All Of It with Alison Stewart

All Of It with Alison Stewart

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All Of It with Alison Stewart episodes

  • Best of 2022 Movies: Helen Mirren on 'The Duke'

    [REBROADCAST FROM APRIL 20TH, 2022] Academy Award-winning actress Dame Helen Mirren stars in the new film, "The Duke," a true story about a heist of a precious painting by an elderly man in London. She's with us to discuss her role in the film as well as what's next in her career.

    20 min
  • Best of 2022 TV: The Final Season of 'Better Things'

    [REBROADCAST FROM FEBRUARY 28TH, 2022] Pamela Adlon is the creator, writer, director and star of "Better Things," which tells the story of Sam Fox (played by Adlon), a single mother and working actress, as she raises her three daughters Max, Frankie, and Duke. Adlon joins us to discuss the fifth and final season of the much-loved comedy series, which IndieWire dubbed "an experience like nothing else on television." 

    20 min
  • 2022 Theater You Can Still See: Set Design from Beowulf Boritt

    [REBROADCAST FROM September 23, 2022] If you love theater, you've likely seen a set designed by Tony Award-winner Beowulf Boritt, from "Come From Away" to "Flying Over Sunset" to "Merry Wives" to "POTUS." Now he's drawn back the curtain on his process, and the importance of set design, in his new book, Transforming Space Over Time: Set Design and Visual Storytelling with Broadway's Legendary Directors. Boritt joins to reflect on his career, and his collaboration with directors like James Lapine, Kenny Leon, Hal Prince, Susan Stroman, Jerry Zaks, and Stephen Sondheim.

    You can currently see Boritt's work onstage in "The Piano Lesson" (through January 29), "Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man & The Pool" (through January 15), and "Ohio State Murders" (through late February).

     

    Mecca: A Conversation with Stephen Sondheim
    Setting: Stephen Sondheim’s Turtle Bay town house: the holiest of holies for several generations of theater artists. We’re in a ground-floor living room, sprawling and cluttered, spreading from a small front entrance foyer through the main chamber to a back conservatory that opens into a community garden. The room’s salient visual feature is Steve’s collection of antique puzzles, displayed in frames and vitrines and arrayed on tables.
    Beowulf Boritt: I’m sure you hear this from a lot of people, but your shows, more than any others, are what convinced me to pursue theater. I grew up thinking musicals were frilly and silly, but when I started being exposed to your shows—first Sunday, then Into the Woods and Sweeney Todd—I thought, This is what I want to do.
    Stephen Sondheim: So you’re blaming me?
    BB: Just placing blame where it’s due, Steve! I asked various directors, “What productions made a strong impression on you when you were young?” Both James [Lapine] and Susan Stroman credited Sweeney Todd and its design as the show that made them think, This is what theater can be.
    Of course, Hal directed it, and the set was famously a real, and enormous, Victorian factory reassembled onstage by Eugene Lee. But that set isn’t inherent in the writing; in fact, the action is never literally in a factory. When you were developing the show with Hugh Wheeler, it wasn’t with a factory setting in mind, was it?
    SS: No, no. That came afterward. That was Hal’s idea. I don’t know how he came to it. For me, Sweeney Todd is not really a story of how the Industrial Revolution manufactured vengeful Sweeney Todds. That had nothing to do with what I wrote at all—though I did ultimately put one line in the lyrics about machines, to make Hal happy.
    I wanted to do it as a small, scary show. I told Hal that if we were going to do it at a big theater, I’d like to drape the entire place in black, have gaslit lampposts all around, and have the cast all around,too: on top of you, beside you, in the aisles, and so on. I wanted the whole theater to look like the inside of a coffin. I wanted an organ and an organist onstage for that opening prelude—a loud organsound to start the show.
    BB: You said you have no part in designing the show, but that’s a very clear visual image you just described—your initial thoughts about it.
    SS: I have no visual imagination to say, “The costumes should be red.” But of course I have some ideas about staging the numbers. The director can throw them out, but I do go on record with what I am thinking.
    BB: I’m going to rewind to early in your career, to one of my favorite musicals and one I have not yet hada chance to design. Did you have any visuals in mind as you wrote West Side Story with Arthur Laurents and Leonard Bernstein?
    SS: Where is Puerto Rico? No, I don’t think I had anything in mind, but I’ll tell you an anecdote, one of those things that one never forgets. Oliver Smith, who designed it, wanted to show us the model of the setso we went out to his house in Brooklyn.
    He showed it to us and there was concern over the scene with the highway bridge, for the rumble at the end of the first act. Jerry Robbins—or maybe it was Lenny or Arthur—turned to me and said, “What do you think?” I was twenty-five years old! “I agree,” I said. “It just doesn’t seem quite right.” Oliver turned on me and said, “Who cares what you think? You don’t know anything about the theater!” He was really ugly. He was upset that they didn’t like it, but he couldn’t lash out at Jerry, Lenny, or Arthur, so—
    BB: And you were the new guy.
    SS: Yes. You know , I understand why he did it.
    BB: Did you ever work with him again?
    SS: No.
    BB: When you’re the new kid, and an old hand lashes out at you, it’s amazing how much it stings. You remember it forever. On my first Broadway show, Spelling Bee, that happened to me. Someone involved in the show, not James, really went after me because I was the new kid. To be honest, I had probably donesomething stupid—but it was unpleasant, and I will never forget it.
    BB: Last question, and it isn’t really a question. I’m going to shorten the quote, but you’ve said, “Lyric writing has to exist in time. You have to lay the sentences out so there’s enough air for the ear to take them in. There’s music, there’s costumes, there’s lighting. There’s a lot of things to listen to and look at. And therefore, the lyric must be in that sense simple.”
    SS: The experience of a musical is so rich that it’s like you’re getting two kinds of dessert. You’re getting the pecan cake and the caramel ice cream, so you don’t want to overdo it with either one.
    SS: All art is about economy of means. It’s about finding the part that is necessary and getting rid of the unnecessary. That’s the hard part, but once you know it, if you’re ruthless, you’ll get rid of the extra and keep the great. In general, in art, less is more. Although you must remember, there is also Tolstoy!
    18 min
  • 2022 Art You Can Still See: David LaChapelle at Fotografiska

    [REBROADCAST FROM September 15, 2022] As a photographer, David LaChapelle's images have defined pop culture since the 90's, whether through the classic image of Tupac in a bathtub, the official album cover for Travis Scott's Astroworld, or photos of models such as Amanda Lepore and Angelina Jolie. While he is known for his iconic celebrity portraits, his art also makes social commentary on capitalism and celebrity, sometimes described as "kitsch pop surrealism." The photographer's largest retrospective ever is now on view in a museum-wide exhibition at Fotografiska New York. LaChapelle joins us alongside Amanda Hajjar, founding director of exhibitions for Fotografiska, to discuss the show. The exhibition ends January 15.

    19 min
  • 2022 Art You Can Still See: 'Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe'

    [REBROADCAST FROM October 18, 2022] An exhibition at The Brooklyn Museum celebrates the life and work of Nellie Mae Rowe, a Black female artist who created while living in the Jim Crow American South. Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe, displays Rowe's drawings, sculptures, and paintings, and tells the story of how she made art in a dangerous period for Black people in the South. Co-curators Catherine Morris and Jenée-Daria Strand are with us to talk about the life of Nellie Mae Rowe, and why her art is important to engage with. The show runs through January 1.

    19 min
  • 2022 Art You Can Still See: 'Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure'

    [REBROADCAST FROM April 13, 2022] Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure features over 200 objects, most of which have never been shown to the public. Curated by Jean-Michel's sisters, Lisane and Jeanine Basquiat, the show offers a multidimensional portrait of Jean-Michel's life and work. Lisane and Jeanine Basquiat join us to discuss their brother's art, and the show, which is on view now through January 1.

    13 min
  • 2022 Theater You Can Still See: 'Death of a Salesman'

    [REBROADCAST FROM October 27, 2022] For the first time ever on a Broadway stage, the Loman family of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" are being played by Black actors. Wendell Pierce, who stars as Willy Loman, and Sharon D. Clarke, who stars as Linda Loman, join us to discuss this interpretation of the classic play, which is running now at the Hudson Theater, through January 15.

    19 min
  • 2022 Theater You Can Still See: 'Topdog/Underdog'

    [REBROADCAST FROM October 25, 2022] The Broadway revival of Suzan-Lori Parks' "Topdog/Underdog" stars Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as brothers Lincoln and Booth, engaged in constant conflict with each other and perform a strange and disturbing reenactment of Lincoln's assassination. The New York Times calls the revival "hilarious, harrowing, and superbly acted." Parks, Hawkins, and Abdul-Mateen II join us to discuss the show, running now at Golden Theatre through January 15.

    17 min
  • Full Bio: 'G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century' by Beverly Gage

    For this month's Full Bio, we discussed the life of J. Edgar Hoover with biographer Beverly Gage. She is the author of the new book G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century.

     

    Part 1: Hoover's early life and the important connections he made in college.

    Part 2: How Hoover came to lead the FBI, and the questions surrounding his sexuality. [Starts at 20:48]

    Part 3: Hoover's obsessions with communism, MLK, and the Kennedys. [Starts at 1:05:03]

    Part 4: Hoover's relationship with Nixon and the final years of his life. [Starts at 1:34:22]

    1 hr 54 min
  • Directing 'Matilda the Musical'

    The beloved Roald Dahl novel was turned into a beloved movie... and then a beloved musical... and now a soon-to-be-beloved movie musical! Director Matthew Warchus, who directed the stage version of the show as well as this new film, joins us to discuss "Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical," premiering on Netflix on Christmas Day.

    30 min

About All Of It with Alison Stewart

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All Of It with Alison Stewart is a show about culture and its consumers.