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Final summer of shows before new theater debuts Beyond the new theater rising on a ridge above the river, things are percolating as the acting company now known as Hudson Valley Shakespeare prepares for its 38th and final season under the tent. After a rebrand, the "festival" suffix moved down the road. "We're more permanent than ever," says Davis McCallum, the artistic director, explaining the change. "Festivals are associated with a defined time period and then they head off, like the circus, but we still want to have that celebratory, freewheeling exuberance." The Samuel H. Scripps Theater Center is part of a $58 million project that includes the ecological restoration of the former golf course that is now the Hudson Valley Shakespeare campus and the addition of actor housing. This season, the company's full-production plays include Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, opening June 6, and The Matchmaker (June 8), by Thornton Wilder, which evolved into the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly! and the 1968 film shot in part at Garrison's Landing. Will and Wilder alternate through Aug. 3. Then Octet, written by Beacon resident Dave Malloy, takes over the tent from Aug. 11 to Sept. 7. McCallum pursued the rights to the Tony-nominated play for five years; Hudson Valley Shakespeare is the first company to mount a full production after the show's Off-Broadway run in 2019. "The original rights-holders planned a commercial Broadway production and a film, but COVID hit, and it's only been shown twice since then in limited productions," says McCallum. Malloy's local ties extend to writing the music for Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage, the greatest hit so far by local house-party hosts Jason Craig and Jessica Jelliffe at Banana, Bag & Bodice productions. The following year, 2011, Malloy collaborated with Craig on Beardo, a rock musical about Rasputin. Hudson Valley Shakespeare recently commissioned a work from Banana, Bag & Bodice that's about halfway completed, says McCallum. Octet is billed as a "chamber choir musical" that references tarot cards and explores internet addiction and human alienation in the digital age through dialogue and an eight-part acapella harmony score. Only three of the troupe's regulars could pull off the singing-and-speaking task, so McCallum imported "ringers," he says. When the tent goes dark for a week to prepare the production, the company will roll out HVS Cabaret, which transforms The Valley restaurant into a 45-seat cabaret (Aug. 6 to 9). Performances include a solo work-in-progress musical, Fathertime: Birth, Death and Songs, the return of former troupe member Bebe Nicole Simpson and a performance by composer Alex Bechtel. In addition, a new production of Julius Caesar plays Sept. 9 and 10 for students and the public, with a stripped-down version moving to Bannerman Castle Trust on the island (Sept. 11 to 13). For the first time, the Shakespeare company will send teaching artists and actors to nearby schools for three weeks in September instead of in the spring. Next year, after the Scripps Theater opens, the company will continue to visit schools and, for the first time, bring students to the grounds. McCallum, who worked on The Matchmaker 30 years ago in London, considers Wilder to be "the best American playwright. He won two Pulitzers for drama and another one for a novel - the only American author who achieved that." For The Matchmaker, wife-and-husband team Nance Williamson and Kurt Rhoads, who live in Philipstown, star as Dolly Levi and Horace Vandergelder. Although overshadowed by the Broadway and movie adaptations, the original play complements The Comedy of Errors, McCallum says. "It's uncanny how much these two farces share structure, energy and momentum," he says. "Our actors are feeding off each other as they go back and forth working on them." Hudson Valley Shakespeare is located at 2015 Route 9 in Philipstown. For a schedule and tickets, which range from $10 to $100, see hvshakespear...
Officials say the raid at P*Town last weekend was an occupancy check — one they seemingly failed and which could put their liquor license in jeopardy. We're in the last stretch of the mayoral primary, and we're talking about the group chat supporting incumbent Ed Gainey, a union call to remove the mayor's COO for alleged anti-police bias, and criticism of Corey O'Connor for leaving a candidate forum early to attend a fundraiser. Plus, a famous Andy Warhol print seems to have ended up in Dutch trash, and there are a bunch of fun book events coming this weekend and beyond. Notes and references from today's show: P Town Bar ‘Raided' During Queer Event Featuring Amanda Lepore [QBurgh] Gainey: Overcrowding complaint, not bias, prompted inspection at Pittsburgh gay bar [TribLive] Liquor Licensing & Enforcement Fact Sheet [Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board] Why Ed Gainey Wants To Stay Pittsburgh's Mayor [City Cast Pittsburgh] Why Corey O'Connor Wants To Be Pittsburgh's Next Mayor [City Cast Pittsburgh] Why Thomas West Wants To Be Pittsburgh's Next Mayor [City Cast Pittsburgh] Why Tony Moreno Wants To Be Pittsburgh's Next Mayor [City Cast Pittsburgh] In Pittsburgh mayoral race, Gainey foe criticizes group chat that supporters call a 'common' tool [WESA] Pittsburgh Police union requests new city negotiator for 2026 contract [WTAE] New team of plumbers aim to have Pittsburgh's fountains flowing earlier this year [WESA] Pittsburgh official's 'horrible' social media posts raise ire of police union ahead of contract talks [TribLive] Dutch Municipality Accidentally Discards a 1980s Warhol Print [New York Times] Pittsburgh author awarded Pulitzer Prize for book on Harriet Tubman's role in a Civil War raid [WESA] Carnegie Mellon Alumni Nominated for 13 Tony Awards [Carnegie Mellon University] National Endowment for the Arts funding cuts hit Pittsburgh [WESA] Learn more about the sponsors of this May 9th episode: Aura Frames - Get $35-off plus free shipping on the Carver Mat frame with Promo Code CITYCAST Liberty Magic Fulton Commons Cozy Earth - Use code COZYPITTSBURGH for 40% off best-selling sheets, towels, pajamas, and more. Become a member of City Cast Pittsburgh at membership.citycast.fm. Want more Pittsburgh news? Sign up for our daily morning Hey Pittsburgh newsletter. We're also on Instagram @CityCastPgh! Interested in advertising with City Cast? Find more info here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Join Washington Examiner Senior Writer David Harsanyi and Federalist Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway as they discuss the pro-abortion propaganda that won a Pulitzer Prize, analyze Sen. John Fetterman's family drama, and weigh in on President Donald Trump's self-deportation policies. Mollie and David also share their thoughts on the band Devo, MobLand, and 10 Things I Hate About You.If you care about combating the corrupt media that continue to inflict devastating damage, please give a gift to help The Federalist do the real journalism America needs.
Join Washington Examiner Senior Writer David Harsanyi and Federalist Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway as they discuss the pro-abortion propaganda that won a Pulitzer Prize, analyze Sen. John Fetterman's family drama, and weigh in on President Donald Trump's self-deportation policies. Mollie and David also share their thoughts on the band Devo, MobLand, and 10 Things I Hate […]
Join Washington Examiner Senior Writer David Harsanyi and Federalist Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway as they discuss the pro-abortion propaganda that won a Pulitzer Prize, analyze Sen. John Fetterman’s family drama, and weigh in on President Donald Trump’s self-deportation policies. Mollie and David also share their thoughts on the band Devo, MobLand, and 10 Things I Hate […]
Join Washington Examiner Senior Writer David Harsanyi and Federalist Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway as they discuss the pro-abortion propaganda that won a Pulitzer Prize, analyze Sen. John Fetterman’s family drama, and weigh in on President Donald Trump’s self-deportation policies. Mollie and David also share their thoughts on the band Devo, MobLand, and 10 Things I Hate […]
Join Washington Examiner Senior Writer David Harsanyi and Federalist Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway as they discuss the pro-abortion propaganda that won a Pulitzer Prize, analyze Sen. John Fetterman's family drama, and weigh in on President Donald Trump's self-deportation policies. Mollie and David also share their thoughts on the band Devo, MobLand, and 10 Things I Hate About You.If you care about combating the corrupt media that continue to inflict devastating damage, please give a gift to help The Federalist do the real journalism America needs.
Tom Bevan, Phil Wegmann and Emily Jashinsky discuss Joe Biden's first media interview since leaving the Presidential race last year and new polling out of California that suggests his brand Is much diminished. They also react to news Trump nominated a batch of judges and that DC prosecutor Ed Martin is facing resistance from the GOP. Plus, Trump's quip to Canadian PM Carney and a new WSJ story reporting intel agencies have been instructed to gather more info on Greenland. Also, they talk about two cultural events (Met Gala and Pulitzers) that used to make a big splash, but barely made a ripple this year. Are the elites just talking to themselves? Then, lastly, Tom Bevan talks to RCP Sr. Elections Analyst Sean Trende about the Georgia Senate race and the broader political landscape.
THE WINNER—Clang! Clink! Bang! Hear that? It's the sound of all the hardware that Jake Silverstein's New York Times Magazine has racked up in his almost eleven years at its helm: Pulitzers and ASMEs are heavy, people!When we were preparing to speak to Jake, we reached out to a handful of editors who have loyally worked with him for years to find out what makes him tick. They describe an incredible and notably drama-free editor who fosters an amazing vibe and a lover of both literary essay and enterprise reporting who holds both an MA and an MFA. As one New York Times Mag story editor put it, Jake's superpower is his “vigorous and institutionally-shrewd support of skilled reporters with strong voices pursuing projects that were just a little beyond the paper's ordinary comfort zone.” Here's a theory we set out to test in this interview—one that we've floated in our newsletter, The Spread, for years now: Is The New York Times Magazine the best women's magazine out there? Yes, we're talking about the stories they produce under Jake, like Susan Dominus's ASME-winning, game-changing story about menopause and hormone replacement therapy, and Linda Villarosa's feature shining a light on the Black maternal health crisis. But we're also talking about the woman-loaded top of the Times Mag masthead, on which Gail Bichler, Jessica Lustig, Sasha Weiss, Ilena Silverman, and Adrienne Greene reign supreme—and seriously outnumber their male counterparts. And we could spend all day name checking favorite writers, like Dominus and Villarosa, but also Emily Bazelon, Danyel Smith, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Irina Aleksander, Jordan Kisner, Azmat Khan, Pam Colloff, Nikole Hannah-Jones, J Wortham, Wesley Morris. We could go on and on—you get the idea! So, did Jake agree with our women's mag theory? And what is it like to have the deep resources it takes to make these kinds of stories these days? You'll have to listen to find out.—This episode is made possible by our friends at Commercial Type and Freeport Press. Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025
This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . Few institutions are under as much pressure today as journalism and news publishing, and AI features squarely in the middle of those pressures. Disinformation, social media, automated news generation, the list goes on; we're talking about the fabric of our information society. Here to help us understand these issues is Neil Brown, former editor and vice president of the Tampa Bay Times while they won six Pulitzers, and president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. For over 50 years Poynter has trained journalists and protected the ethical standards of the industry through mechanisms like the International Fact-Checking Network and the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership. Neil spent four decades as a journalist, launched PolitiFact.com, and was co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board. His mission is to strengthen democracy and confront society's most complex problems by improving the value of journalism and increasing media literacy, so we are very fortunate to have him on the show to field my challenging questions! We talk about the use of AI in journalism, in writing stories, its effect on our writing standards, different levels of stories in journalism, and the potential use of AI in interactive news publishing. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.
