KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

Jack O’Brien, theatre director and author of Jack in the Box, or How to Goddamn Direct, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Jack O’Brien has won three Tony Awards and has been nominated seven times. The former artistic director of The Old Globe in San Diego, from 1981 to 2007, he’s one of the premier directors working in America today. Among his Broadway shows are The Full Monty, Hairspray, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Catch Me If You Can and The Coast of Utopia. He directed the much lauded 2018 revival of Carousel on Broadway. Most recently, in 2021, he directed Hairspray in London. This book, his second after a memoir, Jack Be Nimble, discusses some of the lessons he has learned as a director, but quickly changes into reminiscences about such performers as Marsha Mason, Jerry Lewis and John Goodman, playwright Tom Stoppard, and fellow director Mike Nichols. The interview focuses on his early career, the future of theatre after the pandemic, directing Shakespeare, and other issues.   The post Jack O’Brien, “Jack in the Box, or How to Goddamn Direct,” 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

Suzy McKee Charnas (1939-2023), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded over Halloween Weekend, 1981 at the World Fantasy Convention in the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. Suzy McKee Charnas, who died on January 2nd, 2023 at the age of 83, was a novelist and short story writer focusing on fantasy and science fiction. Over a career that began in 1974 with her first novel, Walk to the End of the World, she wrote eleven novels and several short stories, winning both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best short stories. She is best known for her tetralogy of novels, The Holdfast Chronicles, beginning with the aforementioned Walk to the End of the World and concluding with The Conquerer’s Child in 1999. In 1981, she had just written three novels, focusing on feminist issues in a field that was still dominated by men. Her second novel, Motherlines, which featured no male characters at all, was decades ahead of its time. A lot has changed since 1981, and the interview also serves as a time capsule in terms of both questions and answers, and in regard to feminist writing, publishing and genre writing. She continued to work steadily after 1981, but she wrote no more novels after 1999, though short stories continued to be published. None of her works were adapted for television or film, though she did adapt The Vampire Tapestry for the stage in 2001. The interview aired once shortly after the recording, and was digitized, remastered and edited on January 4, 2023.                   The post Suzy McKee Charnas (1939-2023), “The Vampire Tapestry,” 1981 appeared first on KPFA.

Frank Galati (1943-2023), who died on January 2, 2023 at the age of 79, was a giant in American theatre. A long-time member of the legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Frank Galati was winner of Tony Awards for the adaptation and direction of The Grapes of Wrath in 1990, was nominated for an Oscar for co-adapting The Accidental Tourist for the screen, and was the director of Ragtime and The Pirate Queen on Broadway. Frank Galati is also known for adapting several other works for stage and screen. Frank Galati was in the San Francisco Bay Area to direct a production of “Rhinoceros” by Eugene Ionesco at ACT’s Geary Theatre, and it was in ACT’s offices that this interview took place on May 22, 2019. “Rhinoceros” is considered to be one of the greatest works of political theatre of the absurd. Originally produced in the late 1950s, the play hearkens back to the origins of fascism and how propaganda infects the minds of citizens. At the end of the interview, Frank Galati discusses his upcoming project, a musical version of James Agee’s “A Death in the Family,” with music and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (Ragtime, A Man of No Importance). The show, titled “Knoxville” made its world premiere at the Asolo Repertory Company in Sarasota Florida in April 2022, and an original cast album was released digitally in October and on disc in November, 2022. First posted as a Bay Area Theater podcast on June 2, 2019. Photos: Richard Wolinsky.   The post Frank Galati (1943-2023), theatre director and librettist, 2019 appeared first on KPFA.

Richard Adams (1920-2016) interviewed in 1978 by Richard Wolinsky. First posted January 1, 2017. Richard Adams, the author of “Watership Down,” “Plague Dogs” “Shardik” and other novels, died on Christmas Eve, 2016 at the age of 96. Born in 1920, he served as a liaison officer during World War II, and later joined the civil service, rising to the rank of Assistant Secretary to the Ministry of Housing. Past the age of fifty and a life-long civil servant, Richard Adams began telling stories to his daughters about talking rabbits while on a car trip. The daughters prompted him to turn the stories into a novel. After four failed attempts, a fifth try in 1972 found a publisher and “Watership Down” became an international best-seller and later a beloved classic fantasy. He followed that with “Shardik,” a novel about a giant bear. Along the way, Adams became an advocate against the use of animal testing, which is the subject of his third novel, “The Plague Dogs.” It was on tour for that third novel upon its American publication in the spring of 1978 that Richard Wolinsky interviewed Richard Adams. Though he’d conducted a handful of interviews with a co-host, this was Richard Wolinsky’s first solo shot in what would be a long career as literary interviewer. Though Adams continued to write well into the 21st Century and would publish fourteen more books , he never again achieved the success of his first few novels, especially of course Watership Down. Watership Down and The Plague Dogs both became animated films; a live action film of another novel. The Girl in a Swing, was released in 1988. Watership Down also became a 39 episode TV series in from 1999 to 2001. A new mini-series of Watership Down from BBC One can be found on Netflix, featuring the voices of James McAvoy, Ben Kingsley, Nicholas Hoult and John Boyega. The interview was digitized, remastered and edited in 2016 by Richard Wolinsky. The exact date and location of the interview were not listed on the cassette. The post Richard Adams, “The Plague Dogs,” 1978 appeared first on KPFA.

