Bar Crawl Radio

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This conversation was first posted on the Hunkered Down Podcast on June 5, 2020.

J.T. Rogers urge to move is reflected in the dynamism of his Tony Award-winning play "Oslo" and in the way he perambulated around his office during our conversation. Clearly, this artist thinks on his feet.

“Oslo” -- first produced on Broadway in 2017 -- is a heart-wrenching telling of the back-channel meetings started by a Norwegian couple to bring Palestinian and Israeli leaders together to talk about peace—person to person. Of course, in the end, the resulting Oslo Accords failed to bring peace to the region.

J. T. Rogers' works include: One Giant Leap, Blood and Gifts, The Overwhelming, White People, and Madagascar. “Oslo” was his first Broadway play.

Alan Winson, interviewer.

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This is a re-dux of the Hunkered Down Podcast --conversations with creatives who stopped creating during the COVID19 pandemic:

For eleven successful seasons -- Kathryn Erbe played Detective Alexandra Eames to Vincent D’Onofrio’s Det. Robert Goren on Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Prior to Criminal Intent – Ms. Erbe appeared as a death row inmate on the award-winning TV series OZ. This talented actor has worked steadily in television, film, and theatre since she graduated from NYU in 1989 and most recently appeared in Sam Levinson’s teen slasher film – “Assassination Nation.”

For this episode, Ms. Erbe talks about her early work in television with Lynn Redgrave on “Chicken Soup,” her experiences of working on “Criminal Intent,” and her work in theatre. At the end of conversation, Ms Erbe reads from Arthur Miller’s “The American Clock” -- a “radio show” being produced by the Steppenwolf Theatre.

CONTACT: Alan Winson -- [email protected]

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Is it important to be happy? Are you happy? How do you really know? A credible, scientific answer to these questions would require a deeper dive with experts for a future BCR episode. For now – we just asked our Upper West Side Manhattan neighbors out for a stroll in Riverside Park below a crumbling Civil War edifice – “Are you happy?”  It was the end of summer -- a couple of days before the Jewish New Year – the world was filling with CO2 – Texas women could no longer control their health choices -- COVID-19 infections were on the rise

--  and our guests were “happy.”

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The Poetry Foundation editors write: “When major parts of our lives seem to change in a flash, we are reminded that poetry can help us to cope with new realities and to assess the unknowns ahead. When we are stepping out into uncharted terrain, alone or together, poetry can capture our emotions. It can share our vulnerabilities and scars, along with our strengths.”

Today. we are sharing the first program of our new podcast co-produced with Chris Brandt -- “Poetry. What is it good for?” For this first episode, we explored the 20-year social and emotional after-tremors of the attack by Saudi Arabian terrorists on the United States through the powerful tool of poetry with J. Chester Johnson and Cornelius Eady. 

J. Chester Johnson is a poet, playwright, essayist, translator, speaker and teacher. He visited Bar Crawl Radio a couple of months ago to talk about his book – “Damaged Heritage” -- on the history and his family’s connection with the 1919 Elaine, Arkansas Massacre, one of many human crimes against humanity in which U. S. White citizens killed over 100 U.S. Black citizens and then prosecuted the survivors for their act of murder. 

Though Cornelius Eady, an American poet, focuses on issues of race and society, his verse accomplishes a lot more as indicated in his deeply felt reactions to the 9/11 attack on this country. Cornelius is also a musician whose verse is performed as song by The Cornelius Eady Trio. His poetry is simple and accessible, centering on jazz and blues, family life, violence, and society from a racial and class-based POV.

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Bar Crawl Radio travelled to Henderson County, in western North Carolina to talk with author and apple grower, Evan Williams, whose family has resided in the Blue Ridge Mountains since before the Revolutionary War. His writing abides within the people and culture of small town Appalachia. From Evan’s website -- “Surrounded by orchard, and writing from within a former apple storage shed, converted to dwelling, Evan inhabits the family compound along with a smattering of his adult, married children, several rescue pets, and a growing number of grandchildren.”

This conversation was recorded in the Triskelion Brewing Company in Hendersonville North Carolina. We talked about southern-style, small town religion, the mysteries of apple-growing, the "new" south, and Evan's recently published book "Ripples."

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Like something out of the 1956 film “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” –-- Donald Trump has invaded our psyches as we sleep. We live in an irrational nation – and we work out our roiling emotions in our dreams.  Dreaming about the Trumpster is a thing -- according to a study done by a NYC psycho-therapist – Martha M. Crawford.

For this BCR episode -- Park Bench Chat series -- we asked our neighbors promenading in Riverside Park – if the former president had made an appearance in their dreams.  Along the way we hooked an Obama dream and some political gab – and at the very end of the day  -- just as we were finishing up our cocktails -- a man named “Walker” walked into our podcast and told us an amazing story – so be sure to listen to the end of this one --

We also give a shout-out to UWS Open Hearts led by Corinne Lowe – working to secure homes for NYC’s homeless.

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