This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . Few institutions are under as much pressure today as journalism and news publishing, and AI features squarely in the middle of those pressures. Disinformation, social media, automated news generation, the list goes on; we're talking about the fabric of our information society. Here to help us understand these issues is Neil Brown, former editor and vice president of the Tampa Bay Times while they won six Pulitzers, and president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. For over 50 years Poynter has trained journalists and protected the ethical standards of the industry through mechanisms like the International Fact-Checking Network and the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership. Neil spent four decades as a journalist, launched PolitiFact.com, and was co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board. His mission is to strengthen democracy and confront society's most complex problems by improving the value of journalism and increasing media literacy, so we are very fortunate to have him on the show to field my challenging questions! We talk about pressures on news organizations, the evolution of the relationship between journalism and publishing, how revenue models are changing, the impact and use of AI or psychometric analysis tools, and much more. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.
Our Current Tally of Major Awards. So far we have zero Webby, iHeartRadio or People's Choice podcast awards, the same total as George Clooney. Also no Pulitzers or Nobels, but usually those get awarded years after your major accomplishments, so we're not sweating it. This week's topic is figuring out how to go on with […]
Hoppy Easter, everyone! This year we read a rendezvous with an Easter Bunny obsessed with a single mom and a weird 420-themed, gender-bending sort of Easter story that won't be winning any Pulitzers any time soon. We read: Smokin' With Easter by Kit Love Bunny by Layla Fae
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Host Miko Lee speaks with Asian American creatives and Pulitzer prize finalists performance artist Kristina Wong and playwright Lloyd Suh. They reflect on how the covid lock down impacted their work and ruminated on how built communities can arise in times of hardship. One is creating work that explores the times we live in and the other is delving into the past. Each share their creative process and why art matters to them. Show Note Links Kristina Wong's Website Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, at A.C.T.'s Strand Theater (1127 Market St., San Francisco) March 30 – May 5, 2024. Kristina's Radical Cram School Lloyd Suh's bio The Far Country BY LLOYD SUH at Berkeley Rep. March 8 – April 14, 2024 Show Transcript Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express. Miko Lee: [00:00:28] Good evening and welcome to Apex Express. I'm your host, Miko Lee and tonight we get to hear from two Asian American creatives. Both are Pulitzer prize finalists who have had their work presented around the country. They reflect on how the COVID lockdown impacted their work and they ruminate on how built communities can arise in times of hardship. One is creating work that explores the times we live in and the other is delving into the past to lift up stories that might be missing in history. Each share their creative process and why art matters to them. Tonight, join me as I talk story with performance artist Kristina Wong, whose show Sweatshop Overlord opens at ACT's Strand Theater on March 30th and with playwright Lloyd Suh whose show The Far Country runs at Berkeley Rep until April 14th. First up is my chat with Kristina Wong. Welcome Kristina Wong to Apex Express. Kristina Wong: [00:01:24] I'm so happy to be here. Thank you. Miko Lee: [00:01:27] We are so happy to have you as the performance artist, writer, creator of Kristina Wong's Sweatshop Overlord, which will run at ACT from March 30th through May 5th. Yay! Kristina Wong: [00:01:36] Yes, that's eight shows a week, one body. Just me, everybody. Just me. Miko Lee: [00:01:43] One woman show. Excellent. Kristina Wong: [00:01:44] No understudy. I've been looking for an understudy. But apparently the theater doesn't think it works as well if someone else goes around saying they're Kristina Wong. So, I gotta stay healthy. For you! Miko Lee: [00:01:54] That would be interesting, though. I would actually love to see a multi-people Kristina Wong version. That'd be really interesting. Kristina Wong: [00:02:02] Yeah. There are enough Kristina Wongs on this planet to do that, but can they do what I do? I don't know. Miko Lee: [00:02:07] I don't think many people can do what you do. [Kristina laughs] Okay, so I want to start with the question I ask many many people, and this is a big one: who are your people and where do you come from? Kristina Wong: [00:02:21] My people, so many questions. Well, the people that I was born into, I'm third generation Chinese American, Toisan on my father's side and Cantonese on my mother's side. And we were a San Francisco family. Both my parents were born in San Francisco, went to San Francisco high schools. I went to San Francisco. Now I live in Koreatown, Los Angeles, my alternate Asian universe. I will say that those are the people I was born into. When I was growing up in middle school and high school I was somewhere between a theater kid who also liked making prank calls and was constantly trying to figure out who my people were and what my clique was cause I don't even know if I would totally fit in with the theater kids. And then when I got to college, I discovered radical solo performance work and activism and finally could put, like, words around things that I had been told, “We don't talk about it. You just get really good grades and then just become successful and that's how you deal with that,” you know? But was introduced to interdisciplinary art and naked performers and people putting all their trauma out there in beautiful theater ways. Now as an adult, as I tie it back into the show, Kristina Wong Sweatshop Overlord, my people are the aunties. This community of aunties that I found myself leading for 504 days during the pandemic. I somehow found myself, as many artists did, non essential and running a mask sewing group and needing people to help me sew masks. And a lot of those happened to be aunties, a lot of them were Asian women who had mothers and grandmothers who were garment workers. And we had learned how to sew as survival skills that were passed down to us. And those of late have become my people. And that's the story of the show. Miko Lee: [00:04:16] Kristina, can you step back for a moment and just tell how that got started? How did Auntie Sewing Squad in the very, very beginning, how did it get started? Kristina Wong: [00:04:24] March 12th, I was doing what I thought was my last show on earth. For some reason, there was a community college in Sacramento, American River Community College that had not canceled its classes, that had not taken its classes online and I had one last show on the books at 12 in the afternoon. I was doing a show called Kristina Wong for Public Office. I actually ran and served in local office in Koreatown, Los Angeles, where I live and was doing a big campaign rally show about what it meant to run for local office. And the idea was the show was going to tour all of 2020 as we led up to the November 2020 elections. And I sew my set pieces and my props. So you imagine all this American flag bunting made out of felt that I've sewn on a Hello Kitty sewing machine. And so this really ridiculous, like an American flag threw up on the set. Like that was my set. And the show is not going well, the students are very distracted. As it turns out, they are receiving a text in the middle of my show saying we're going online until further notice. So I suddenly have no income. No tour. I'm back in LA. I'm hiding inside my apartment as we all are. Going, “Why did I choose to do this with my life? Why was I so compelled to become an artist? What is my purpose in all this? Why, why did I choose this unessential work?” But then I couldn't feel sorry for myself because there were people who are risking their lives to deliver mail, to work at the grocery store, to go to work every single day at the hospital. And I see this article that I'm tagged in on Facebook saying that hospitals have no masks and are looking for home sewn masks. And the whole culture of mask wearing was so, you know, unheard of at this point and I looked at my Hello Kitty sewing machine and I was like, well I've never sewn medical equipment before. I've sewn my sets. I've sewn a giant vagina costume. I think I can make medical equipment. And I was just sort of called like Joan of Arc to sew. And I made this very naive offer to the internet where I said, if you're immunocompromised or don't have access to masks, I'll get you a mask. I didn't have the materials to do this, but I just offered this because it felt like that's what you were supposed to do in this moment. We were all connected and as strong as our weakest link. March 20th is when I sewed my first mask. March 24th, I was like, okay, I need help because there's no way. One day when I was sewing nonstop all night, I made about 30 masks. That's not enough to fulfill the list that was exponentially building in my inbox. So I thought, okay, I'll make a Facebook group, and sort of offload some of this work to other people who might be sewing who could help me. And I make the group in a rush. I call it Auntie Sewing Squad. I don't realize our acronym is ASS. I start to add my mother into the group, her friends into the group, all sorts of folks are in the Facebook group. And as it turns out, you can't just start a Facebook group and expect people to just sew, so I, [laughs] so I find myself having to figure out how do we get the materials? How do we teach people how to sew these masks that none of us have sewn before? How do we teach people how their sewing machines work? Because some of them haven't touched their sewing machines in decades. And how do we vet these requests for masks, because a lot of people are panicking in our inbox, and we kind of have to create a system where just because someone's going, “Please send as many as you can,” as many as you can might mean 10 masks, it might mean 300. And are they just panicking right now and they think they need that many masks, or, you know, like, so we just had to make a lot of decisions and it felt like in those first days we were playing God, trying to figure out well, If we've only made a finite number of 15 masks today, who gets them, right? And obviously you're going to look at who's at most risk. So, so this was supposed to just be a two week thing, right? This was supposed to be a thing until the government got the masks off those cargo ships and got them to everybody. This was before masks became a bipartisan thing and a politically polarizing thing. And the group just kept going because we found beyond hospitals there were a lot of very vulnerable communities that could not even afford the cheap masks that were showing up on the market. And we're talking about farm workers, folks seeking asylum at the border, indigenous reservations. We sent a lot to the Navajo Nation and to the Lakota tribe in North and South Dakota. So this ended up going on for over 500 days. It became a community of over 800 volunteer aunties, all sewing remotely, all working remotely. We developed this whole system in which we could respond to the high COVID rates that we were witnessing and to communities that were being adversely impacted, either because they had no access to healthcare or no access to clean water. Miko Lee: [00:09:03] That's an important one. Kristina Wong: [00:09:05] Yeah. Miko Lee: [00:09:06] How many masks did you end up creating? Kristina Wong: [00:09:08] We ended up sewing in total, what we recorded was 350,000 masks were sewn and distributed. We also rerouted hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment to a lot of those places. The thing is, like, in a crisis, and I have to remind us, even though it was four years ago, because we forget so many of the details, if you saw an article that farm workers were getting hit by COVID, you don't, you're not going to just send a bunch of masks to some address you find online, right? Because not everyone's checking their mail, not everyone might be at that office address, you're not clear who might distribute those masks once they arrive. So we had to do a lot of work in terms of calling and working with other mutual aid organizers and these communities and figuring out like, well, what is the actual impact? How are you getting these masks around and how many can we send you at least to hold you over for a week or two, right? Like, yes, there are you know, hundreds of thousands of farm workers, but we're not sitting on a ton of masks that we just, you know, that come out of our butt and that we just have like we actually like sit down at our sewing machines and cut and sew these things. So— Miko Lee: [00:10:13] And you had to research and make the connections— Kristina Wong: [00:10:16] Make the connections. Yeah. And some of those requests shifted into full on other kinds of aid. So the Navajo reservation had volunteer sewing groups, but they didn't have access to sewing supplies. I'm in Los Angeles where we have a garment district and we were looking at a map going, well, in theory, someone could drive round trip across a very long day, you know, to, to lessen the risk of exposure. And so our first truck over wasn't, you know, just a van filled with masks, but a van filled with the supplies that they could use to sew masks. And then we learned that only 30 percent of that reservation has running water. That when multigenerational families were getting COVID, there was nowhere to quarantine, so they requested things like tents to quarantine and buckets to make homemade hand washing stations. First it was sewing supplies, but we did about eight runs back and forth to the reservation during the pandemic to get supplies to those mutual aid organizers who could get it to people. I helped secure like a big soap donation from Dr. Bronner's. It was like, we just thought it was just the masks, but we basically stepped in all of structural racism and systemic you know poverty and all the ways the system was broken and it had already left behind a lot of indigenous communities and people of color who are getting hit like super hard by this pandemic. So ASS, our unintentional acronym, Anti Sewing Squad, that's sort of what we fell into was going from, okay, we're going to make a few masks to full on shadow FEMA. Miko Lee: [00:11:51] Yeah, not even just sewing squad, but sort of a superhero squad. Let us come in where the government has failed and help where we can. It's incredibly powerful. Thank you for doing that. Kristina Wong: [00:12:02] Yeah, I don't know if I would have done it again, honestly, even though out of it came this incredible show, but if you told me at the top of this, this is actually going to go on for 500 days, I don't know that I would have done it. Like, it was so exhausting, and that's also sort of a joke in the show, is people kept going, “Oh, you aunties, you're heroes, you're heroes!” and I'm like, oh my god, like, heroes are what you call the people who do the work no one wants to pay for apparently, because [laughs] this is, this is, this is, this sucks. This sucks. Like, we don't want to be heroes. We want our systems that, like, we, we just saw how everything failed us in this moment. Capitalism failed us. The medical system failed us. Just all these things that we're supposed to step in, in these moments of crisis didn't work. What I witnessed and why I made a show about this, is I've witnessed how community steps up and I witnessed how these aunties showed me this generosity I've never witnessed in my life. Like most of the friendships I have in Los Angeles are because someone does something for a living and that, serves me and my job in a certain way, right? They're very transactional relationships. And I witnessed people who I had no idea who they were before this moment, willing to come to my house, brave this very unknown pandemic, to pick up a roll of elastic, to sew for a total stranger, risk their life going to the post office to mail these things, right? And so to me, that's, what's worth celebrating is this opportunity that I think that we all had as humanity to witness that this was our moment to all come together, I would say we lost that opportunity and we've just become resentful and whatever, but I, I feel like Auntie Sewing Squad showed me a glimmer of the generosity that was possible. And for me, that's worth celebrating. And the only reason why I feel like it's worth reliving the pandemic. In a 90 minute show. Miko Lee: [00:13:54] Every night for multiple nights. Kristina Wong: [00:13:56] Yes, eight nights a week. What am I doing? The show is so, you know, people are like 90 minutes. So long. It's like, it's because the pandemic was so long. I would have loved to cap this at 45 minutes, but this kept going. It kept going. Miko Lee: [00:14:09] How many members are there in the Auntie Sewing Squad? Kristina Wong: [00:14:12] I would say. We had and they were all involved in different capacities. I mean, like some of them may have been involved for all of a week before, they got pulled away by their families or job obligations. But we had about 800 different aunties coming in and out of the group. Not all of them were sewing, some of them were organizing spreadsheets, making phone calls, some of them were driving aunties. We had a huge system of care aunties, led by our Auntie Gail and basically, people who couldn't sew who felt really guilty would [be] like, “Can I send you all a pizza?” Which was really necessary because a lot of these aunties were operating on survivor's guilt, right? Of feeling like, well I have this privilege of being able to stay at home while my mailman risks his life to get, you know, get me the mail. Because it's really hard to go to sleep when you know that you at your sewing machine an hour longer could possibly save someone's life. But we also needed to encourage these aunties to stop and rest. You can't just tell people, okay, sew a bunch of masks and expect them to stay motivated to do it. We had aunties who lost family members to COVID. We had aunties who are falling into their own depression and getting isolated. So much of this group wasn't just about like, while we joke it's a sweatshop, a lot of it was this entire community that supported each other, cared for each other. We'd have zoom stitch n bitches where we'd, you know, the aunties would, I was working out this show on Zoom, never thinking that it was going to premiere off Broadway, to basically just entertain the aunties while they were at their sewing machines. Like we were this whole system this became this weird ad hoc family that supported each other through this very strange time. And that was sort of the staying power of why people stayed involved is because they'd never experienced community like this either, which was just all pure generosity. I feel like I'm describing a cult, and I sort of am, but whatever. It's a cult called ASS, so it's fine. Miko Lee: [00:15:59] Well, a unique community that came together to address the harm that was happening. It's beautiful. Can you go back in time, roll us back in time, to how you first got politicized? I heard you say that about college, but is there a moment that happened for you? Kristina Wong: [00:16:16] I think I was always a little politicized. I just never really had the language and education around it. When I was 12 years old in our middle school, there was a science lesson plan contest and we basically prepared a science lesson plan and taught it to another class. And my partner and I, we did something about saving the planet and just doing a deep dive. This is the nineties, right? Like how much we were screwing with our planet. And I think I still don't know that we all know the lesson, but I was like a little Greta Thunberg, you know. I just didn't know how to be an activist. It was like, do I collect cans that are thrown on the street? Like, how do I, how do I do this? Like, how does this equate to actual change? And I think that's, I think we have some more of those tools and we're also cognizant about how frustrating those tools are to implement and see happen. But that's, I think the first time I realized I was an activist and it wasn't until I got to college and was introduced to, I didn't know what Asian American Studies was I was like, what? Why would you study that? Like, what is that? I had no idea that Asian Americans have had a whole political history that has worked alongside the civil rights movement and, I had no idea I could put words to the microaggressions I'd expressed my whole life and that I could actually challenge them as not being okay. I went to UCLA. I feel like that's where a lot of people figure out that they're Asian American. That's also where I began to understand the political power of art. What I had understood of activism before that point was marching in rallies, screaming at people, berating people to recycle. But, you know, it's not sustainable. It's exhausting. It makes people want to avoid you. And it's an emotionally depleting. And so being introduced to artists, just sort of sharing their lives and their lives as having political power to put forward and to put meaning to was really incredible to experience like performers. I think some of the first performers I saw just like put themselves forward and all their flawed ways was actually kind of profound and incredible. That's where I was drawn to making art as my sort of form of protest and activism. Miko Lee: [00:18:26] Is this where the roots of the Radical Cram School came about? Kristina Wong: [00:18:29] Oh, yeah. Yeah. So Radical Cram School is my web series for children. You can find it on YouTube. And where that started was one of our producers, Teddy Chow, his daughter Liberty had come home and they, at that point they were living in Ohio where they were one of the few Chinese families there. And the daughter said, “I wish I wasn't Chinese.” And Teddy was like, “Can you go talk to her and her friends and make her proud?” And I was like, “You know what? I said that too when I was a kid.” And so somehow this blew up into us like, well, let's create a web series for kids, specifically for Asian kids, because I feel like Asian Americans and kids don't really. We just sort of, the tools we are offered politically don't really have our face in them. Like, we don't really understand where we fit in a political movement, and how to be an ally to black and brown movements. And I was like, let's do a web series where we gather Asian American kids and it to me was a little tongue in cheek. And I feel like a lot of me being in a bubble of other progressives in Los Angeles feels like I can lovingly poke at this idea of a cram school where we're trying to quickly teach Asian kids about the entire world of what's overwhelming and oppression in the setting. And so that became Radical Cram School which went on for two seasons and was completely decried by right wingers like Alex Jones. So I would say that's a success. Miko Lee: [00:19:53] I think it is so delightful and funny. It's a little mix of like drunk history with Sesame Street. Kristina Wong: [00:20:00] Yes. Yes. That's exactly what we were going for and I feel like I'm very lucky at some point in my lifetime. Yes, it didn't happen until college and like post college was introduced to all these incredible Asian American activists, many of us who are still with us right now. And this history and I feel like it's worth sharing. Miko Lee: [00:20:21] The child that inspired the whole series. Was she actually in it? Kristina Wong: [00:20:26] Liberty. Yes, she was in it. She's in it. She's both in the first and second season. Miko Lee: [00:20:29] Was it mission accomplished in terms of having a sense of pride of being Asian American? Kristina Wong: [00:20:35] I think so. It's always ongoing, right? Like I think pride, you don't, you don't get it once and it stays forever. It's something that we like, as we constantly learn to like love ourselves and appreciate what we have. And we're also part of growing a community too, right? Like, it's not just like, Oh, I'm proud. I found my pride at 13 and it stayed. Like, we always feel like kicked to the curb constantly and challenged. And I think, like for me, this pandemic was a really challenging time for Asian Americans. As we witnessed like the backlash, the hate, like how backwards it was that people would equate. Do you remember early on when people were like, can you get COVID from Chinese food? Like, it was just so like, what happened? Miko Lee: [00:21:13] I mean, the whole Kung flu virus. Kristina Wong: [00:21:15] The Kung flu, China virus, like all these these just sort of racist associations with it are like, are constantly challenging to our sense of pride. So hopefully having that web series out there will be these touchstones to remind Asian American kids that we exist. We're here. There's a basis. We're not building this from scratch and we may be recording it from scratch or constantly trying to remember this history into existence. But, to me it's a verb, right? The verb of finding pride is always active. Miko Lee: [00:21:44] I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about how you, you often in your work play with gender expectations around Asian women from, you know, like you mentioned before sewing on your Hello Kitty sewing machine, which I have a Hello Kitty sewing machine too. Kristina Wong: [00:21:59] Yes. It's a good machine. I don't know if it's a Janome. Miko Lee: [00:22:02] It's actually incredibly practical. It doesn't have the bells and whistles, but it works. Yeah but I remember your big vagina MC for Mr. Hyphen America. I can't believe you sewed that on one of those tiny machines. And then, you have this web series about taking down how white men can date Asian women. And then the other thing is your fake porn site. Can you tell us about that? Kristina Wong: [00:22:23] Oh, that's like That's 20 years of projects you've just named. Well, my very first project out of college, year 2000, still had dial up internet, my friends, was called BigBadChineseMama.com. You can still look it up. And this is before there were search engines, SEOs. And if you look for Mail Order Bride on Yahoo, because Yahoo was the search engine of choice at the time, it showed up in the top 10 search results for Mail Order Bride. Now, you know, if you look for porn, clearly outnumbered, yeah. So that was like my first project. And a lot of that came out of like me being kind of a depressed college kid and trying to use this thing called the internet to research stuff for my Asian American women class. And all I was finding was pornography and was like, Oh my God, [laughs] we have to like intercept this somehow. And like always feeling like I was not good at being a girl, right? Like the standards for being a good Asian girl, were the extremes. It was like Miss Chinatown, Connie Chung, and then these porn stars that would show up, you know, on these Google, on these searches and that was, that's it, right? So a lot of my projects have been about like being awkward out loud and being uncomfortable out loud and leaning into publicly embarrassing myself, but saying that it's my work. Miko Lee: [00:23:45] And how has your family responded to your work? You grew up in San Francisco. Kristina Wong: [00:23:49] Yeah. Oh, they didn't like it at first, but they love it now because I'm a Pulitzer Prize finalist, my friends. Miko Lee: [00:23:54] Oh, how did that feel to get? Kristina Wong: [00:23:56] So crazy! You know, I entered, anyone can become a Pulitzer Prize contender. Like you just need 75 dollars and then you mail your entry in and the committee reads it. And so six years before I was a Pulitzer finalist, my friend Brian Feldman and I, we entered our respective plays. Mine was The Wong Street Journal, his was a very experimental piece called Dishwasher. His entry was like two pages long and we were up against Hamilton, which ended up winning. And my mother was so excited because she'd only seen my play, you know, like that was the only play she'd ever seen that year. And she was like, “You're going to win. You're totally going to win.” Which was great that I had her confidence, but I was like, probably going to go to Hamilton. And I actually got a press pass, and I went to Columbia College, where they announced the winner just for press in person, and I happened to just be in New York at that time, and I had prepared three speeches. One, if I won, a speech if I was a finalist, and then the speech if I