Episode #1302
Suzan-Lori Parks & Ghostwriters
Friday, January 13, 2012
Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis in The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
(Michael J. Lutch)
This week, 77 years after its debut, Porgy and Bess returns to Broadway, but this isn't just another revival. The playwright Suzan-Lori Parks tells Kurt Andersen about how she turned the Gershwin’s landmark 1935 opera into a musical. We get ghostwriters to reveal the tricks of their trade. And what’s wrong with Mitt Romney the candidate? He looks too presidential.
Mitt Romney, American Dad
As Mitt Romney wraps up his audition to be the Republican nominee, he looks increasingly in control of everything but his image. The problem, according to New York film critic David Edelstein, is that Romney fits the role of President too well. “If you were a casting director and you ...
Ghostwriters
The best-seller list is dominated by memoirs and self-help books written by celebrities and politicians. Or “written” by celebrities and politicians. “On the non-fiction best-seller list, 12 out of the 15 books listed probably have been ghostwritten,” reveals literary agent Madeleine Morel. ...
Suzan-Lori Parks' Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess was groundbreaking: an opera about poor African-Americans in South Carolina, starring a cripple, a tramp, and a drug dealer. This weekend a new production opens on Broadway entitled The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, but it’s not the one George and Ira presented in 1935. ...
Aha Moment: Jonathan Safran Foer on Joseph Cornell
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, just arrived in theaters. It's an adaptation of the September 11-themed novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. But before Foer became a novelist, he was an aspiring sculptor. As a college freshman, he ...
Redesigning Teachers: Inside the Design Studio
To rebrand educators for the 21st century, Studio 360 selected Hyperakt, a New York design firm that’s done projects for UNICEF and GOOD magazine, among others. At a recent brainstorming session, former public school teacher Jenna Shapiro summed up the concern of her colleagues ...
Captain Beefheart: Trout Mask Replica
Trout Mask Replica (1969) is part free jazz, part blues, part beat poetry. Frank Zappa (who gave singer-songwriter Don van Vliet the name Captain Beefheart) produced the album. “It sounds like it's been made up on the spot,” describes Mike Barnes, van Vliet’s biographer. “But in fact it was ...
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In medical school i was never taught the 'art' of medicine or given the opportunity as a resident to write ...
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One more aspect to admire about Sendak - in addition to his refined draftsmanship, his tone that mixes humor, irony, ...
Comments [2]
I did see the new "Porgy and Bess" in Cambridge, Mass. at the American Repertory Theater. I was concerned about the update but enjoyed it very much. McDonald was fantastic.
I really liked Parks' earlier plays, and I'm glad she has found success as an African-American woman. Nevertheless, this interview does not endear me to her. A little humility wouldn't be a bad thing. You write, Ms. Parks, you're not curing cancer. Try to keep it in perspective.
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