Encore podcast first posted March 12, 2017. Douglas Preston, author of “The Lost City of the Monkey God” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios, January 13, 2017. Douglas Preston has written several works of fiction and non-fiction, including a best-selling series of thrillers co-written with Lincoln Child (the Agent Pendergast series). In his latest work of non-fiction, Preston delves into the story of a lost city in Honduras, in Mosquitia, and a civilization that vanished after the Spanish came to the Americas. His story involves con men and crooks who spent decades looking for the city, then turns to a documentarian who became obsessed and eventually took state of the art equipment to discover whether such a city exists. In fact, he found two, and Douglas Preston was there. Still later, in 2015, Preston went on an expedition into the jungle to see what remains of the ruins, and while there contracted a rare and often fatal tropical disease which is currently in remission. This interview also contains an overview of Preston’s writing career, including a look at the process in which he and Lincoln Child create the Pendergast books. Since this interview, four Pendergast novels have been published with a fifth scheduled for 2023, one book in the Gideon Crew series, and three in a new series featuring Nora Kelly. “The Lost City of the Monkey God” remains his most recent non-fiction work. Douglas Preston website The post Douglas Preston, “Lost City of the Monkey God,” 2017 appeared first on KPFA.

Shelley Singer (1939-2022), mystery author of six Jake Samson mysteries and four Barrett Lake mysteries, and former book reviewer on KPFA, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded on November 19, 1986 at her East Bay home. Mystery and suspense novelist Shelley Singer died of heart failure on November 10, 2022 at the age of 83. The author of six mysteries, two science fiction novels, one mainstream novel and several short stories, she was a key writer in the Sisters in Crime movement of the nineties. She also taught fiction writing and served as a manuscript consultant. Richard Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky interviewed Shelley Singer at her home on November 19, 1986. At the time of the interview, she’d published three Jake Samson mysteries with a fourth on the way, along with an early science fiction novel. A few months after the interview, she joined the two Richards for a monthly series of book review programs. Her participation lasted two or three years before she moved north and after a time chose to forgo the long commute to Berkeley. Warm and welcoming, but not suffering fools, Shelley was a joy to work with, and her reviews were well-thought out and incisive. But it was her friendship at the time that was most important. Over the course of the next decades of her life, Shelly continued to write Jake Samson mysteries, moved over to a new amateur detective, Barrett Lake, and began a three-volume science fiction series, of which the first volume, “Torch Song” was published in 2014. “Torch Song” and the Jake Samson mysteries are available through Amazon. This interview was digitized and edited in December 2022 and has not been heard in over thirty years.   The post Shelley Singer (1939-2022), mystery author and KPFA book critic, 1986 appeared first on KPFA.

William Gibson is best known as the father of the Cyberpunk movement in science fiction, beginning with “Neuromancer” in 1984 and continuing to his most recent novel, “Agency,” published in 2020. Its prequel in the Jackpot series from 2014, “Peripheral” is now an Amazon Prime TV series. On February 4, 2003, he was in the KPFA studios on the book tour for his novel, “Pattern Recognition”  and was interviewed by Richard Wolinsky. In the interview he discusses his history as a writer, and the history of the internet (and its future). From a twenty year vantage point, it’s fascinating. The post William Gibson, “Pattern Recognition,” 2003 appeared first on KPFA.

Derek Goldman, co-playwright (with Clark Young) and director of “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski,” starring David Straithairn, playing at Berkeley Rep’s Peets Theatre through December 18th, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Recorded by zencastr on November 16, 2022. “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski,” tells the story of holocaust witness Jan Karski, who was sent to Poland to report back on what he’d seen. When he returned to the United States and Britain, no one believed him when he spoke of the atrocities he’d seen. The play uses Karski’s words and Straithairn’s acting chops to bring to life his memories as a living camera to Nazi horrors, and as a warning about humanity’s inhumanity. Derek Goldman is the Artistic Director for the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University, where he is a Professor of Theater and Performance Studies. Over the course of his career he’s authored more than thirty professionally produced plays and directed over 90 productions. A film version of “Remember This” played at film festivals in 2022 and is scheduled to air on “Great Performances” on PBS some time in 2023. The post Derek Goldman, co-playwright/director, “Remember This” at Berkeley Rep appeared first on KPFA.

Julie Powell (1973-2022) was the best-selling author of  “Julie & Julia,” which was based on her blog posts in which she duplicated all of Julia Child’s recipes in the classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She was interviewed by Richard Wolinsky on December 16, 2009 while she was on tour for her second (and it turned out, her last) book, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession. Julie Powell died of cardiac arrest on October 26, 2022 at the age of 49. Shortly before her death, she began writing a series of articles about food for Salon. Julie & Julia became a hit Nora Ephron film with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Cleaving is the story of how she learned to be a butcher, intertwined with the story of the challenges in her marriage. The post Julie Powell (1973-2022), “Cleaving” and “Julie & Julia,” 2009 appeared first on KPFA.

Emma Rice, whose latest production, an adaptation of Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights” plays at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre November 18th through January 1st, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Emma Rice was formerly the Artistic Director of Kneehigh Theatre, which brought several shows to Berkeley Rep, including Brief Encounter, and The Wild Bride, along with 946 (The Story of Adolpho Tips). Her new company, Wise Children, as formed in 2017 following a short stint as Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, produced several live video productions during the pandemic shutdown, including Wuthering Heights, which now airs on Sky Arts. The production of Wuthering Heights focuses not on the romance angle of previous adaptations, but on how it’s actually a story of abuse, revenge and passion, told with a Greek Chorus and some irreverence. Wise Children website. The post Emma Rice, playwright/director, “Wuthering Heights,” at Berkeley Rep appeared first on KPFA.