Back in 1990, John Cale and Lou Reed, his bandmate from the Velvet Underground, wrote a song cycle about Andy Warhol, called Songs for Drella. John performs one for us in the studio.

Kurt Andersen talks with theater director Wilson Milam about the challenges of staging a Broadway play with the kind of violence normally reserved for Quentin Tarantino movies. The actors wielding guns and knives on stage don't have the luxury of second takes, and the ...

We asked humorist Jack Handey—the creator of Saturday Night Live's "Deep Thoughts"—why people are so driven to violence. He thinks it's because we're human.

Hula teacher Roselle Keli'ihonipua Bailey explains why the hula isn't just a tourist cliche. For native Hawaiians, the dance speaks for itself. Produced by Stephanie Guyer-Stevens for Outer Voices.

It wasn't long ago that minstrel shows featuring white actors in blackface were all the rage in America. These shows were offensive, hokey and slapdash -- but some of them were based on the greatest plays in the English language. Richard Paul examines the troubled relationship between ...

If there were a competition to create a Broadway musical based on the least likely source material, Grey Gardens might be the winner. The show is adapted from the 1975 documentary that followed the reclusive aunt and cousin of Jackie O. Christine Ebersole, the star of Grey ...

Once again this winter, followers of the "the father of modern drama" Henrik Ibsen flock to the rural town of Lanesboro, Minnesota, for the annual Ibsen festival. Sarah Lemanczyk wanted to know why the gloomy Norwegian playwright inspires such devotion.

The days of USO shows with Bob Hope and chorus girls are long gone -- but the armed forces are still hard at work entertaining the troops. Sometimes, they even get the troops to entertain each other. Adam Allington caught up with an Army unit that performs ...

Once again, audiences on Broadway are attending the tale of Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim's musical masterpiece, which first shocked audiences back in 1979. This innovative revival shifts the setting of the musical from the streets of Victorian London to an insane asylum. Another strange thing: there is no orchestra. As ...

We asked humorist Jack Handey -- the creator of Saturday Night Live's "Deep Thoughts" -- why people are so driven to violence. He thinks it's because we're human.

Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein passed away this week. The author of The Heidi Chronicles and The Sisters Rosensweig, Wasserstein spoke with Kurt Andersen last year about her plans for the future and her experience giving birth at the age of 48.

In the new Broadway show Bridge & Tunnel, writer-performer Sarah Jones celebrates (and impersonates) the incredible diversity of New York City’s outer boroughs. Kurt asked Jones how she embodies the hopes and dreams of a Pakistani accountant, a Jewish grandmother and many other characters.

In 1925, the movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn traveled all the way to Vienna to meet Sigmund Freud. Goldwyn wanted the famous doctor to consult on movies for MGM -- to tell filmmakers what was really happening in famous love stories. Freud, however, refused even to see Goldwyn. Playwright

In 1942, the composer Aaron Copland was commissioned to write a piece of music for the choreographer Martha Graham. Dance and music in America have never been the same.