As Cupid takes aim this week, a look at how sex and sexuality are handled — and mishandled — on-screen. Kurt Andersen speaks with Slate’s Jeffrey Bloomer on depictions of first-time sex. Intimacy-scene consultant Alicia Rodis describes how she helps actors who are virtual strangers seem like they are deeply and lustilly in love during sex scene ...…

An hour on country music: past, present and future. Nashville-based music reporter Jewly Hight gives Kurt an update on how women artists in country music are forging new paths in an industry that’s become unwelcoming. Dolly Parton reflects on her long career. Willie Nelson shares an Aha Moment about the song that changed his life. And the incom ...…

In 2015, an autistic boy disrupted a performance of The King & I on Broadway, reacting loudly to a scene where a slave is whipped. He and his mother were asked to leave the theater. After the performance, one of the actors from the ensemble posted a reaction to the incident on Facebook. He wrote: “When did we as theater people, performers and a ...…

Natasha Wimmer, whose translations of Roberto Bolaño are extraordinary, tells Kurt Andersen about her rules of the road. Plus, the play “Behind the Sheet” helps to expose and reassess J. Marion Sims, a pioneer in gynecology whose advances came at the expense of the slaves on whom he conducted brutal experiments. And Kurt talks with artist Jessi ...…

An hour on continuing innovations in American dance. Choreographer Donald Byrd uses dance to illuminate what it means to be black in America. Elizabeth Streb speaks with Kurt Andersen about how she defies gravity with her “extreme action” techniques. And how the salsa pioneers Celia Cruz and Johnny Pacheco got the world on its feet. Learn more ...…

On this Studio 360 extra, we’re sharing a great new podcast called Aria Code. Produced by WQXR and the Metropolitan Opera, it features singers and other thinkers decoding the magic of a single piece from an opera, followed by the music uninterrupted. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests reflect on the Biblical story of Samson a ...…

Thanks to a new exhibit at the Guggenheim, the art world is rediscovering Hilma af Klint. How was this Swede so ahead of her time, and will she finally get her due? Lee Israel’s memoir about forging letters by famous writers, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” is now a terrific movie starring Melissa McCarthy. Israel died in 2014, but here she is in a ...…

The story of “Doug,” the Nickelodeon cartoon from the ’90s that used a minimalist approach but had a profound impact on young viewers. Kurt Andersen talks with Rina Banerjee, who makes enchanting installations and who is the subject of a retrospective show at just 55. And the breathtaking backstory and staging for “The Jungle,” the play that re ...…

John August, the host of Scriptnotes, explains his approach to screenwriting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy techsupport@pri.org (PRI).

Some of our favorite stories from the past year. First, Kurt Andersen speaks with Daniela Vega, who delivered a stunning performance in "A Fantastic Woman." Casey Trela is a musician in Los Angeles with a Kafkaesque day job: he watches movies and TV shows over and over and over again looking for the tiniest production glitches. Lauren Groff has ...…

Some of our favorite stories from the past year. First, the musical equivalent to stock art, library music, where composers anonymously churned out some of the strangest, funkiest — and most recognizable — music of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. The Domino’s Pizza mascot, The Noid, was just a whimsical advertising mascot — until it became part of a r ...…

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 tha ...…

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 har ...…

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 ...…

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 ...…

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 thera ...…

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 tha ...…

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,” ...…

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 finall ...…

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 satisfy ...…

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 Monroevill ...…

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 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 ...…

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 venu ...…

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 ho ...…

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 ...…

Stacey Rose is a playwright in Saint Paul, Minnesota but by day -- and sometimes also by night — she’s a respiratory therapist. Stacey is also a fellow with the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab and her play, “The Danger: A Homage to Strange Fruit” just played in Brooklyn. As part of our Day Jobs series, Stacey told us about her two very different ...…

Kurt Andersen and Theresa Rebeck discuss her new play about the most acclaimed actress of her day, Sarah Bernhardt. Justine Bateman’s new book examines being inside — and then outside — the fame bubble. A listener finds something surprising inside a book at a used bookstore — an inscription from the famous author of the book to an even more fam ...…

Kurt talks to the author Daniel Torday about his new book, “Boomer1,” a dark satire about the tension between millennials and baby boomers coming to a head. Then a segment about something boomers couldn’t stand about the generation that preceded them: its love for Lawrence Welk’s unapologetically wholesome variety show. For our Guilty Pleasures ...…

It was late in 1971 when the singer-songwriter Don McLean released his song, “American Pie.” Today, everybody still seems to know all the words… but nobody seems to know what those words really mean. Who is the “jester [who] sang for the King and Queen/In a coat he borrowed from James Dean?” And what was it that “touched [the singer] deep insid ...…

Ethan Hawke came of age as a Gen X heartthrob, but he’s stayed relevant and is as busy as ever. He’s appeared recently in Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” and the Nick Hornby adaptation “Juliet, Naked,” and the fourth film he’s directed, “Blaze,” is out now. Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” has become so strongly associated with film noir, it’s har ...…

Swingin’ on the flippity-flop in the PNW. Sub Pop CEO Megan Jasper on her legendary hoax on The New York Times with her lexicon of grunge terms. Carrie Brownstein on Sleater-Kinney and the difference between TV stardom and music stardom. What residents in the Washington towns where “Twin Peaks” was filmed love — and hate — about the show. And t ...…

BoJack Horseman, Netflix’s animated series about a washed-up ’90s sitcom star living in the Hollywood Hills, is beginning its fifth season. Its protagonist is half-horse, half-man, and its tone is half-jokes, half-existential-angst. That’s a study in contrasts that seems inexplicable—until you talk with the show’s creator, Raphael Bob-Waksberg. ...…

Ann Dowd, who won an Emmy for her portrayal of Aunt Lydia on “The Handmaid’s Tale,” joins Kurt to talk about playing characters — many of them terrifying — for three decades. In the 1960s, when hippies turned to Christianity in what’s commonly called the Jesus Movement, Christian rock was born. And so was a belief that the end of the world was ...…

Only 12 entertainers have won the EGOT sweep: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. In this hour of Studio 360, we look back at some of our favorite stories about EGOT winners. Composers Robert Lopez and Marvin Hamlisch both perform in our studio. Mel Brooks’ classic comedy skit, “The 2,000 Year Old Man.” And finding inspiration in Whoopi Goldberg’s st ...…

Young guitarists emulate standard-bearers like The Kinks’ Dave Davies, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton. But when those guitarists were making their mark in the 1960s, they worshipped their own guitar hero: Link Wray. Sixty years ago, in 1958, Wray released “Rumble,” an instrumental song that had the 12-bar form of blues but pioneere ...…

Kurt Andersen talks with the celebrated architect Liz Diller about how making buildings is like making movies, and she picks some of her favorite examples of films that use architecture brilliantly. How court-ordered psychotherapy helped spur the material Richard Pryor performed for his album “Wanted: Live in Concert,” which marks its fortieth ...…

What happens when artists get political. Kurt talks to conservative painter Jon McNaughton about protest art in the age of Trump. The dramatic use of masks in the paintings of Detroit’s Tylonn Sawyer. Our American Icons series looks at the song “Dixie,” the Confederate symbol that’s impossible to remove. And Roya Hakakian and Reza Aslan on Iran ...…

The excellent new movie Blindspotting deals in complex ways with issues of race, gentrification, and police brutality. But it’s a drama both leavened and enhanced by its unique use of rap and verse. Co-writers and stars Daveed Diggs (Hamilton) and Rafael Casal (Def Jam Poetry) play best friends Collin and Miles who, over the course of the last ...…

Some of the greatest film music of the 20th century came from readymade stock albums recorded by virtually anonymous musicians. Author David Hollander and composer Keith Mansfield tell the story of vintage library music. How Lucille Fletcher’s thrilling 1943 drama “Sorry, Wrong Number” shocked American radio listeners. And writer Matt Novak unc ...…

Studio 360 presents a special bonus episode of another great podcast — Hit Parade. This week, one of music's most iconic personalities — Madonna — is turning 60 years old, and Hit Parade is here to celebrate her. Host Chris Molanphy, a music journalist and pop-chart historian, digs through Madonna's large catalog, particularly at a time when sh ...…

In “Walden,” Henry David Thoreau helped shape the way we think about nature and our place in the world. An American Icons segment examines why many readers think that Thoreau was a genius while others think he’s a hypocrite. A second American Icons segment remembers Leonard Bernstein’s “Young People’s Concerts” with the New York Philharmonic, w ...…

This month, the music world is celebrating what would’ve been Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday. As conductor of the New York Philharmonic, he changed the way audiences understood classical music. Five musicians from the Philharmonic remember playing under Bernstein’s baton. This story was produced by WNYC’s Sara Fishko. (Originally aired Sept ...…

Ken Jennings got famous for his record-breaking run on “Jeopardy!” But he stayed famous for his keen wit, and he joins Kurt Andersen to talk about his new book on the history and future of comedy, “Planet Funny.” Mira T. Lee explains how a Picasso painting, “Girl in a Mirror,” found its way into her debut novel. And the versatile 8-person vocal ...…

Pressing play — stories about children and how recreation is a form of creation. Kurt Andersen takes a field trip to Governors Island with design critic Alexandra Lange to learn about the history of playgrounds — and see some extraordinary slides. Paola Antonelli tells us the humble beginnings of the Frisbee, its origins being in a pie-baking c ...…

It was 40 years ago when Steve Martin released the concert album, “A Wild and Crazy Guy.” These days Martin is known as an actor, a novelist, a playwright, an accomplished banjo player, a major art collector. But before all that, he was best known for wearing a stupid joke arrow on his head – or a pair of rabbit ears. He wears those rabbit ears ...…

The coasts are not the only cultural centers in America: Kurt Andersen takes a trip to the FRONT International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. A musician pays the bills as a Mastering Quality Control Technician for movies and TV shows. And what we can learn about the Bible from Beyoncé. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphon ...…

An ode to animals, read by the late poet Marianne Moore. Plus, since the dawn of humanity, more or less, people have used representations of animals to tell stories. But some artists have wanted to buck that trend, depicting animal stories from the animals’ point of view. Laline Paull is one of these artists. Her novel The Bees was dubbed "Wate ...…

Biologist Roger Payne discovered whale song when he started studying a mysterious recording in 1966. The recording came from a sound designer doing military research, Frank Watlington, who was trying to record undersea dynamite explosions.Payne became obsessed with the recording, and made a startling discovery: the sounds were repeating. That m ...…

Laurel Braitman is a historian of science and the author of Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves. She’s particularly interested in animals held in captivity. “If their minds aren’t stimulated and challenged they can end up with all sorts of disturbing behaviors,” she explai ...…