KPFA - Bookwaves/Artwaves

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Luis Alfaro, playwright, whose latest play is “The Travelers,” at the Magic Theatre in Fort Mason, San Francisco, February 15 – March 5, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Luis Alfaro is a Los Angeles-based Chicano activist and playwright, on the faculty at USC, whose plays have been performed throughout the United States and who is a former playwright in residence at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, discusses his life and career in this full hour interview. Among his previous works are “Oedipus el Rey” and “Bruja,” both of which were performed at the Magic.

“The Travelers” is set in the small town of Grangeville, near Fresno, in a monastery, into which stumbles a man who has been shot. The interview was recorded via zencastr on February 7, 2023. Complete 55-minute interview.

Luis Alfaro Wikipedia page.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. All times Pacific Standard Time.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Playbill List of Streaming Theatre: Updated weekly, this is probably the best list you’ll find of national and international streaming plays and musicals. Each week has its own webpage, so scroll down.

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write [email protected]

The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – February 16, 2023: Luis Alfaro appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Jane Smiley, whose latest novel is “A Dangerous Business,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

The author of seventeen adult fiction novels, two short story collections, five non-fiction works plus several young adult novels, Jane Smiley is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of “A Thousand Acres,” and more recently The Last Hundred Years Trilogy. She current teaches creative writing.

“A Dangerous Business” takes us to Monterey, California in the early 1850s as Eliza Ripple, newly widowed and still only eighteen, winds up at a house of prostitution in order to survive and have a life of her own. The book follows her as she meets a friend who works out of a similar house for women, and the two embark on the trail of a murderer of women. Recorded January 20, 2023.

Complete 35-minute Interview

Fay Weldon (1931-2023) who died on January 4th, 2023 at the age of 91, published 31 novels during her lifetime, including The Life and Loves of a She Devil, one of four novels which later became films. She was also a playwright, short story writer, television writer and non-fiction author. Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky interviewed her in the KPFA studios in March 1990 while she was on tour for her now classic novel, The Cloning of Joanna May.

Fay Weldon’s career continued for the next thirty years after the interview with several novels, including a sequel to She-Devil, more plays, more short stories and several works of non-fiction. We had a second chance to interview Fay Weldon two years later while she was on tour for her novel, Life Force. That interview will air later this year.

This interview was digitized, remastered, and edited in February, 2023 by Richard Wolinsky. First time on the air in over thirty years. Complete 39-minute Interview.

Review of “Clyde’s” at Berkeley Rep Peets Theater through February 26, 2023.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. All times Pacific Standard Time.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Playbill List of Streaming Theatre: Updated weekly, this is probably the best list you’ll find of national and international streaming plays and musicals. Each week has its own webpage, so scroll down.

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write [email protected]

The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – February 9, 2023: Jane Smiley – Fay Weldon appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Wil Haygood, author of Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Colorization looks at the history of Hollywood from the perspective of the African American community, from protests over the showing of the racist silent film, “Birth of a Nation,” to the first great Black director, Oscar Micheaux, through the forties and the rise of black actors such as Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge, to so-called Blaxploitation films and up to the present, all the while putting the films in context of the larger society and race in America.

In the interview, he discusses the origins of the book, the careers of some of the Black pioneers in Hollywood film, and the way television and streaming has changed the race equation in our culture.

Wil Haygood is a journalist who spent several years with the Washington Post before writing a series of biographies. He is also known for an essay in the Post which became the source for the successful film, Lee Daniels’ The Butler.

Complete 42-minute interview.

Second of two parts: Dennis Lim, film critic and Artistic Director of the New York Film Festival and author of “Tale of Cinema,” an examination of the work of South Korean film-maker Hong Sang-soo, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. A retrospective of the works of Hong Sang-soo, selected by Dennis Lim runs February 3 -18 at BAMPFA in Berkeley.

Dennis Lim was previously the the director of programming of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Before that he was film editor at the Village Voice, and has taught at Harvard University and NYU. His first book, David Lynch: The Man from Another Place, was published in 2015.

This second part of the interview focuses on Dennis Lim’s own career, his view of movies today, and a brief discussion about the work of David Lynch.

Complete Interview.