lost. And I read all three speeches outside after Hamilton was declared the winner of the Pulitzer. So that day when they were announcing it, my, that same friend Brian was like, “Good luck today.” And I was like, “What are you talking about?” And he's like, “They're announcing the Pulitzers.” And then they were announcing it online because you know, it's 2022. And I was like, they're not going to give it to me. I do solo work. I'm an Asian woman. They've never given an Asian woman anything in the drama category and my phone just started exploding at lunch when I was in Chinatown having lunch with some friends and I couldn't believe it. I was just like freaking out and it just feels so dignified, right? And I'm not exactly a dignified person. So I'm like, [laughs] you know, I was like, “Oh my God, this is going to look so good on Tinder. Holy crap, this is crazy.” So it's, I'm still shocked when I look at that by my name. I'm like, this is so weird. But it's just funny because yeah, I entered as a joke six years before, and then I was on the committee the following year reading the applicants. So crazy things happen, folks. Crazy things can happen. Miko Lee: [00:26:06] I have one more question, which is, you started ASS, Auntie Sewing Squad, in the very beginning when you were making this piece about running for public office. Even though that was created in 2020, you know, we're basically having the same election again. Kristina Wong: [00:26:19] Yeah, I know. It's a sequel. Why are we in the sequel? I hate sequels. Miko Lee: [00:26:24] So are you reviving that piece as well? Kristina Wong: [00:26:27] I did, I have done it a little earlier this year. There have been some requests to maybe do it before November. We will always have elections, so it's a little bit evergreen. I actually had a reality television pilot that didn't get picked up by Trutv. And it was a very self satirizing version of myself that I was going to be playing in this pilot, which was basically satirizing myself as an activist. And it did not make sense once Trump took office to satirize myself, because as it turns out, most of the world have very two dimensional visions of what an Asian American is like and would think that that's who I really was and not get that it was a loving poke at myself. And I think looking at Radical Cram School and how I play myself there can give you a sense of, this won't make sense to everybody. Right. And so I was an out of work reality TV star, and what do you do when you're an out of work reality TV star? You run for public office. So there's a lot of that humor around that era. Just, I think we've just gotten so exhausted with, right? [Laughs]. Like, why, why are these two people still here? Oh my god. This is the best we could do? But there's still a lot of public offices to run for. It doesn't start and end with the presidency or the Senate. The story of the show is like what can happen locally? There are so many local offices that would surprise you. You could literally just go to the meeting and go take the vacated seat and go around saying you're an elected official. For better or for worse, whatever that means. So, but yeah, it did get recorded for Center Theatre Group, but it's not available for streaming anymore. So they did stream it right before the election during the pandemic. And maybe it will have a few more runs right before the election this year, but I'm not sure. Miko Lee: [00:28:07] Okay, well, keep us posted so that we know. Is there anything else you'd like our audience to know about your upcoming play at ACT, Kristina Wong's Sweatshop Overlord? Kristina Wong: [00:28:19] I just want to say it's such a special show and I feel very lucky I feel like there's not a lot of this. There's literally pushback in the publishing world and the network TV world where they're like, we do not want you to pitch anything about the pandemic. We are sick of the pandemic. So I feel like this record of this time came under the wire. I'm told it is not annoying as many things about the pandemic are [laughs]. And to me, it's really I find a lot of humor, not at the expense of like how tragic that time was, but in that a group of aunties came together and formed this ad hoc sewing army to protect the country. And, and so this really plays out like a war movie on stage and I think really kind of gives us something to reflect on and appreciate of each other in that moment. And so that's really what I hope brings people out is this need to feel that there's something sort of comforting that we can take from this moment, because I don't know that we got that. I think we just sort of ran from that so fast that we never really reflected. I hope to see everybody at ACT, The Strand Theater on Market, March 30th to May 5th, I believe is when I close. I do shows eight days a week. I do them on weekdays. I do them on weekends. I am living in that theater, folks, and I am living there for you. So please come out. I'll see you. It's Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord. Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Miko Lee: [00:29:44] Kristina Wong, thank you so much for sharing your time with us. And we look forward to seeing the show and learning more about the Auntie Sewing Squad. Thank you so much. Kristina Wong: [00:29:54] Thanks Miko. Miko Lee: [00:29:54] This is Apex Express and you are listening to 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno, 97.5 K248BR in Santa Cruz, 94.3 K232FZ in Monterey, and online worldwide at kpfa.org. Next up, listen to the Radical Cram School where kids learn about the story of Detroit activist and American revolutionary Grace Lee Boggs. This is the project that Kristina Wong was talking about creating to help young Asian Americans have a sense of pride and an understanding of their history. Take a listen to the Radical Cram School. Radical Cram School: [00:30:43] Miko Lee: [00:35:24] That was Kristina Wong's Radical Cram School. You can check out more of that on YouTube, which is linked in our show notes. Next up, take a listen to my interview with playwright, Lloyd Suh. Welcome award winning playwright Lloyd Suh to Apex Express. Lloyd Suh: [00:35:41] Hello. Miko Lee: [00:35:43] Your new show, The Far Country, is premiering at Berkeley Rep through April 14th and we're so happy to have you here. Lloyd Suh: [00:35:52] Thanks for having me. Miko Lee: [00:35:53] Okay I'm going to start with a big question, which is who are your people and where do you come from? Lloyd Suh: [00:35:58] My family immigrated to the United States, from South Korea in the early 1970s. I was born in Detroit, Michigan and grew up mostly in the South suburbs of Indianapolis, Indiana but I've lived in the New York City area for the past like 25 years. Miko Lee: [00:36:17] Thank you so much for that. I noticed that many of your plays are based around the Chinese American experience and less on your Korean American background. Can you talk a little bit more about what has inspired your artistic play choices? Lloyd Suh: [00:36:30] Yeah. In the past, like, almost decade, really, I've been writing about these kind of forgotten or underexplored moments in Asian American history. It's kind of very accidental and almost involuntary. I was doing research on one play and it would lead me down a rabbit hole into reading about a story that I just couldn't shake, that I needed to, you know, get in a room with peers and explore. And so one play would just kind of lead to the next, I was writing a play under commission for the National Asian American Theater Company in New York called Charles Francis Chan Jr. That play kind of accidentally became about the history of the stereotypes that kind of permeate around Asian America to this day, and where those stereotypes came from. And in researching that history, there's just so much more scholarship around now, around Asian American history than there was when I was in school. There was just so much to read, and so much that was new to me. And in the process of researching that play, I came across the story of Afong Moy, regarded as the first Chinese woman to set foot in the United States. And there was something about her story that just haunted me, that I just couldn't shake and I knew I needed to get in a room with peers and like really wrestle with it. So in the process of that play, I was researching the exclusion era and it's unavoidable, right? The way in which the Chinese Exclusion Act and the experience of people on Angel Island really serves as kind of a fulcrum for so much of what Asian America is now, right? It created geographical restrictions, legislative, economic, not to mention cultural and stereotypical. Like, it's just the foundation for so much of what we've had to navigate as this obviously, socially constructed, very important sort of attempt at solidarity that we call Asian America. What that led to was just feeling like I'm just following, you know, I'm just following this impulse. I was doing it kind of subconsciously at first, but once I became aware that I was writing this history, it became really clear that what I was looking for, in total was trying to place myself on this continuum, trying to understand, where have we come from and where are we going and where are we now. The Far Country and another one of my history plays, The Heart Sellers, which is kind of a bookend to The Far Country in a lot of ways. were written largely during the pandemic. Miko Lee: [00:38:57] Oh, that's so interesting. And so you've sort of been on this pathway, a timeline through Asian American history. Lloyd Suh: [00:39:05] Yeah. It felt different during the pandemic, like, right. Like, before it was kind of impulsive and it felt very organic and I wasn't always very self aware of that, about how one play connected to the other. But once you know, we were in this moment of deep self reflection just based on what was going on in the world at that time too—a pretty intense reckoning in this country over American history, over, you know, who we build monuments to, over our accounting of what it is to be an American and a contemplation about like who we've forgotten. And so it became just more purposeful in that way. It became just clearer, especially as I started to think about the ways in which, you know, I have aging parents and I have growing children and wanting to understand how do I talk about one to the other? How do I place myself and my parents and my children on this continuum of this long arc of history? That doesn't just go backwards, but, you know, it goes forward as well. That in each of these plays, there's a gesture towards the future, and then thinking about the future and when, you know, when characters talk about the future in these plays, I like to think that for actors who are, who are playing those roles, that they can feel really palpably and recognize that when these characters are talking about the future, they're talking about them. And then when audiences hear them talk about the future, they also could feel the ways in which they mean them. Miko Lee: [00:40:24] So you're both, as Helen Zia says, lifting up these missing in history moments, trying to tell these stories that haven't been told. Also, I hear you're reflecting a lot during that time of COVID during the lockdown time on how do we rise up our stories? I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the pandemic time and the impact on you as an artist and if the rise in anti-asian hate that really started happening around that time impacted your storytelling. Lloyd Suh: [00:40:53] Absolutely. Yeah, I mean that whole period was, it was such a bizarre time to be a playwright. I mean, it was a bizarre time to be anything, right? But the idea of writing a play was pretty absurd because there were no theaters, right? And it's like, there's no sense of, hey, when will there be theater again? Right? It just seemed— Miko Lee: [00:41:15] An unknown, an unknown field, right? Lloyd Suh: [00:41:17] Yeah, so it was a little silly, right? You're like, oh, your play is due. And you're like, no, it's not [laughs] nobody's going to do anything. Like, why am I writing plays, right? And I think everybody in that time was thinking about, like, why do I do the things that I do? Why do I spend the time on the things that I spend time on? And, you know, our relationship with time was just very different. So very early in the pandemic, I was like, yeah, why am I, why would I write a play? There's no, it just doesn't make any sense right now. But then as I sat with the things that I knew I needed to wrestle with, and just knowing the way I wrestle with things is to write about them, that it felt like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this anyway, even though there's no sense that theater will come back anytime soon. I'm going to do this anyway. And it became an aspirational thing. Like to write a play became aspirational in the sense that it's like, I believe that theater will come back, that we're not all gonna die, that civilization will continue, and that this will matter, right? That what I'm exploring right now, will be meaningful to myself, to my peers and to strangers, in whatever the world looks like then. And so to write aspirationally is pretty, pretty cool. It's different, you know. To be able to write with that aspiration was really valuable. And I think it's part of why and how these plays came to be the kind of plays they are. Miko Lee: [00:42:40] I appreciate the hopeful side that you are infusing into your plays, given the time that we were in was when many people felt so hopeless. I'm wondering if because you're writing about the immigration station and Angel Island and also the Exclusion Act were, what was happening in the country around, you know, Trump saying Kung flu virus and all the stories about the elders that were getting beat up in Chinatown and, all over the country, the slurs that people were getting. Did that impact or help to inform how you're writing about the Exclusion Act? Lloyd Suh: [00:43:14] Yeah. I think that reading the news during that time, it's very similar to reading the history, right? You can see where that comes from. I remember during that time, in a lot of news media, tended to make it seem or insinuate that this was new, that this was surprising somehow. Having been immersed in this history, it was frustrating to see the ways in which people, sometimes very smart people [laughs] not recognizing, hey, this is not new. This is ancient. This