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51:44

A Tribute to Spalding Gray: Part 2

On March 7, the actor and monologist Spalding Gray was found dead in the East River in New York. Gray, 62, had been missing for two months. His family believes he committed suicide. Gray was best known for his autobiographical monologues, including Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box and It's a Slippery Slope. Over the last 19 years he was a frequent guest on Fresh Air. We listen back to excerpts of his performances and interviews: Swimming to Cambodia (rebroadcast from Aug. 20, 1985), Monster in a Box (rebroadcast from Sept.

Obituary
17:20

Conductor Marin Alsop

She is the principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in Britain. She was the first woman ever to be named principal conductor of a major British orchestra. Since 1993, Alsop has also been music director of the Colorado Symphony, where her programming won several national awards. She has had guest appearances with many orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and the symphony orchestras of Toronto, Atlanta, Houston, Cincinnati and Indianapolis. She was a protigi of Leonard Bernstein.

Interview
22:42

'Robot Stories' Director Greg Pak

Pak is an award-winning writer and director who has made his first feature film, Robot Stories. It tells four stories of love between humans and robots. The film has been received warmly by critics, winning more than 23 awards. Previously Pak made a number of very short films including Asian Pride Porn, Cat Fight Tonight, Fighting Grandpa and Mr. Lee.

Interview
21:17

Remembering Acting Teacher Uta Hagen

The stage actress and acting coach died Wednesday at the age of 84. She taught for more than 40 years, training actors including Jack Lemmon, Sigourney Weaver, Matthew Broderick and the late Geraldine Page. She and her late husband, Herbert Berghof, founded the HB Studio in New York. This interview first aired Nov. 4, 1998.

Obituary
42:50

Actor and Playwright John Kani

Kani, a South African, is best known for his apartheid-era, politically charged collaborations with playwright Athol Fugard. His new play — and his first as a solo playwright is Nothing But the Truth. It's a post-apartheid family drama inspired by the death of his brother, a poet who was killed by the South African police in 1985. Nothing But the Truth is currently playing at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York City. (This interview continues into the second half of the show).

Interview
08:11

Review: 'The Stephen Sondheim Collection'

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new six-DVD set of fully staged and concert performances of Stephen Sondheim musicals, The Stephen Sondheim Collection. He also reviews the new book about Sondheim by Ted Chapin, Everything Was Possible.

Review
08:03

Original Broadway cast albums

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new series of original Broadway cast albums from shows that didn’t succeed but which contained numbers that shouldn’t be forgotten. (on DECCA).

Review
34:22

Playwright Tony Kushner

Kushner adapted his epic Tony-award winning play Angels in America into a screenplay for HBO (broadcast this month in two three-hour parts). The play is set in New York in the mid-1980s during the midst of the AIDS epidemic. The HBO film is directed by Mike Nichols and stars Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson. Kushner also has a new semi-autobiographical musical Caroline, or Change at the Public Theater in New York.

Interview
06:25

'The Singing Detective'

TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new film The Singing Detective, starring Robert Downey Jr. Bianculli was a fan of the BBC miniseries it was based on.

Review
27:29

Actor Robert Downey Jr.

He's starring in the new film The Singing Detective, based on the Dennis Potter PBS mini-series. He received an Academy Award nomination and won the British Academy Award for best actor, for his performance in the title role of Chaplin. He starred in Wonder Boys, Two Girls and a Guy, Natural Born Killers and The Pick-Up Artist. He also made his primetime television debut on Ally McBeal. Now in recovery, Downey has struggled with drug addiction for years.

Interview
13:08

Actor Paul Newman

Newman was nominated for a Tony last year for his role in Our Town, in a production that originated at his Connecticut theatre company. The production will soon be shown on PBS.

Actor Paul Newman
20:26

Film Director and Screenwriter Don Coscarelli

His latest film Bubba Ho-Tep is based on the short story by cult author Joe R. Lansdale. In it, Elvis Presley is an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his death and then missed the chance to switch back. He teams up with another resident who thinks he is President John F. Kennedy. The two codgers battle an evil Egyptian entity. It stars Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. Coscarelli also wrote and directed the films Phantasm, and The Beastmaster.

Interview
19:03

Performance Artist Rhodessa Jones

Performance artist, writer and theater director Rhodessa Jones is co-artistic director of the San Franciso performance company Cultural Odyssey. She is also founder and director of the "Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women," a performance workshop for women in prison in which she helps them develop and stage works based on their own stories. Jones' solo performance works include Hot Flashes, Power Surges, and Private Summers, and Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women.

Interview
06:02

TV Critic David Bianculli

TV critic David Bianculli previews Dead Like Me the new series on Showtime Cable that begins Friday, June 27. It's about a group of characters who died with unresolved issues and have to work them out in the after life.

Review

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