Review of “In Every Generation” at TheatreWorks Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts through February 12, 2023.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. All times Pacific Standard Time.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Playbill List of Streaming Theatre: Updated weekly, this is probably the best list you’ll find of national and international streaming plays and musicals. Each week has its own webpage, so scroll down.

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write [email protected]

The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – February 2, 2023: Wil Haygood – Dennis Lim appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Dennis Lim, film critic and Artistic Director of the New York Film Festival and author of “Tale of Cinema,” an examination of the work of South Korean film-maker Hong Sang-soo, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Dennis Lim was previously the the director of programming of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Before that he was film editor at the Village Voice, and has taught at Harvard University and NYU. His first book, David Lynch: The Man from Another Place, was published in 2015.

His new book, Tale of Cinema about the South Korean director Hong Sangsoo, focuses on all of Hong’s work through the lens of the 2005 film of the same name. Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive, BAMPFA is having a retrospective of seven of Hong Sangsoo’s films from February 3rd through February 18th, including Tale of Cinema on opening night. Most of Hong’s films are available for rental through Apple and Amazon streaming, and ten can be found on the free library app, Kanopy, including two from the BAM/PFA retrospective. Complete Interview

Photos courtesy Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)

Russell Banks (1940-2023), who died on January 7, 2023, in conversation with Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios on June 7, 2000 while on tour for his short story collection, The Angel on the Roof.

Russell Banks, who died on January 7th, 2023 at the age of 82 was a master of long and short form fiction. In a career that began in 1975 and continued to his death, there were 14 novels, six collections of short stories, two volumes of poetry, and three works of non-fiction. Among his novels were Affliction and The Sweet Hereafter, both of which became critically acclaimed films, plus Continental Drift and Cloudsplitter. His most recent novel, The Magic Kingdom, was published in 2022. The interview was digitized, remastered and edited in January 2023 and hasn’t been aired in over twenty years.

Russell Banks Wikipedia page

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. All times Pacific Standard Time.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Playbill List of Streaming Theatre: Updated weekly, this is probably the best list you’ll find of national and international streaming plays and musicals. Each week has its own webpage, so scroll down.

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write [email protected]

The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – January 26, 2023: Dennis Lim – Russell Banks appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Jack O’Brien, theatre director and author of Jack in the Box, or How to Goddamn Direct, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Jack O’Brien has won three Tony Awards and has been nominated seven times. The former artistic director of The Old Globe in San Diego, from 1981 to 2007, he’s one of the premier directors working in America today. Among his Broadway shows are The Full Monty, Hairspray, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Catch Me If You Can and The Coast of Utopia. He directed the much lauded 2018 revival of Carousel on Broadway. Most recently, in 2021, he directed Hairspray in London.

This book, his second after a memoir, Jack Be Nimble, discusses some of the lessons he has learned as a director, but quickly changes into reminiscences about such performers as Marsha Mason, Jerry Lewis and John Goodman, playwright Tom Stoppard, and fellow director Mike Nichols.

The interview focuses on his early career, the future of theatre after the pandemic, directing Shakespeare, and other issues. Complete 57-minute interview.

Jack O’Brien Wikipedia page

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. All times Pacific Standard Time.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Playbill List of Streaming Theatre: Updated weekly, this is probably the best list you’ll find of national and international streaming plays and musicals. Each week has its own webpage, so scroll down.

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write [email protected]

The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – January 19, 2023: Jack O’Brien appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Suzy McKee Charnas (1939-2023), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded over Halloween Weekend, 1981 at the World Fantasy Convention in the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley.

Suzy McKee Charnas, who died on January 2nd, 2023 at the age of 83, was a novelist and short story writer focusing on fantasy and science fiction. Over a career that began in 1974 with her first novel, Walk to the End of the World, she wrote eleven novels and several short stories, winning both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best short stories. She is best known for her tetralogy of novels, The Holdfast Chronicles, beginning with the aforementioned Walk to the End of the World and concluding with The Conquerer’s Child in 1999.

In 1981, she had just written three novels, focusing on feminist issues in a field that was still dominated by men. Her second novel, Motherlines, which featured no male characters at all, was decades ahead of its time.