was there from the beginning. Yeah, of course, that absolutely informs everything. It feels like, yes, I'm writing history, but I'm trying to write out of time. One of the things about writing aspirationally at a time when there is no theater, is you also can't write to a specific time, you know, in the pandemic moment, writing in the pandemic moment you cannot write to the pandemic moment, right? Because you know, oh, this will not be, this is not when these plays will be seen. So you're writing for a kind of a future, right? You're writing for a time that you hope is different, in good ways, but you also acknowledge may be different in, in unpleasant ways. Miko Lee: [00:44:15] Right. Lloyd Suh: [00:44:16] But it's also like all of this is out of time, you know, the phenomenon of violence against Asian Americans or against anybody or against a culture is so pervasive throughout history. Right. So, it's not hard to make that or to let that exist out of time. Right. Miko Lee: [00:44:35] I mean, the violence against the culture is deeply American. Lloyd Suh: [00:44:38] Yeah. And feeling like it's not something you have to force. It's just something that you have to acknowledge and reckon with on its own terms, which is to say, it's not about 2020. It's not about a particular moment. It's about a long arc of history where these things come from, how they've brewed, how they've festered, how they've lingered, how they've been ignored and forgotten and buried over, and how they might be transformed. How they might be diagnosed, you know, like I think of them as wounds. In a few of these plays, characters refer to, like a sense of historical trauma as a wound, a wound that you can't recognize if you don't know where it comes from. You can't diagnose it and you can't heal it if you can't diagnose it. So part of it is like saying, “Hey, there is a wound.” When I think for a very long time a lot of cultural tradition has been to say, “Push it away, push it away. Move on.” Miko Lee: [00:45:31] “Keep working. Don't, don't think about it. Just keep working.” Lloyd Suh: [00:45:33] Yes. Yes. Bury it. And even generation to generation, you don't want to hear those stories. Miko Lee: [00:45:38] That's right. Lloyd Suh: [00:45:39] If I have a thesis in any of this, [laughs] it's that, no, we need, you need to know. You know, I think that these characters, this is too early for them to have a name for the concept of epigenetics, but I see it. I see it in tradition, this idea that it does pass down. Miko Lee: [00:45:54] The trauma through the bloodline. Lloyd Suh: [00:45:56] Yeah. And so like, if you're going to feel the pain, you got to know where it comes from. If you know where it comes from and if you can deal with it with people, right, with a community on a deep level, then it can be healed. And if you don't, then it never will be. Miko Lee: [00:46:10] So do you look at most of your plays as a healing modality? Is that what you want from your audiences? Lloyd Suh: [00:46:15] That's a great question. I mean, I think about that for myself, I would say on a certain level. I mean, I think about it as many things, but that is part of it. Yeah. Like I think about it as I need to understand this. Like, you know, like just thinking about the exclusion era. I felt like, okay, I know I need to write about this because I know we need to make sense of it for myself. I need to understand how it manifests in my life, how it manifests in what is possible for my children, how it manifests in America. So that's part of it for sure for me and for my peers, the people in the room. For audiences, I would say, especially as I've gotten older, I've started to redefine my relationship with audiences in that, like, I had a playwriting teacher once talk about how a playwright's job is to unify an audience. That no matter where an audience comes from, like whatever happened to them that day, they're all coming from different places when they gather in the theater. But through the course of the play, a playwright wants them to become one organism and have the same discoveries in the same moment. Miko Lee: [00:47:13] Oh, that's interesting. Do you agree with that? Lloyd Suh: [00:47:16] For a long time I did, but then I had this moment when I was writing a play for young audiences, when I found this really useful tension between like the adults who, you know, thought that the fart jokes were juvenile [laughs] and the young people who would just not understand these references that are there for the adults. And it was kind of cool because you'd feel pockets, different people reacting in different ways. And especially as I was doing some of these early history plays, I found this useful tension between people based on socio location. That Asian American audiences were just naturally responding to different things in a way that was kind of interesting. And so what I realized is if I manipulate an audience so that they're operating as one organism, they're not responding as themselves. They're not responding in as deeply personal of a way, right? So what I want is for people to bring something of themselves to it. Like, no matter what happened to them that day, no matter what happened in the news, no matter what happened in their personal life, that through the experience of watching a play, they can relate something of themselves to what they're watching, and they can bring that into the theater with them. and so, like very purposefully in these plays, I try not to unify an audience, right? Which is to say, I'm not trying to divide them, but I'm also trying to make them respond as individuals. Miko Lee: [00:48:37] Right, because the first one actually feels like you're trying to get a cult together. Everybody should think the same way and feel the same way, as opposed to individually responding about where each of us are at and how we take in that information of the play. Lloyd Suh: [00:48:52] Yeah, yeah. And I just find that so much more satisfying because I like to leave a lot of room in my plays, for actors, for directors and designers to personalize. Miko Lee: [00:49:02] All the other creatives to be able to have their input to put it into their voice. Lloyd Suh: [00:49:07] Yeah, and just even to make choices like there are moments where you could go many directions like if somebody were to ask me, “Hey, what does this line mean?” I would say, “Well, you know, like, what does it mean to you?” Right? Like it's make it yours. Every character can have secrets that I don't need to know. Miko Lee: [00:49:22] Oh, you're doing therapy speak with the actors [laughs]. What do you think it means? Lloyd Suh: [00:49:26] Yeah, I mean, I think it is. It's like making choices, making big choices that allow for any production to be an amalgamation of many people's real personality, their history. Like if I were to go into a rehearsal room and just spend it making everybody do what I already know, I want them to do. Then watching the play is just watching something where I already know what's going to happen. Miko Lee: [00:49:47] Right. What's the fun in that? [Laughs]. Um, so let's come back and talk about The Far Country, which is at Berkeley Rep right now. Tell us about this play. I heard you saying that each of your plays, the rabbit hole of the journey that one discovered the other, but can you tell us very specifically about The Far Country? Lloyd Suh: [00:50:07] Yeah, The Far Country is a play that takes place during the exclusion era, about a very unlikely family that spans across a couple of decades navigating the paper son system, and the experience of a young man on Angel Island Detention Center. The journey leading up to that and the journey leading away from it as this very unlikely family tries to build something lasting in America, despite the extraordinary legislative restrictions that were in place at the time. Miko Lee: [00:50:36] Lloyd, can you speak a little bit more for audience members that may not know what the Exclusion Act was? Lloyd Suh: [00:50:42] Yes, totally. The Chinese Exclusion Act was legislation passed in 1882, that restricted all Chinese laborers from entering the United States. And this was a period of time when China was, specifically Toisan was ravaged by natural disaster, war, economic disenfranchisement, horribly one sided trade agreements with the West. There was an extraordinary wave of Chinese laborers who were immigrating to the United States in the years preceding. Partially through the gold rush, partially through the opportunity to work on the transcontinental railroad. In the United States, it was a period of such xenophobia and such anger and hatred towards these incoming Chinese laborers that these extraordinarily restrictive laws were passed, the Page Act, prior to the Chinese Exclusion Act. But what also happened is the great earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco destroyed all the government records pertaining to birth records and who was there. So it created this really odd opportunity for Chinese currently residing in the United States to claim birthright citizenship, to claim to have been born in the United States because there was no documentation to prove otherwise. And if somebody was able to obtain birthright US citizenship through that process, they could then bring their children to the United States. And so what it did was it created this system whereby people who had obtained birthright US citizenship could then pretend to have a son or a daughter that they would sell that slot to so that somebody could enter the United States. And so it created these really kind of patchwork unlikely families of people connected only by paper, only by false documentation. And the navigation of that system, ultimately created this very weird community. Miko Lee: [00:52:32] Expand on that. What do you mean by weird community? Lloyd Suh: [00:52:36] People who were not able to be themselves, who changed their names, who at least on paper were pretending to be somebody else. Families that were not connected by blood, but pretending to be connected by blood. A community that was almost entirely male, a community that was in the United States, but not really permitted to travel outside of a particular geographical area. This was a community that was constructed in reaction to legislation, in reaction to imprisonment on Angel Island. And in reaction to the horrible conditions of that time. What's remarkable to me is the ways in which they built a community anyway, they built families anyway, they built opportunity anyway, and the resilience of that, the bravery of that, the sacrifice of that, is something that I am simultaneously in awe of, but also feel a responsibility and an obligation to build on to honor, to try and illuminate in some way to try to share with others. But also just to recognize the incredible pain of it, that they gave up everything, like really everything. They gave up their name, they gave up their family, they gave up their identity, in order to pretend to be somebody who belongs. That's the only way to build any kind of future. These were pioneers who did things that it's hard for me to imagine. But I know that they did it for us. Not just us, but for the future, for future generations, for you know, those who come after, and that is very powerful to me. Miko Lee: [00:54:03] I appreciate that as a fifth generation Chinese American, whose family comes from Toisan, whose grandmother was on angel island under a different name because her husband, my grandfather had bought papers from her great grandfather so that they could not actually be married because on paper they would be brother and sister. So even though she had a legal right to actually be in the U. S., she had to take a whole new name and a different identity on Angel Island. So we all have these complicated stories that are part of our history. Thank you for rising that up and bringing that to the world. I'm wondering what you want the walk away message for folks coming to see The Far Country. Lloyd Suh: [00:54:49] Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. The only way I can answer it is to go back to what I said before about wanting people to respond personally. Like I think everybody has a history, everybody has a family history, and everybody's is different, but I hope that anybody who watches this play has moments where they can think about their ancestry. About the things they know and the things that they don't know and just change their relationship to that somehow, just really reflect on it and reflect on not just their personal history, but how it relates to their definition of what it is to be an America. To add this really huge, but underexplored moment in American history and add it to their accounting of what it is to be a citizen, what it is to be an American. Cause one of the things about this history, as I'm describing the paper son process, depending on a person's particular relationship with the concept of immigration and depending on a person's political leanings, you know, some might hear my description of that and say, “Well, these are criminals. These are people who abused the system.” And I think that is a part of this history. One of the reasons it's buried. One of the reasons it's not talked about is because there is a sense of shame, societal shame, cultural shame, that these things were necessary, right? Shame is part of it. I don't want to pretend it's not, but I also want to acknowledge that in addition to whatever that sense of shame is, is a sense of pride. A sense of bravery, a sense of dignity, a sense of aspiration, what people were willing to do in order to build something for the future, for us, for their families. So a part of that is like just knowing that many of those stories still are untold, and wanting to uplift and honor, and, acknowledge, the beauty in these pockets that have historically felt painful. Miko Lee: [00:56:48] Thank you Lloyd Suh for joining us on Apex Express. Lloyd Suh: [00:56:51] Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Miko Lee: [00:56:52] Please check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more about our show tonight. We think all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. APEX Express is created by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Swati Rayasam, Aisa Villarosa, Estella Owoimaha-Church, Gabriel Tangloao, Cheryl Truong and Ayame Keane-Lee. The post APEX Express – 3.21.24 Community in Time of Hardship appeared first on KPFA.
