Art Works Podcast

Stella Abrera and Sonja Kostich share a background in dance, are Asian-American and now lead an important artistic center in the Hudson Valley Kaatsbaan Cultural Park. In this podcast, they talk about Kaatsbaan Cultural Park and its 30 year history, Kaatsbaan’s singular role as both an artistic incubator and an arts presenter, its unique position during Covid in having the space to create and present work safely for both performers and audience, Stella’s and Sonja’s careers as dancers and their transition to arts administration, their commitment to diversity in programming, performers, staff and audience, Kaatbaan’s upcoming festivals, and the organization’s first grant from the Arts Endowment.  https://www.instagram.com/kaatsbaan/ https://twitter.com/kaatsbaandance   Keywords: Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Stella Abrera, Sonja Kostich, Hudson Valley, National Endowment for the Arts

We’re celebrating Pride Month and the Tony Awards by revisiting my 2020 interview with playwright, composer, lyricist Michael R. Jackson.  A Strange Loop, his play about a Black queer musical theater writer who is writing a play about a Black queer musical theater writer who is writing a play about a Black queer theater writer…, has wowed audiences and critics. Capturing some of 2020's most prestigious awards, including the Lambda Literary Award for Drama and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, A Strange Loop became the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama without a Broadway run, and Michael R. Jackson is the first Black artist to win a Pulitzer for a musical. (The NEA funded the world premiere of A Strange Loop, which was produced by Playwrights Horizons in 2019.)  The show emerged from the pandemic with a production in Washington DC at the Woolly Mammoth theater in  December 2021 which then transferred to Broadway-- opening in April 2022. Along with glowing reviews and cheering audiences, the play has also received 11 Tony Award nominations including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Score. A Strange Loop is bawdy, joyous, disturbing, funny, and heartbreaking. The songs are often bouncy tunes that stay in your head while the lyrics can tear at your heart.  In this podcast, Jackson talks about the years spent creating A Strange Loop, sharing that because he never thought the play would ever be produced, he just wrote what he wanted. He also discusses the possibilities that theater offers, his determination "to make works that are as challenging as they are entertaining," and the importance of soap operas in his early career. It was a pleasure to revisit this podcast, listen to Michael, and lose myself in the fabulous score. When you’re done with the podcast, check out this [Tiny Desk](Tiny%20Desk) concert with Jackson and the Broadway cast of A Strange Loop.   Follow us on Apple Podcasts!   Keywords: Michael R. Jackson, A Strange Loop. Pride Month, Tony Awards, Woolly Mammoth Theatre

Modern Warrior LIVE is a unique and moving theatrical experience that mixes first-person narrative with music and multimedia to chronicle U.S. Army veteran Jaymes Poling’s story of his three deployments to Afghanistan and subsequent transition back home. In today’s podcast, I speak with its co-creators, Poling and jazz trumpeter Dominick Farinacci, about the conception of Modern Warrior LIVE and their process of working together—both in creating the show and performing in it. Poling discusses his own challenges when transitioning to civilian life and the importance of writing to his healing process. They also talk about the sense of responsibility they feel to the audience, their outreach to veteran communities, the centrality of talk-backs as part of the show, and their making local mental health and veteran resources available to the audience. Follow us on Apple Podcasts!

You may know Daniel K. Isaac as Ben Kim from the television series “Billions,” but he’s also a committed and talented actor in theater and an accomplished playwright. In fact, his play “ONCE UPON A (korean) TIME”-- which was supported in part by the Arts Endowment-- is opening in New York in August. In this podcast, Daniel K. Isaac discusses his great love of theater, his new play “ONCE UPON A (korean) TIME”- his commitment to bring Asian and Asian-American voices and stories to the stage, his work with the Ma-Yi Theater Company, his series-in-development, “According to My Mother” which explores his challenging relationship with his mother after he came out to her, and, of course, his role as Ben Kim on the television series “Billions.” Here are the actors discussed in the podcast that Daniel K. Isaac wants us to know more about: Shannon Tyo,  Jon Norman Schneider, and Jeena Yi. Follow us on Apple Podcasts!

Novelist and NEA Literature Fellow Peng Shepherd's latest book is the speculative mystery, The Cartographers. Those of us who love maps think they are magical; in Shepherd’s book, this magic isn’t metaphorical. The Cartographers has, at its heart, not only the wonder and possibilities of map-making, but a map that is actually magical and becomes a dangerous obsession for a group of cartographers. In this episode of the Art Works podcast, Shepherd talks about her fascination with maps, the phenomenon of phantom settlements and how they inspired the book’s premise, her love of speculative fiction, and the challenges of writing “the second book.” Follow us on Apple Podcasts!

