Although it was written in 1882, Henrik Ibsen's play An Enemy of the People still resonates today. Richard Thomas and Boyd Gaines, the stars of a new production of the play, join Ira Flatow to talk about the play's themes of power and truth, and the role of whistle-blowers.
Originally published on Fri November 2, 2012 1:09 pm
This interview was originally broadcast on Fresh Air on July 18, 2008.
A new revival of the hit musical Annie is now in previews on Broadway, scheduled to open Thursday. In the new production, the canine co-star Sandy is played by "Sunny," who has an understudy named "Casey." Bill Berloni trained them both — and, like the original Sandy in the original Broadway show, those dogs, too, were rescue dogs, found in animal shelters.
Susan Orlean is a staff writer for the New Yorker and has contributed articles to Vogue, Rolling Stone and Esquire. She is the author of several books, including The Orchid Thief.
Nealy and Jeff Lang (Elizabeth Banks and Tobey Maguire) struggle with infidelity, secrets, guilt and a raccoon problem in The Details.
Credit Radius-TWC
Rebecca (Kerry Washington) and Peter (Ray Liotta) face infidelity as well; The Details is about illustrating that in this suburb, life isn't nearly as Stepfordian as it seems.
Originally published on Thu November 1, 2012 8:28 pm
The well-explored notion that something's rotten beneath the neighborly pleasantries and manicured lawns of suburbia has proved to be a durable one, if properly tweaked, updated or, in the case of The Details, taken literally and inflated to absurd, Lynchian heights.
One of New York's biggest economic engines reopened on Wednesday after being dark in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. Broadway brings in more than $1 billion in annual ticket sales and billions more in revenue from hotels, restaurants and other businesses in the Times Square area. But getting Broadway running, with much of the transportation system down, required some extreme measures.
Writer Joe Queenanreads on average 125 books a year. He is also the author of Closing Time, Balsamic Dreams and Red Lobster, White Trash & the Blue Lagoon.
Joe Queenan reads so many books, it's amazing that he can also find time to write them. Queenan estimates he's read between 6,000 and 7,000 books total, at a rate of about 125 books a year — (or 100 in a "slow" year). "Some years I just went completely nuts," Queenan tells NPR's Robert Siegel. "A couple years ago I read about 250. I was trying to read a book every single day of the year but I kind of ran out of gas."
Originally published on Thu November 1, 2012 8:02 pm
For most of us, the enjoyment of horror movies depends on the sheer unlikeliness of their storylines. Knowing that the average swamp does not contain a slimy monster or that a nest of cannibals would have a hard time surviving in a depopulated desert — at some point, even mutants have to make a Wal-Mart run — is the cocoa that helps us sleep. And that's the challenge for The Bay: This astonishingly effective environmental nightmare is based on reasoning that, if you've been following the science, seems all too possible.
Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) grows tired of being overshadowed by Fix-It Felix Jr., the "good guy" star of their game, and sets off on a quest to prove he's got what it takes to be a hero.
Credit Disney
Wreck-It Ralph succeeds in part by building carefully conceived, elaborately detailed video game worlds.
Originally published on Sat November 3, 2012 12:15 am
After a very long engagement that began with the original Toy Story, Disney finally made an honest woman out of Pixar in 2006, when it paid the requisite billions to move the computer animation giant into the Magic Kingdom. But Disney's spirited 2010 hit Tangled made it abundantly clear that Pixar had a say in the creative marriage: The story of Rapunzel may be standard Disney princess fare, but the whip-crack pacing and fractured-fairy tale wit felt unmistakably Pixar. From now on, it would seem, Mickey Mouse and Luxo Jr.
Mountain climbing asks a lot of its devotees. One should ideally be in top physical condition, with all senses at peak performance, and possessed of a quality that, if it's not best described as fearlessness, is at least a willingness to ignore the natural instinct not to dangle precariously above a drop of several thousand feet.
