Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen

She’s a special correspondent for BBC Studios, a regular contributor to MSNBC, and co-host, with Anthony Scaramucci, of the podcast The Rest Is Politics. “People call journalists curious; I think it’s just nosiness.” A higher form of nosiness!

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research makes many of the 24 million items in its archive available online, but there’s an “electric moment of actually touching a document,” says its executive director. “My first was when Lenin’s party card was put in my hand.” (Patrons are urged not to touch the documents. This is not some sort of scholarly petting zoo.)  Music: Jardena Gertler-Jaffe, Bethany Pietroniro.  

This Obie-winning actor created the role of Helen in the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Memnon. “It is definitely under-utilized. Underappreciated.” Greek mythology in modern theater? That too, but here she refers to the peanut in American cooking. See her in Marcus Garvey Park throughout July. Working. Not just lounging around.

Decades ago, he shook hands with W. E. B. Du Bois, born in 1868. It seems impossible, but then again Einstein was a contemporary of Billy the Kid. Lewis went on to write a Pultzer-Prize winning biography of Du Bois. Einstein went on to be Einstein. Presented with the Maysles Documentary Center. Music: Henrique Prince.

These principals of the architectural firm WORKac found it challenging to design their own home. The psychological complexity of domestic life? The culmination of years of thought? “The hardest thing about designing our house was that we just haven’t designed a lot of houses.” Produced with the Center for Architecture. Music: Rashad Brown.

The artistic director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company summarizes his aesthetic: “The curtain goes up, twenty minutes happen, the curtain comes down, and it is transformative.” Easy to say, brilliant to achieve. And they do.

He’s worked from Hanoi to Berlin to America’s old-growth forests. “As a photographer, it’s only in getting lost that you move forward.” As a civilian, when I get lost, I pretty much just get lost. Another reason to admire him. Produced with the National Academy of Design. Music: Stephanie Jenkins.

He led the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and pretty much created theater at Lincoln Center. “The happiest moments of my life have been in rehearsal rooms.” Well, yeah. In there with him? David Mamet, Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett. Sequentially not simultaneously. Presented with Hunter College. 

This lawyer works on health policy at Columbia’s Mailman School: “Public health in a certain sense is about balancing, the rights we have as individuals with the needs of society to preserve, protect, and promote the health of the population.” Not a bad approach to democracy in general. Music: Caitlin Warbelow

This children’s book author—Because of Winn-Dixie, The Tiger Rising, The Tale of Despereaux—describes her innate ability: “I have a knack for nothing except being filled with wonder.” I’d dispute that, as would legions of admiring readers.