We kicked off our celebration of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month by going into the archives for excerpts from two great podcasts with cultural powerhouses and 2011 National Heritage Fellows taiko drum leaders Roy and PJ Hirabayashi and slack key guitarist Ledward Kaapana. The Hirabayashis discuss founding San Jose Taiko, creating a distinctly Asian-American art form, and their commitment to collaboration and community-building. Kaapana remembers the centrality of music during his upbringing in a small Hawaiian village (and the month-long house parties!), the unique aspects of Hawaiian music and music-making, and his joy in playing with guitarists across genres. There’s music, singing, and drumming! Follow us on Apple Podcasts!

This week, we're speaking with the first Latino and non-academic Poet Laureate of Kansas Huascar Medina. Medina, who is a member of the National Council on the Arts, brings a strong and vibrant voice to poetry with work that explore home, separation, place, and inclusion, and with his advocacy for grassroots artists. In this podcast, Medina reads from his recent collection Un Mango Grows in Kansas a bilingual celebration with poetry presented in both English and Spanish. He discusses making Kansas his home as a Latino, his dedication to writing poetry to and for ordinary people, his advocacy for local arts and artists, his work as Poet Laureate of Kansas (including the program "Exquisite Kansas"), and his thoughts about the Arts Endowment's significance for artists and arts organizations on the grassroots level. Follow us on Apple Podcasts!

Bassist, composer, and 2022 NEA Jazz Master Stanley Clarke discusses his long and storied career in this tuneful podcast.  He had hoped to become a classical musician, but along the way discovered jazz. Equally adept on the acoustic and electronic bass, Clarke was a successful soloist, and his tune “School Days” is considered a bass anthem. He’s worked with many musicians across genres, founding with 2006 NEA Jazz Master Chick Corea the jazz fusion group Return to Forever, teaming up with George Duke to record music that mixed pop, funk, and jazz, rocking with Keith Richards, Stewart Copeland, and Ronnie Wood, and touring with  Béla Fleck and Jean-Luc Ponty, while The Stanley Clarke Band  won the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.   Additionally, Clarke has scored over 70 films and television projects, including Boyz ‘n the Hood and Romeo Must Die. In this podcast, Clarke talks about it all with humor and insight, including his partnerships with Chick Corea, George Duke, and John Singleton. Listen to the concert celebrating to 2022 NEA Jazz Masters! Follow us on Apple Podcasts!  

This week, the podcast is divided into two parts with one subject—poetry. Part 1 is excerpts from my 2018 interview with poet Melissa Range. Her collection Scriptorium mingles history with the personal as Range explores how language is used and abused—who speaks with authority? Whose language is dismissed? What do we preserve and how? From medieval illuminations to Appalachian slang, Range discusses the joy and creativity that’s found in the vernacular. Scriptorium was chosen for the 2015 National Poetry Series by my second guest Tracy K. Smith who also wrote the foreword to the book. Part 2 of the pod excerpts my 2021 interview with 2017-2019 US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith.  Today’s podcast  focuses on her collection Wade in the Water a wide-ranging series of poems that reflect on history and contemporary America. Smith looks at both with an unflinching eye that mixes compassion and outrage with her lyricism and attention to language.  Smith’s work sings to us of possibility while demanding an acknowledgment of what was and is.  Again, we are compelled to grapple with: Whose voices are heard? What is preserved?  Smith discusses the power of poetry to open up historical narratives and complicate contemporary assumptions by speaking intentionally with a multiplicity of voices.

We're celebrating Jazz Appreciation month with an in-depth conversation with composer and jazz musician Terence Blanchard.  Terence Blanchard has a long list of exceptional jazz credentials, but  most recently he’s found acclaim as the first Black composer to compose an opera—Fire Shut Up in My Bones—presented by the Metropolitan Opera. In this podcast, he discusses how he came to write Fire Shut Up in My Bones (which was funded in part by the Arts Endowment), the bitter-sweetness of its Met premiere, how he works with collaborators in jazz, in opera and in film—especially his long collaboration with Spike Lee, how composing for film enabled him to write opera, the influence of Art Blakey on his music, the impact of Black Lives Matter on his work, and the joy of playing live with his group the E Collective. Terence Blanchard is thoughtful, eloquent, and gracious  with a deep sense of history and a great sense of humor. Follow us on Apple Podcasts!