This week, two unique theater events. Kurt Andersen talks with Alex Timbers, director of a new musical about Imelda Marcos — part history lesson, part disco dance party, but no shoe jokes. A Deaf actor performing in a signed version of a Harold Pinter play explains why on stage, actors’ ...

This week in Studio 360, two takes on motherhood. In Isabella Rossellini’s new series of web videos, she acts out unusual childrearing strategies — abandonment, cannibalism — in the animal kingdom. And a listener explains how Mary Karr taught her what she needed to know about having a teenage boy. ...

How did a poor kid from Brooklyn escape life as a shipping clerk and instead become Mel Brooks? Even Mel Brooks isn’t too sure, but “If you’ve got your mother’s love,” he tells Kurt Andersen, “you can’t go wrong.” Meanwhile, jazz composer Darcy James Argue conjures another, imaginary Brooklyn in ...