December 08, 2006
No one would say today that a woman can't be a writer. But when the Chilean-born novelist Isabel Allende was growing up, "writer" was not on the career menu. Kurt talks with Allende about how she became a novelist, and why she just can't write an erotic novel.
A 9-hour theatrical trilogy about 19th century Russian intellectuals could probably only be pulled off by Tom Stoppard. The British playwright manages to mix big ideas with wit, wordplay, and slap-stick humor. Kurt spoke with Stoppard about his trilogy The Coast of Utopia, which just made its American debut.
Plenty of classical composers like to borrow a snippet from pop music, or throw in a little reference to a well-known song in a piece of "serious music." William Bolcom prefers to go whole hog. WNYC's Sara Fishko talked to Bolcom for our series on living composers and their relationships with other musicians.
Rock and roll bands go on tour all the time, and long hours on the tour bus are part of the job. So why can't a bunch of poets go on tour? The Poetry Bus steals a page from rock music's playbook by taking poetry on the road. The bus just finished a grueling 50-day, 50-city tour. Studio 360 sent producer Jake Warga to tag along.
In his latest film The Fountain, Aronofsky keeps some of the existential angst of previous films like Pi, but channels it into a lush, romantic fantasy: a 1000-year quest for the Fountain of Youth. Kurt talks with Aronofsky about his career as a filmmaker, the allure of immortality, and what it means to be from Brooklyn.
At the school of the Boston Ballet there are some dedicated students who will never land a part in the Nutcracker. They're grown-ups who attend class several times a week, but have no hope of dancing professionally. Diane Toomey is one of them, and she told us why she and her classmates have such fierce loyalty to ballet and to their teacher Kristin Beckwith (pictured).
Studio 360 is a co-production of
Public
Radio International and
WNYC New York Public Radio, and is funded in part by
Ken and Lucy Lehman, the
National Endowment for the Arts, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and
DK Eyewitness Travel. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Our series on creativity and science is supported in part by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