Paid subscribers get full access to my interview with Kathrine Brodsky. The first half of this episode is available to all listeners. To hear the entire conversation, become a paying subscriber here. Cultural critic Katherine Brodsky is an example of what Meghan likes to call “Heterodoxy 2.0.” She's committed to fighting censorship and groupthink but is also mindful of not becoming an ideologue herself. Born in the Soviet Union, she emigrated with her family to Israel and then Canada and is acutely sensitive to signs of creeping authoritarianism. She now lives in Vancouver and writes about a variety of topics, including the arts, technology, and the recently emerging debates about free speech and censorship. In her new book, No Apologies: How to Find and Free Your Voice in the Age of Outrage—Lessons for the Silenced Majority, Katherine recounts her own cancelation event but, more importantly, interviews a range of people—including Katie Herzog, Winston Marshall, Stephen Elliot, and Peter Boghossian, to name a few—who have fallen prey to the online mob. In this conversation, we talk about what can be learned from a cancelation, what has become of the “IDW,” and how to move free speech discourse in a more positive direction, less grievance-driven direction. ** GUEST BIO For over a decade, Katherine Brodsky has covered lifestyle and entertainment stories for works like Variety, WIRED, Newsweek, The Guardian, Esquire, The Independent, CNN Travel, Entertainment Weekly, Playboy Magazine, USA Today, Delta Sky, Mashable, and more. She has interviewed many personalities, including winners and nominees of the Academy Awards, Emmys, Grammys, Pulitzers, Tonys, and even the Nobel Prize. You can read her work at her Substack here. Want to hear the whole conversation? Upgrade your subscription here. HOUSEKEEPING
We bring you the shattering conclusion to our investigation into whether a New York City sushi restaurant is swapping their tuna rolls for “the ex-lax fish.” The DNA test is in. Can we trust anyone? Are our fish safe to eat? What's the email address where you submit for the Pulitzers? We have answers. Plus a bonus this week — the 5-second rule is put to a laboratory test. If you'd like to support the show, head to our newsletter at pjvogt.com. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Thu, 07 Dec 2023 15:30:00 GMT http://relay.fm/rocket/467 http://relay.fm/rocket/467 Turn on Push Notifications 467 Christina Warren, Brianna Wu, and Simone De Rochefort The government is spying on us, and what else is new? An exciting new app could heal the great Android - iPhone divide. Also, the Fallout TV show has a trailer! The government is spying on us, and what else is new? An exciting new app could heal the great Android - iPhone divide. Also, the Fallout TV show has a trailer! clean 3521 The government is spying on us, and what else is new? An exciting new app could heal the great Android - iPhone divide. Also, the Fallout TV show has a trailer! This episode of Rocket is sponsored by: Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code ROCKET. Hullo: A simple, natural pillow designed for comfort. Try it for 60 days. Links and Show Notes: Support Rocket with a Relay FM Membership Progressive Victory PAC — Donate via ActBlue A federal TikTok ban appears doomed by Montana ruling - POLITICO Spotify's not going for Pulitzers anymore - The Verge Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications - US senator | Reuters Here's a Warrant Showing the U.S. Government is Monitoring Push Notifications Apple Set to Avoid EU Crackdown Over iMessage Service - Bloomberg How Beeper Mini Works - Beeper Blog Beeper reverse-engineered iMessage to bring blue bubble texts to Android users | TechCrunch Beeper Mini brings iMessage to Android - The Verge Fallout - Teaser Trailer | Prime Video - YouTube Amazon Fallout series trailer takes us to the Wasteland of Los Angeles - Polygon
Thu, 07 Dec 2023 15:30:00 GMT http://relay.fm/rocket/467 http://relay.fm/rocket/467 Christina Warren, Brianna Wu, and Simone De Rochefort The government is spying on us, and what else is new? An exciting new app could heal the great Android - iPhone divide. Also, the Fallout TV show has a trailer! The government is spying on us, and what else is new? An exciting new app could heal the great Android - iPhone divide. Also, the Fallout TV show has a trailer! clean 3521 The government is spying on us, and what else is new? An exciting new app could heal the great Android - iPhone divide. Also, the Fallout TV show has a trailer! This episode of Rocket is sponsored by: Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code ROCKET. Hullo: A simple, natural pillow designed for comfort. Try it for 60 days. Links and Show Notes: Support Rocket with a Relay FM Membership Progressive Victory PAC — Donate via ActBlue A federal TikTok ban appears doomed by Montana ruling - POLITICO Spotify's not going for Pulitzers anymore - The Verge Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications - US senator | Reuters Here's a Warrant Showing the U.S. Government is Monitoring Push Notifications Apple Set to Avoid EU Crackdown Over iMessage Service - Bloomberg How Beeper Mini Works - Beeper Blog Beeper reverse-engineered iMessage to bring blue bubble texts to Android users | TechCrunch Beeper Mini brings iMessage to Android - The Verge Fallout - Teaser Trailer | Prime Video - YouTube Amazon Fallout series trailer takes us to the Wasteland of Los Angeles - Polygon
Lo que está cambiando el podcasting y el marketing digital:-Aseguran que en 2023 no hubo espectáculos de alto riesgo para las marcas.-Revelan que más de la mitad de los oyentes de pódcast prefieren programas con vídeo.-Spotify for Podcasters es responsable del 30 % de los episodios de pódcast publicados en noviembre.-Spotify ya no apuesta por los Pulitzers.-Instagram lanza su primer pódcast.Pódcast recomendadoInfinitos con Martha Higareda. Un programa que intenta inspirar a su audiencia a mejorar cada día en sus vidas. Sus temas abarcan de todo un poco, desde la salud hasta las claves para mejorar una relación de pareja.Si te gustó esta "newsletter" ¡Suscríbete!Patrocinado por Rss.com (compañía de alojamiento de pódcast).
Martin (“Marty”) Baron may be best known in pop culture as a character played by actor Liv Schreiber in the 2015 Academy Award Winning film “Spotlight," which re-told the story of the Globe's 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporting on the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals. But many in our industry followed Baron closely years later when he moved from the Globe to The Washington Post, succeeding Marcus Brauchli in 2013 as executive editor. Shortly after the move, the Graham family announced they were selling the Post to Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. During the following years, under Baron's leadership, The Post received 10 Pulitzers — four for national reporting, two for explanatory reporting, and single wins for investigative reporting, criticism, feature photography and public service. Some of the major stories the Post broke included coverage of the US Secret Service's security lapses, revealing Roy Moore's sexual misconduct, plus constant, ongoing investigation of the Trump campaign and subsequent four-year administration, exposing many miss-truths and scandals. It is no wonder that Trump was quoted in 2018 as saying, "I will not allow our great country to be sold out by anti-Trump haters in the dying newspaper industry,” singling out The Post for writing “bad stories even on my very positive achievements.” His new book, "Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and The Washington Post," opens with Baron telling the tale of his dinner at the White House. Donald Trump invited Baron, two other senior executives, and Bezos, intending to get The Post to tone down their coverage of his presidency and be "more fair to him." Baron describes Trump as "fundamentally a transactional individual, and if he granted us the favor of dinner, he would expect something in return." But this book is not written as a personal memoir like Ben Bradlees's “A Good Life.” "Collision of Power" focuses on his experiences managing The Post's newsroom during an extraordinary time. Washington was under Trump's influence, and the news publishing industry was changing from a legacy media world to one of social media, blogging and other digital disruptions. In this episode, we go one-on-one with industry veteran Marty Baron, where we discuss his recently released book, "Collision of Power,” which offers an inside view of his time as executive editor of The Washington Post under Bezos' ownership and during Trump's presidency. We also hear his thoughts on managing a newsroom in today's challenging news media ecosystem.
Though she never wrote a horror film, to celebrate Halloween this month's focus is screenwriter, poet, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Zoe Akins, born on October 30, 1886. In 1935 Akins would become the third woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the highest honor for a Broadway play in the United States, after Zona … Continue reading "Poems, Plays, Pulitzers: Screenwriter Zoe Akins Did it All – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, October 2023" Related posts: When Women Wrote Hollywood: The Movies – 8 in a series – Blue Jeans (1917) Wr: June Mathis Dr. Rosanne Welch and Rashaan Dozier-Escalante Speak On on Writing as Activism [Video] 46 Screenwriting Mistakes: Write Something New… from Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast [Video]
Our featured idealist organization is ProPublica, an online news source, which in 16 years of existence, has won 6 Pulitzers for quality, in-depth reporting. Most recently, ProPublica journalists have broken stories about S. Ct. Justices Thomas and Alito and their “trips” funded by billionaire conservatives who have business before the Court. Ugh. The Big Interview…
In the decades between the Great Depression and the advent of cable television, when daily newspapers set the conversational agenda in the United States, the best reporter in the business was a rumpled, unassuming figure named Homer Bigart. Despite two Pulitzers and a host of other prizes, he quickly faded from public view after retirement. Few today know the extent to which he was esteemed by his peers. Get the Damn Story: Homer Bigart and the Great Age of American Newspapers (Georgetown UP, 2023) is the first comprehensive biography to encompass all of Bigart's journalism, including both his war reporting and coverage of domestic events. Writing for the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Times, Bigart brought to life many events that defined the era—the wars in Europe, the Pacific, Korea, and Vietnam; the civil rights movement; the creation of Israel; the end of colonialism in Africa; and the Cuban Revolution. Bigart's career demonstrates the value to a democratic society of a relentless, inquiring mind examining its institutions and the people who run them. James Kates is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
In the decades between the Great Depression and the advent of cable television, when daily newspapers set the conversational agenda in the United States, the best reporter in the business was a rumpled, unassuming figure named Homer Bigart. Despite two Pulitzers and a host of other prizes, he quickly faded from public view after retirement. Few today know the extent to which he was esteemed by his peers. Get the Damn Story: Homer Bigart and the Great Age of American Newspapers (Georgetown UP, 2023) is the first comprehensive biography to encompass all of Bigart's journalism, including both his war reporting and coverage of domestic events. Writing for the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Times, Bigart brought to life many events that defined the era—the wars in Europe, the Pacific, Korea, and Vietnam; the civil rights movement; the creation of Israel; the end of colonialism in Africa; and the Cuban Revolution. Bigart's career demonstrates the value to a democratic society of a relentless, inquiring mind examining its institutions and the people who run them. James Kates is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
In the decades between the Great Depression and the advent of cable television, when daily newspapers set the conversational agenda in the United States, the best reporter in the business was a rumpled, unassuming figure named Homer Bigart. Despite two Pulitzers and a host of other prizes, he quickly faded from public view after retirement. Few today know the extent to which he was esteemed by his peers. Get the Damn Story: Homer Bigart and the Great Age of American Newspapers (Georgetown UP, 2023) is the first comprehensive biography to encompass all of Bigart's journalism, including both his war reporting and coverage of domestic events. Writing for the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Times, Bigart brought to life many events that defined the era—the wars in Europe, the Pacific, Korea, and Vietnam; the civil rights movement; the creation of Israel; the end of colonialism in Africa; and the Cuban Revolution. Bigart's career demonstrates the value to a democratic society of a relentless, inquiring mind examining its institutions and the people who run them. James Kates is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
In the decades between the Great Depression and the advent of cable television, when daily newspapers set the conversational agenda in the United States, the best reporter in the business was a rumpled, unassuming figure named Homer Bigart. Despite two Pulitzers and a host of other prizes, he quickly faded from public view after retirement. Few today know the extent to which he was esteemed by his peers. Get the Damn Story: Homer Bigart and the Great Age of American Newspapers (Georgetown UP, 2023) is the first comprehensive biography to encompass all of Bigart's journalism, including both his war reporting and coverage of domestic events. Writing for the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Times, Bigart brought to life many events that defined the era—the wars in Europe, the Pacific, Korea, and Vietnam; the civil rights movement; the creation of Israel; the end of colonialism in Africa; and the Cuban Revolution. Bigart's career demonstrates the value to a democratic society of a relentless, inquiring mind examining its institutions and the people who run them. James Kates is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography
In the decades between the Great Depression and the advent of cable television, when daily newspapers set the conversational agenda in the United States, the best reporter in the business was a rumpled, unassuming figure named Homer Bigart. Despite two Pulitzers and a host of other prizes, he quickly faded from public view after retirement. Few today know the extent to which he was esteemed by his peers. Get the Damn Story: Homer Bigart and the Great Age of American Newspapers (Georgetown UP, 2023) is the first comprehensive biography to encompass all of Bigart's journalism, including both his war reporting and coverage of domestic events. Writing for the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Times, Bigart brought to life many events that defined the era—the wars in Europe, the Pacific, Korea, and Vietnam; the civil rights movement; the creation of Israel; the end of colonialism in Africa; and the Cuban Revolution. Bigart's career demonstrates the value to a democratic society of a relentless, inquiring mind examining its institutions and the people who run them. James Kates is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
In the decades between the Great Depression and the advent of cable television, when daily newspapers set the conversational agenda in the United States, the best reporter in the business was a rumpled, unassuming figure named Homer Bigart. Despite two Pulitzers and a host of other prizes, he quickly faded from public view after retirement. Few today know the extent to which he was esteemed by his peers. Get the Damn Story: Homer Bigart and the Great Age of American Newspapers (Georgetown UP, 2023) is the first comprehensive biography to encompass all of Bigart's journalism, including both his war reporting and coverage of domestic events. Writing for the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Times, Bigart brought to life many events that defined the era—the wars in Europe, the Pacific, Korea, and Vietnam; the civil rights movement; the creation of Israel; the end of colonialism in Africa; and the Cuban Revolution. Bigart's career demonstrates the value to a democratic society of a relentless, inquiring mind examining its institutions and the people who run them. James Kates is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications
In the decades between the Great Depression and the advent of cable television, when daily newspapers set the conversational agenda in the United States, the best reporter in the business was a rumpled, unassuming figure named Homer Bigart. Despite two Pulitzers and a host of other prizes, he quickly faded from public view after retirement. Few today know the extent to which he was esteemed by his peers. Get the Damn Story: Homer Bigart and the Great Age of American Newspapers (Georgetown UP, 2023) is the first comprehensive biography to encompass all of Bigart's journalism, including both his war reporting and coverage of domestic events. Writing for the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Times, Bigart brought to life many events that defined the era—the wars in Europe, the Pacific, Korea, and Vietnam; the civil rights movement; the creation of Israel; the end of colonialism in Africa; and the Cuban Revolution. Bigart's career demonstrates the value to a democratic society of a relentless, inquiring mind examining its institutions and the people who run them. James Kates is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism
In hour 1, Chris talks about the state of Journalism today, in the wake of the Durham findings, and the newspapers who need to return awards they got for reporting on the lie of Russian Collusion. Also, a sorority is troubled by the non-woman in their ranks... For more coverage on the issues that matter to you download the WMAL app, visit WMAL.com or tune in live on WMAL-FM 105.9 from 9:00am-12:00pm Monday-Friday. To join the conversation, check us out on twitter @WMAL and @ChrisPlanteShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Pulitzer Prizes were announced on Monday, bestowing one of America's most prestigious awards in journalism and the arts on writers across a range of categories. Among the winners were three authors who had also appeared on the Book Review's list of the 10 Best Books of 2022: the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu, for his memoir “Stay True,” and two novelists who (in a first for the Pulitzers) shared the prize in fiction, Barbara Kingsolver for “Demon Copperhead” and Hernan Diaz for “Trust.”On this week's episode, Hsu and Diaz chat with the host Gilbert Cruz about their books and what it's like to win a Pulitzer.“I wish I had a more articulate thing to say, but it was just truly weird,” Hsu tells Cruz about learning he was the inaugural winner in the memoir category. (Before this year, memoirs were judged alongside biographies.) “It was a thrill, but it was also just truly a weird out-of-body experience.”For Diaz, the Pulitzer announcement came while he was at a fried chicken and waffle restaurant in South Carolina, where he was on tour to promote his book's paperback release. “I totally lost it,” he says. “I had to go out and, I'm a little bit embarrassed to confess it but I was weeping sitting on the curb. And these three lovely older ladies come by and they ask me, Oh sweetheart, honey, are you OK? I'm not exactly sure what I said, but I shared the good news with them and suddenly all four of us were hugging in the middle of the street. So it was a good moment.”We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.
Donald Trump returned to CNN this week and, as expected, the media has strong feelings about the results. We break down their reactions as well as other stories like Joe Biden's diet, Tucker's next move, and Eliana's favorite self-tanner. Wretch on! If you have a story you want us to talk about, e-mail us at wretches@nebulouspodcasts.com. Sign up to receive show notes directly in your inbox Time Stamps: 2:34 Front Page 53:38 Obsessions 1:02:41 Reader Mail 1:04:29 Favorite Items Show Notes: NPR: CNN's town hall with Donald Trump takes on added stakes after verdict in Carroll case Puck News: The Kaitlan Era Begins Tonight CNN: Trump and the Town Hall Tucker Carlson on Twitter: We're Back Dylan Byers on Twitter: NEWS: Tucker Carlson will relaunch his show *on Twitter* with help from former Fox News staff. He will forgo at least $25 million owed to him by Fox Corp. in order to break non-compete clause. Axios: The food fight in the White House: Biden's diet WaPo: Opinion | President Biden should hold more solo press conferences - The Washington Post NYPost: White House bans New York Post from Biden event as Hunter indictment looms The Dispatch: The Content Trap Bill Nichols on Twitter: I'm biased and congrats to all the #Pulitzer winners. But does anyone think that if the Washington Post or NY Times had gotten an early draft of the most important SCOTUS opinion in a generation, they would NOT have won? @politico and @joshgerstein and team deserved better Ap: AP wins public service, photo Pulitzers for Ukraine coverage YouGov: Trust in Media 2023: What news outlets do Americans trust most for information? WaPo: Most Americans support anti-trans policies favored by GOP, poll shows WaPo:Inflation eased again in April, but prices are still rising fast National Review: Cream and Sugar with Your Cup of Personal Moral Defect? Variety: MTV News Shuts Down, Paramount Lays Off 25% of Networks, Studios Group - Variety NYT: Elizabeth Holmes Opens Up About Her Theranos Trial and What Comes Next WaPo: The rich don't dress like you think they do Obsessions: NYT: The Smooth-Talking Republican Who Would Rule by Fiat NYT: Opinion | American Road Deaths Show an Alarming Racial Gap Wall Street Journal: Vice Media Nears Deal for $400 Million Sale Out of Bankruptcy NYT: Father-Son Duo in Alabama Wins Pulitzer, Bucking Headwinds in Local News NYT: Inside the Delirious Rise of ‘Superfake' Handbags
Pulitzer winners represent the best that the publishing industry has to offer.
An appropriate reward for a job well done. www.patreon.com/stevelehto
Dear Loyal Readers,Thank you for being here! I have four things for you this week, so let's get right to it.1️⃣ Article ClubThis month we've been focusing on “Why is Affirmative Action in Peril?” by Emily Bazelon. It's a piece I highly recommend that you read. Here's why:* The Supreme Court will likely strike down affirmative action next month* This article expertly explains why* Ms. Bazelon — staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, senior research fellow at Yale Law School, and co-host of Slate's Political Gabfest — knows how to write and knows what she's talking aboutInstead of focusing on the current politics of the Court, Ms. Bazelon takes us back in time, helping us understand the history of affirmative action through a close study of the Bakke decision and the legal strategy of attorney Archibald Cox — which won the case but ultimately left affirmative action vulnerable.I hope you'll sign up to discuss the article on Sunday, May 21, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT on Zoom. Article Clubbers are kind and thoughtful and welcoming. Our conversations are always in small, intimate, facilitated groups. Reach out if you have questions or if you want to participate in the conversation but are secretly shy or nervous.2️⃣ My interview with Ms. BazelonI can't stop thinking about how much fun it was to chat with Ms. Bazelon. She was a total pro: generous, thoughtful, and deeply knowledgeable. (My friends have told me to stop gushing.) We talked about a number of topics, including:* how Mr. Cox cobbled together a victory by wooing a segregationist justice* how the justices have wildly different interpretations of the 14th Amendment* how white people have a very short amount of patience for thinking about the harms of race discriminationThere is a fundamental American tension between prizing individual achievement and promoting the collective spirit of the nation's egalitarian promise, between the call to be colorblind and the call not to be blind to racism.I hope you take a listen! (You can click the player at the top or subscribe to The Highlighter Article Club on your favorite podcast player.)3️⃣ Article Club author Eli Saslow wins another Pulitzer PrizeWhen I spoke with Eli Saslow last November about “An American Education,” I asked him how it felt to win a Pulitzer Prize. He shared his complex feelings: both that he was “hugely gratified” for the acknowledgment but also “a little conflicted” given that he writes about people's worst moments and our country's deepest problems.I appreciated the thoughtfulness of that answer, and I have continued recommending Mr. Saslow's work to my colleagues. For those reasons and more, I was delighted to hear that he won yet another Pulitzer Prize this week. Here's a clip:Congratulations, Mr. Saslow! You are further evidence proving my bold claim — that writers who participate in Article Club go on to win Pulitzers. My other evidence? Mitchell S. Jackson. (Sadly, I can't take credit for Kathryn Schulz or Stephanie McCrummen; they won their Pulitzers beforehand.) 4️⃣ Meet other thoughtful readers at HHH on June 1Highlighter Happy Hour has been one of the most joyful ways for us to gather, connect, and celebrate our reading community. We're heading into the 20th HHH! Can you believe it?We'll be meeting up at Room 389 in Oakland on June 1 beginning at 5:30.If you live or work not too far from Oakland, it'd be great to see you there. If you get a free ticket, you'll get a prize at the door. And just in case you're nervous: Yes, we do chat about the articles — but only sometimes, and usually just tangentially.Thank you for reading this week's issue and for listening to the interview. Hope you liked it.
As the 2024 presidential campaign begins in earnest, political cartoonist Ted Rall, (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) dig into what looks like an 1892-style political rematch, between former and possibly future President Donald Trump, and current President Joe Biden.Trump appeared on CNN for the first time since 2016, at a raucous town hall meeting that received widespread criticism from liberals and their mainstream media allies. He advised congressional Republicans to be willing to risk default in the debt-limit crisis, signaled that he would reduce or eliminate military aid to Ukraine, and made fun of Jean Carroll, the columnist who won $5 million from a jury that found him liable for sexual battery and defamation. Trump is just Trump being Trump as usual, but what else did we expect? The question now is, will old Trump 2016 win, or will old Trump 2020 lose?The Republican-controlled House oversight committee has its sights set firmly on the current president, Joe Biden, the First Lady and other members of his family. The first family acquired $13 million from unknown sources a few years ago, and Hunter Biden's infamous laptop seems to indicate that the money may have originated from covert and corrupt sources in places like Romania, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and China. If the president really accepted bribes and kickbacks from foreign countries, this could be the biggest scandal in American presidential history.Columbia University announced the winners of the Pulitzer Prizes earlier this week, and with all such pomposity, there's a lot less than meets the eye to the proceedings. Scott and Ted dish on everything you need to know about how this particular sausage is made, as well as the self-dealing and conflicts of interest on a staggering scale.
