were extensively workshopped but never produced. The program included as one of its organizers actress Clare Carey from the long-running television comedy Coach.After several years of political work as part of a thriving anarchist scene in Minneapolis, Sparber moved to Omaha, Nebraska, in the late Nineties. Here he became involved in the Blue Barn Theatre, a well-known regional theater that makes frequent use of Omaha talent such as 'Jill Anderson', Hughston Walkinshaw, and Tim Siragusa. Sparber pened a play for the Blue Barn titled "Minstrel Show; Or, the Lynching of William Brown, which retold the true story of a 1919 murder of an African American man in Omaha through the eyes of two itinerant blackface performers. Despite being denounced by state senator Ernie Chambers, the play was a hit, and has since been produced extensively throughout the United States, including two New York productions.Sparber has worked as a journalist and editor for the past decade, including having been the editor-in-chief of Omaha's newsweekly, The Reader, as well as reviewing theater for City Pages in Minneapolis for three years. He has occasionally made forays into writing and acting for film.

We talk to Max Sparber!!!

The Wildest West looks at the good, the bad, and the WTF of cowboy and country. This episode, hosts Max Sparber and Courtney Mault drink Rock and Rye, sample cowboy candy, visit cowboy-themed attractions at the Mall of America, and discuss the films "Lonesome Cowboys" by Andy Warhol and "Wild Girls of the Naked West" by Russ Meyer.

Welcome back to Race Invaders! With Tim away on vacation, Alok is pleased to have Max Sparber as a guest host. An essayist and playwright, Max runs… Read more "Episode 22: Mazel Tov Cocktail"

Playwright and journalist Max Sparber was raised in a Reform Jewish household, attended an Orthodox high school, and, in college, majored in Jewish studies. After college, while living in Omaha, Nebraska, he set out to learn one thousand Yiddish words in a year—and in the process, discovered the richness of Yiddish culture. Max chronicles his efforts to teach himself Yiddish on his blog "Dress British, Think Yiddish." Episode 0130 January 13, 2017 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts