All Of It with Alison Stewart

Our series Full Bio returns, and this month we are focusing on the life of pioneering playwright August Wilson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice, and whose plays focus on the life of Black Americans in the 20th century. Biographer Patti Hartigan joins us for a deep dive into her book, August Wilson: A Life. On day two, we speak about Wilson's early years as a poet and playwright and the beginnings of his creative partnerships.

[REBROADCAST FROM SEPTEMBER 28, 2023] "Jaja's African Hair Braiding" is a new Broadway play written by playwright Jocelyn Bioh. The play tells the story of Jaja and her hair braiding shop in Harlem, featuring a cast of West African immigrant braiders, where on one hot summer day everything comes to blows. Bioh joins us in studio to discuss the production alongside director Whitney White and actor Zenzi Williams (Bea). "Jaja's African Hair Braiding" runs through November 19, with special livestreamed performances available through the rest of the run.

November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, in which writers of all experience levels attempt to develop and draft a 50,000-word work in 30 days. Matt Bell, creative writing instructor at Arizona State University, author of the novel, Appleseed, and the writing craft book, Refuse To Be Done: How To Write And Re-Write A Novel In Three Drafts, along with Elizabeth Acevedo, National Book Award-winning author of The Poet X, who also wrote her YA novel, With the Fire on High, for NaNoWriMo in 2013, join to talk about the art of novel writing, the process of speed-drafting, and take calls from listeners developing their own works.

[REBROADCAST FROM October 3] A new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art spotlights the fraught relationship between French artists Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas, who often went back and forth between being friends, and rivals. We discuss the exhibit with curators Stephan Wolohojian, who worked on the paintings, and Ashley Dunn, who worked with drawings and works on paper. Manet/Degas is on view at the Met through January 7th.

NYC-based Armenian musician Astghik Martirosyan will present her debut album in concert on Sunday, November 19, at National Sawdust. The album, Distance, was written in 2020 as Martirosyan reflected on 44 days of fighting in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Martirosyan joins us in the studio to perform and discuss her album.

Our series Full Bio returns, and this month we are focusing on the life of pioneering playwright August Wilson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice, and whose plays focus on the life of Black Americans in the 20th century. Biographer Patti Hartigan joins us for a deep dive into her book, August Wilson: A Life. On day one, we learn about Wilson's childhood and education in Pittsburgh.

Music journalist Rob Harvilla has hosted The Ringer's podcast 60 Songs That Explain the '90s for several years and well over 60 songs. Now he's turned that podcast into a book of the same name. He just us to discuss some of those songs, and how they explain the '90s.

Michael Shannon and Paul Sparks star in a new production of "Waiting for Godot," from director Arin Arbus, presented by Theater for a New Audience through December 3. The actors and director join us to discuss the production, Shannon and Sparks' friendship, and how they pronounce "Godot."

"May December" stars Natalie Portman as a Hollywood actor and Julianne Moore as a woman married to a man she once had a sexual relationship with when she was thirty-six and he was in the seventh grade. The strange comedy-drama is directed by Todd Haynes, who joins us to discuss the film.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Cunningham joins us to discuss his latest novel, Day, which follows one family on the same day over three years, 2019, 2020, and 2021, to examine how the pandemic changes their relationships to one another.