Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

Here in America, despite the hysteria whipped up in the weeks leading up to the November midterm elections, there was no influx of migrants from the south. In other words, nothing like what happened a few years ago, when hundreds of thousands refugees from the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa arrived in Europe. There’s a new play about that migrant crisis called The Jungle — which was the nickname of the notorious migrant camp in Calais, France.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An American Icons segment about “The Searchers,” John Ford’s problematic masterpiece featuring John Wayne. Kurt Andersen talks with Carol Stabile about an aspect of the Red Scare that’s received scant attention: the 41 women who were blacklisted from radio and television. And how Mariame Kaba, a prison activist who’s black and Muslim, falls hard for something very white and very Christian: Hallmark Christmas movies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The stuff you love as kids — that still deserve love when you’re grown up. Kurt Andersen talks with author Bruce Handy about how the best children’s literature can still enthrall adults — and then Bruce’s and Kurt’s kids join them to weigh in. Jim Henson always thought of his creations, the Muppets, as adult entertainment, but thanks to “Sesame Street,” they ended up being beloved by kids. And finally Kurt talks with design critic Alexandra Lange about the history of playgrounds — and how lawyers and bureaucrats have ruined fun. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lee Israel’s memoir, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” tells the story of her years forging letters by famous writers like Dorothy Parker and Noel Coward. Her book has recently been adapted into a new film starring Melissa McCarthy as Israel. Kurt Andersen interviewed the real Lee Israel in 2008, and with the film adaption now in theaters, he revisits his conversation with the literary con artist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why is contemporary culture obsessed with how well-endowed men are and yet in classical art men are so small? Kurt Andersen unravels the mystery with a classics scholar, Andrew Lear. Stacey Rose is a playwright, but when she’s not working to take audiences’ breath away on stage, she’s doing the opposite in her day job: she’s a respiratory therapist. And finally, a Studio 360 holiday tradition in the making — a Christmas-themed radio drama based on a short story by Kurt Andersen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt-ain call — a show about what goes into making great theater. First, a look at Alan Jay Lerner on the centennial of his birth. The lyricist for “My Fair Lady,” “Gigi” and “Camelot” was as complicated as he was talented. Then Jack Viertel, the theater impresario, gives Kurt a master class on all the elements of successful musical theater that audiences will recognize but may not have had a name for — like the “I want” song. Finally, Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer-winning play “Sweat” about factory workers reeling from layoffs won over New York audiences. So how’d it go over when its New York cast toured the production in the Rust Belt? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One day at school in the early 1990s, Shane McCrae watched a TV movie about teen suicide. The first half was all exactly what you would have expected: cheesy platitudes, heroic teachers, and feathery haircuts. Then, a character quoted the poetry of Sylvia Plath. “I don't want to be hyperbolic, but it did feel like a kind of an electric shock,” McCrae remembers. “I had never heard anything like it. I never had a feeling like that.” That day, he wrote eight poems at school. Then he took the bus home and wrote some more. From there, McCrae dived deeper into Plath’s life, checking out a book of her poems from the library and never returning it. Today, McCrae is a professional poet. And even though Plath is no longer his “central poet,” she remains his emotional and creative bedrock. We talked to McCrae to learn how a long-dead, white, East Coast writer known for her depressing verse gave purpose and uplift to a young black teenager living in suburban Oregon. This podcast was produced by Justin Glanville for Studio 360. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three American Icons that embody our nation’s counterculture. First: it’s not the fastest or fanciest bike out there, but Harley-Davidson has become synonymous with the motorcycle for many Americans. Then, why Georgia O’Keeffe fled the East Coast for New Mexico, where she found her muse in sun-bleached bones that littered the desert. And finally, how Jimi Hendrix captured the sound of bombs falling overseas and screaming protestors, using only a whammy bar and a fuzz pedal.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with Missy Mazzoli and Karen Russell about Mazzoli’s new opera, “Proving Up,” based on a short story by Russell about a family’s bleak prospects in post-Civil War Nebraska. Buffalo Tom singer Bill Janovitz talks about how, when the band scaled back its touring and recording, he found a less hip — and yet surprisingly satisfying — career in the Boston suburbs. More from Beantown as Kurt talks with Kelly Horan about the podcast she co-hosts, “Last Seen,” which is about biggest art heist ever — at Boston’s Gardner Museum. And conceptual artist Rutherford Chang’s delightfully obsessive art project — buying as many original copies of the Beatles’ “White Album” as he can get his hands on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new theatrical version of To Kill a Mockingbird is opening on Broadway next month, adapted for the stage by Aaron Sorkin and starring Jeff Daniels as Atticus Finch. So in anticipation of this Broadway debut, we’ve put together some of our favorite segments about America’s most beloved novel. First, we check in with the residents of Monroeville, Alabama — Lee’s hometown and the real-life "Maycomb" — to see how public opinion about the book has changed since its initial chilly reception in 1960. Psychologist Mufid James Hannush weighs in on Atticus Finch’s parenting methods. And indie rocker Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot explains how the band found inspiration in the novel. Lastly, Kurt talks to book critic David Ulin about the controversy surrounding the publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman in 2015. This podcast was produced by Studio 360’s Zoe Saunders, along with Anna Boiko-Weyrauch, Jenny Lawton, Becky Sullivan, and Lynn Levy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with Amy Cappellazzo of Sotheby’s and filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn about the art market and Kahn’s new documentary, “The Price of Everything.” How the masterful Talking Heads album “Remain in Light” drew on inspiration from radio preachers, newspaper headlines, recordings of former slaves and John Dean’s Watergate testimony. And Kurt talks with the Oscar-winning writer Kenneth Lonergan about his play that’s on Broadway, “The Waverly Gallery.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with Morgan Neville about his documentary that focuses on an Orson Welles film that was completed long after Welles died. Maria Schneider’s album “The Thompson Fields” took a circuitous path, and she discusses it both as it’s being conceived and a year later, when it’s in the can. Neuroscientist Heather Berlin tells Kurt how the creative brain gets revved up — and how the brain helps to focus and complete projects. And how the band School of Seven Bells finished an album when a key member tragically wasn’t there to finish it with them.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lynn Nottage’s play Sweat won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2017. It tells the story of a group of friends who work in a factory in Reading, Pennsylvania and are reeling from layoffs and racial tension. The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit took the show to the road and visited 18 places in the so-called Rust Belt. One of these unconventional venues was a public library in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Studio 360 was there to capture the moment. This podcast was produced by Studio 360’s Sandra Lopez-Monsalve. Invaluable production assistance on the ground in Minnesota was provided by Allison Herrera. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with Sandi Tan, who shot a film as an 18-year-old in Singapore in 1992, but the footage disappeared. She finally got her hands on the footage a few years ago, and the mystery of its disappearance is the subject of her new documentary, “Shirkers.” Tanwi Nandini Islam is both a novelist and a perfumer — and she demonstrates how she applies both of those talents to create a fragrance based on the Toni Morrison novel, “Beloved.”  And getting to the bottom of the hidden meanings and long life of Don McLean’s “American Pie.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speculative fiction — the catch-all term for non-realist genres — in its many forms. Remembering the irascible speculative fiction writer Harlan Ellison. How reading a sex scene in an Isaac Asimov book changes an adolescent’s understanding of gender identity. Colson Whitehead reads from his zombie novel “Zone One.” And tracing the sci-fi-themed Afrofuturist tradition in music, from Sun Ra to Janelle Monáe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices