KPFA - Bay Area Theater

Len Cariou, Tony Award winner for the original production of “Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street” and star of his one-man show, “Broadway and the Bard,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Although recognized for his presence on television for the past eight seasons (as Tom Selleck’s dyspeptic father on the long running hit series “Blue Bloods”), Cariou has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in the theatre, including originating leads in two landmark Stephen Sondheim musicals. In Broadway and the Bard, he is able to give full voice to an idea that he has harbored since his first prophetic Broadway season when he appeared as Shakespeare’s Henry V and followed by a starring role in the musical Applause. In this delightful play of verse and song, Cariou combines his two great loves – Shakespeare and American Musical Comedy –into one rich and diverse tapestry.

Len Cariou is a distinguished member of the Theatre Hall of Fame and a three-time Tony® nominee for Applause, A Little Night Music, and for his legendary performance as Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Tony®Award winner, Best Actor). His other Broadway credits include Nightwatch, Cold Storage, Teddy & Alice, Dance a Little Closer, The Speed of Darkness, Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party, and Proof. Showing his range, he toured the U.S. as Cap’n Andy in Showboat, and as Nils Bohrin in Copenhagen. He scored his most recent triumph in The Gate Theatre’s definitive, hit production of All My Sons in Dublin, Ireland, reprising his role as Joe Keller, for which he alsowon raves at the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles in 2007.

Broadway and the Bard played June 21-24, 2018 at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. This podcast originally posted as a Radio Wolinsky podcast on June 20, 2018.

Lesher Center website

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Carol Channing (1921-2019), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded during the tour of her memoir, “Just Lucky I Guess,” recorded on October 18, 2002.  The great Broadway star Carol Channing died on January 15, 2019 at the age of 97. This iconic performer, along with starring in Hello Dolly for over 5000 performances, made her mark in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. appeared on the Broadway stage in thirteen other shows, and was also known for her TV appearances and for her role in the film Thoroughly Modern Millie.

Strange looking – tall in heels, a waist that looked 15 inches wide and a head large enough to fit on Mount Rushmore, Carol Channing walked into the studio all in black, her shirt buttoned to the top. As the interview continued, she unbuttoned and you could see her performer’s aura, which was enhanced by the group of KPFA workers who congregated in the control room to watch her through the plate glass. It was extraordinary.

The best way to hear Carol Channing is unfettered by editing. This is the interview exactly as it took place on that day in 2002.

Richard Wolinsky:

As I learned later, Carol wasn’t exactly truthful about her film performances. She did star in one other film, Otto Preminger’s Skidoo, a bizarre attempt to be hip which featured Jackie Gleason and Carol as a married couple who are forced onto a yacht owned by a gangster named God, played by Groucho Marx. The high point is Carol singing the title song while walking the deck, stoned on LSD. Check it out.

This podcast was originally posted as a Radio Wolinsky podcast on January 17, 2019.

1973 photo: Allan Warren, Creative Commons.

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This podcast was posted on August 11, 2017 as a Radio Wolinsky podcast.

Barbara Cook, the legendary Broadway star, died on August 8, 2017. This interview was recorded in her apartment on the upper West Side of Manhattan on June 21st, 2016  on publication of her memoir, Then & Now. Hosted by Richard Wolinsky.

Barbara Cook came to New York from Atlanta in the early 1950s and was the young ingenue in the musicals Flahooley and Plain & Fancy. Her first major role was as Cunegonde in Leonard Bernstein’s Candide. She made her greatest mark as the original Marian the Librarian opposite Robert Preston in the hit show, The Music Man, and followed it up as Amalia in the original production of She Loves Me, currently in a hit revival on Broadway. Along the way, she performed in several New York revivals, including The King and I, Show Boat and Carousel.

After a rough few years in which she battled weight issues and alcoholism, she emerged in the mid-1970s as one of America’s greatest interpreters of the American musical canon, with performances in cabaret venues, at the Met, and at Carnegie Hall. She also was featured on the Sondheim Follies in Concert albumin 1985, which has become a must-own for collectors of musical theatre recordings.

In 2010, she returned to Broadway in Sondheim by Sondheim, and received the Kennedy Center honors in 2011. She continued to perform into the fall of 2016, and was planning to give another concert in the spring of 2017 but cancelled due to ill health.

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Lauren Gunderson, whose play The Catastrophist is currently being streamed on the Marin Theatre Company website through July 24, 2021, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Recorded March 10, 2021.

Lauren Gunderson is the most produced living American playwright, and currently several of her works can be streamed on-line.

The Flats, which was co-written with Cleavon Smith and Jonathan Spector, can be streamed at the Aurora Theatre website.

Her one person play, Natural Shocks, can also be streamed through the Marin Theatre website or directly through Soundcloud.

You can listen to Audible Theater’s production of The Half Life of Marie Curie starring Kate Mulgrew on audible.com at this address. A filmed version of Marie Curie was available at Theatre squared, and may have extended past March 14, 2021. Check the website for details.

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This interview was originally posted as a Radio Wolinsky podcast on December 5, 2016.

John Lahr, interviewed by Richard Wolinsky.

John Lahr spent over two decades as drama critic for The New Yorker, and continues to write profiles for the magazine. His latest book, Joy Ride, consists of essays and reviews from the magazine. The author of several books, including Notes on a Cowardly Lion about his father, actor Bert Lahr, and a recent biography of Tennessee Williams, John Lahr also co-authored Elaine Stritch’s classic one-woman show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, and has served as a theatrical artistic director. Being on both sides of the fence, as theatrical professional and critic, he is perhaps the leading person in America to discuss theater today.

This interview was recorded in the KPFA studios on October 4, 2015, but his views on political theater in the interview have only become more relevant after the four years of the Trump regime.

In the interview, Lahr also discusses several aspects of criticism, including the relationship of theater to film, Tennessee Williams’ last plays, the work of August Wilson, and his relationship with his famous father.

Author photo, “Joy Ride” by John Lahr, Bloomsbury Books

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