As the 2024 presidential campaign begins in earnest, political cartoonist Ted Rall, (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) dig into what looks like an 1892-style political rematch, between former and possibly future President Donald Trump, and current President Joe Biden.Trump appeared on CNN for the first time since 2016, at a raucous town hall meeting that received widespread criticism from liberals and their mainstream media allies. He advised congressional Republicans to be willing to risk default in the debt-limit crisis, signaled that he would reduce or eliminate military aid to Ukraine, and made fun of Jean Carroll, the columnist who won $5 million from a jury that found him liable for sexual battery and defamation. Trump is just Trump being Trump as usual, but what else did we expect? The question now is, will old Trump 2016 win, or will old Trump 2020 lose?The Republican-controlled House oversight committee has its sights set firmly on the current president, Joe Biden, the First Lady and other members of his family. The first family acquired $13 million from unknown sources a few years ago, and Hunter Biden's infamous laptop seems to indicate that the money may have originated from covert and corrupt sources in places like Romania, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and China. If the president really accepted bribes and kickbacks from foreign countries, this could be the biggest scandal in American presidential history.Columbia University announced the winners of the Pulitzer Prizes earlier this week, and with all such pomposity, there's a lot less than meets the eye to the proceedings. Scott and Ted dish on everything you need to know about how this particular sausage is made, as well as the self-dealing and conflicts of interest on a staggering scale.
KGMI's Dianna Hawryluk and Adam Smith chat about reporters and news outlets being honored with Pulitzer awards, and Starbucks breaking hearts yet again with price increases.
In this episode, Amanda Blumer, Treasurer of the U.P. Poet Laureate Foundation, dishes up Pulitzer Prizes, all things poetry, and dystopian literature. Amanda's book recommendations: Wool by Hugh Howey
Profe Herrera (aka StinkyLulu) reflects on eight plays in four pairings that together ask what makes a political play, what makes a Pulitzer-worthy play, what makes something performance art and not a play (and vice versa), and what happens when a big new celebrity shows up in your big old play…. Productions discussed in this episode include: the live-streamed Broadway production of Stephen Daly Guirgis' BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY and Atlanta's Alliance Theatre's production of Katori Hall's HOT WING KING; the long-running Broadway revival of Kander & Ebb's CHICAGO, currently starring drag artist Jinkx Monsoon, and BAM's buzzy revisitation of Lorraine Hansberry's THE SIGN IN SIDNEY BRUSTEIN's WINDOW, with Oscar Isaac starring as Sidney; TwoRiver Theatre's production of Mando Alvarado's LIVING AND BREATHING and Princeton Theater Program's staging of student Reed Leventis's immersive and interactive work DISORDER; and Amalia Oliva Rojas's How to Melt ICE or How the Coyote Fell in Love with the Butterfly who Tried to Be a Lizard — as presented by Boundless Theatre Company in partnership with New Perspectives Theatre at the JuliaDeBurgos Cultural Center in East Harlem — and Guillermo Calderón's Kiss by the Wilma Theater in Center City Philadelphia. https://linktr.ee/stinkylulu
Ben stein and cohost Judah Friedman are joined by Mandy Gunasekara to discuss, there will be no Pulitzers for Musk and Taibbi, yes we were validated but no one will be punished. Plus it's not the war on drugs it's the war against people who need drugs. Is it time to legalize drugs and take Big government out of the business of regulation.
Tom's first guest today is New York Times White House correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman. She began her career in the mid-1990s covering New York politics for the New York Post and the Daily News. She has known Donald Trump and many of those in his orbit since then, and when Trump was elected U.S. president, her reporting was essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the chaotic tenure of the 45th president. In 2018, that reporting led to a Pulitzer Prize for her and a team of Times colleagues. She and others at the Times were finalists for Pulitzers in 2021 and again this year. Her new book is a number one best-seller. It's called Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. It was released two weeks ago, months, even years after several very thoughtful books about the Trump Presidency, and a bunch of less-than thoughtful books by journalists and family members. Tom believes this one was worth the wait. Haberman reports that Trump's political instincts were shaped early in a career in which scandal and acclaim were never distant. Her account is a comprehensive, insightful study of where and how Trump developed his attitude, his world view, and his political tactics. We're delighted to welcome Maggie Haberman to the show to talk it about it. She joins us on Zoom from New York…See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode, Dave and Andrew record their first live podcast event! In front of the Kansas City Conducting Symposium, they discuss an unusual work for the Pulitzers in that Michael Colgrass featured the percussion section of the orchestra. Will they enjoy this departure from standard orchestration? If you'd like more information about Colgrass, we recommend: Colgrass's autobiographies Adventures of an American Composer and My Lessons with Kumi James Donald Broadhurst's dissertation "The early drum-melodic music of Michael Colgrass and the evolution of the Colgrass drum" (The Ohio State University, 2005)
Aaron and James correct history and re-award the Pulitzer Prize. Hindsight is 20/20 and we definitely are hind-oglers.Support the poets we mention by buying their books. We recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a Black-owned indie bookseller in the DC area.Read David Trinidad's dishy and detailed account of how Anne Sexton got her Pulitzer here. More/other insight into the Pulitzers can be had in reading this July 1957 article by Arthur Mizener that appeared in The Atlantic. After Forest Gander won the Pulitzer, he gave a 5-book recommended reading list that included C.D. Wright's last book. (Wright and Gander were married; Gander's prizewinning collection Be With is largely elegiac.) You can read his recommendations here. if you haven't listened to Jericho Brown's interview with the On Being Project, do yourself a favor and listen here. (The interview discusses sexual violence.) Brown won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (for his book The Tradition).Adrienne Rich was a 3-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Before winning in 1998 for Black Zodiac, Charles Wright was a finalist for the prize four times.
In the summer of 2019, the Boston Globe surprised the industry by launching an initiative just 53 miles down the I-95 corridor in neighboring Providence, Rhode Island. When most local news operations were aggressively downsizing, the Globe had already shown an appetite for expansion by hiring more journalists and launching new verticals covering marijuana, health, life sciences and even the Catholic Church. However, this expansion placed them in the backyard of one of the nation's most respected news outlets: The Providence Journal, which in its heyday had multiple bureaus with hundreds of journalists and a lengthy list of Pulitzers and Peabodys for their famous investigative reporting. Today, due to subscriber and advertising revenue declines and Gannett corporate downsizing, there are less than thirty full-time reporters at the ProJo. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that The Boston Globe is increasing its commitment to their Providence bureau that contributes daily to their online vertical dedicated to the Ocean State, called "Globe Rhode Island." The team includes ProJo veterans Maria Caporizzo, Edward Fitzpatrick, Amanda Milkovitz and Brian Amaral, Providence Business News alumna Alexa Gagosz, former WPRI-TV reporter Dan McGowan, and digital and audience engagement editor Carlos Munoz, who moved to Rhode Island from Florida to join the team. Together, they cover politics, business, health, education, the economy, the arts, and more, along with a popular weekly Podcast called "Rhode Island Report" and a new RI Food & Dining section. Plus, with Gannett now cutting back on providing editorial content throughout the company, Globe Rhode Island has also expanded its Commentary platform. The Globe has already had a strong impact on the local media landscape: subscriptions to the digital product and its email newsletters are growing rapidly, and the Globe Rhode Island team recently won 27 reporting awards from the Rhode Island Press Association, sweeping the Investigative and Health Care reporting categories. In this 142nd episode of E&P Reports, meet the Boston Globe Rhode Island's editor, Lylah M. Alphonse, and one of the original bureau hires, Dan McGowan, who produces their daily “Rhode Map” newsletter. They will talk about the Globe's growing southward expansion and their commitment to providing statewide news content. Also appearing is Michelle Micone, the Boston Globe's Vice President, Innovation and Strategic Initiatives, who will speak to the Globe's overall strategy in expanding into new content areas and neighboring markets.
Self intro for Pulitzers
Wesley Morris wrote his first review when he was 15 years old, about the movie “Cape Fear.” Since then, he's become one of the most celebrated cultural critics of our time, and has two Pulitzers to prove it. Recode's Peter Kafka talks to Morris about his work as a critic at large for the New York Times and the new season of his podcast, “Still Processing.” Other topics discussed in this very fun and thoughtful interview include The Slap, why we're not getting another “Basic Instinct,” and what's up with Elon Musk. Featuring: Wesley Morris (@wesley_morris), Critic at Large for the New York Times and host of Still Processing Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode More to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape. About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ask Bob Marshall what the article was for which he won his Pulitzer Prize and he will politely respond, "which one?" Marshall has been on the winning side for two group Pulitzers each reporting on environmental issues for the Time-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate. Fortunately, on matters of ecological issues, Louisiana needs such aggressive watchdogs. The lush waterways and wetlands that make the state so wondrous are also vulnerable to being tested by nature. Marshall joins Louisiana Life magazine Executive Editor Errol Laborde, along with podcast producer Kelly Massicot, to talk about climate change in Louisiana including long-range predictions. (Hint: It's not good.) Oh yes, we will also hear about how far inland a new Louisiana coastline could be one day.
An episode of literary games and gossipAre you even gay if you can't differentiate between Debbie Harry, Deborah Digges, and Debora Greger? Are you even a writer if you don't know which poet won 4 Pulitzers?Loyalty Bookstore, a black-owned bookstore in DC, is a great place to buy books by authors we discussed today.If you need resources to cope with some mental health struggles, we recommend visiting the National Alliance on Mental Illness: https://www.nami.org/help Deborah Greger (Leo) does not have a book with the word "animals" in the title. You can read more about this incredible poet here. James's favorite Greger poem is "Head, Perhaps of an Angel" which you can read in New England Review here.Deborah Digges (Aquarius) wrote poetry and memoir. Read more about her here. Digges's second memoir, The Stardust Lounge, is a portrait of her younger son, who by the time he was 13 was involved in gangs. The book details how Digges decides to "shadow" him to try to understand him better. The book Aaron references overhearing a conversation about might have been The Stardust Lounge. You can read Digges's poem "Rough Music" here.Debbie Harry is the lead singer of the band Blondie. She's a Cancer (July 1). Slash of Guns 'n' Roses has donated his time, energy, and money to animal welfare and children's music education causes. In 2008, he donated to Barack Obama's presidential campaign.Robert Penn Warren's racism and his attempts to educate and enlighten his ignorance remain a topic of conversation. One incredible essay in the discourse is this one by Natasha Trethewey, delivered when she was U.S. Poet Laureate.
In this episode, Dave and Andrew discuss the third person to win two Pulitzers, Samuel Barber. Barber's prize-winning opera Vanessa was a qualified hit in Episode 16, but how does his Piano Concerto stack up? (Photo of Pianist John Browning, 1966) If you'd like more information about Samuel Barber or his Piano Concerto No. 1, we recommend: Emily Lu's 1986 dissertation from the University of Wisconsin, "The Piano Concerto of Samuel Barber" Jonathan Blumhofer's fascinating discussion of the piece in "Rethinking the Repertoire #13 – Samuel Barber's Piano Concerto" The interview with pianist John Browning in the Peter Dickinson edited volume Samuel Barber Remembered (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2010.
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