A lot has changed since 1981, and the interview also serves as a time capsule in terms of both questions and answers, and in regard to feminist writing, publishing and genre writing.

She continued to work steadily after 1981, but she wrote no more novels after 1999, though short stories continued to be published. None of her works were adapted for television or film, though she did adapt The Vampire Tapestry for the stage in 2001.

The interview aired once shortly after the recording, and was digitized, remastered and edited on January 4, 2023. Complete 29-minute interview.

Frank Galati (1943-2023), who died on January 2, 2023 at the age of 79, was a giant in American theatre.

A long-time member of the legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Frank Galati was winner of Tony Awards for the adaptation and direction of The Grapes of Wrath in 1990, was nominated for an Oscar for co-adapting The Accidental Tourist for the screen, and was the director of Ragtime and The Pirate Queen on Broadway. Frank Galati is also known for adapting several other works for stage and screen.

Frank Galati was in the San Francisco Bay Area to direct a production of “Rhinoceros” by Eugene Ionesco at ACT’s Geary Theatre, and it was in ACT’s offices that this interview took place on May 22, 2019.

“Rhinoceros” is considered to be one of the greatest works of political theatre of the absurd. Originally produced in the late 1950s, the play hearkens back to the origins of fascism and how propaganda infects the minds of citizens.

At the end of the interview, Frank Galati discusses his upcoming project, a musical version of James Agee’s “A Death in the Family,” with music and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (Ragtime, A Man of No Importance). The show, titled “Knoxville” made its world premiere at the Asolo Repertory Company in Sarasota Florida in April 2022, and an original cast album was released digitally in October and on disc in November, 2022. First posted as a Bay Area Theater podcast on June 2, 2019.

Photos: Richard Wolinsky

Complete 42-minute interview.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. All times Pacific Standard Time.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Playbill List of Streaming Theatre: Updated weekly, this is probably the best list you’ll find of national and international streaming plays and musicals. Each week has its own webpage, so scroll down.

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write [email protected]

The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – January 12, 2023: Suzy McKee Charnas – Frank Galati appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Vanessa Veselka, whose latest novel is “The Great Offshore Grounds,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

“The Great Offshore Grounds” is an epic novel about two sisters on a quest to find themselves during the upheavals of the current era. It’s a detailed examination of feminism, of lives lived on the edge, and of life in the parts of America we hear little about.

Vanessa Veselka’s first novel, “Zazen,” has just been reissued by Vintage. Published by a small press over a decade ago, it looks at the travails of young adults set against the backdrop of an ever-increasing political violence in America. Both novels are available in trade paperback.

Vanessa Veselka, the daughter of journalist Linda Ellerbee, left home at the age of fifteen and early in her life lived the life of a homeless vagabond, eventually becoming a professional musician in the Pacific Northwest, a union organizer, and a writer of fiction.

Complete 51-minute interview.

Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) is known today as one of the most important writers of detective fiction during the final quarter of the 20th Century. His wise cracking Boston private eye, Spenser, Spenser’s sidekick Hawk, and girlfriend Susan Silverman have become iconic figures. When Parker died at the age of 77 in 2010, 38 Spenser novels had been published. Two more came out posthumously, and a third was completed by his agent. Novelist Ace Atkins has now written nine more Spenser novels. The series Spenser for Hire, starring Robert Urich and Avery Brooks ran for three seasons, and Brooks had a spin-off that ran for half a season, A Man Called Hawk. Several television movies were also made from Parker’s Spenser books, the most recent, Spenser Confidential, is actually based on one of Ace Atkins’ Spenser novels.

This interview hosted by Richard Wolinaky and Lawrence Davidson, was recorded in the spring of 1981 while Robert B. Parker was on tour for his novel, Early Autumn, and marked the first Probabilities interview with a mystery writer. His career hadn’t advanced under his first publisher, Houghton-Mifflin, and he switched to Delacorte, and Parker’s audience began to grow. This was his seventh Spenser novel, and his eighth over all (Wilderness had come out late in 1980 and Looking for Rachel Wallace was his first under the new contract. At the time of the interview, his first five novels were all out of print in paperback.

Though he says in the interview his detective fiction would be limited to the Spenser series, eventually he branched out to write another series of nine books featuring Jesse Stone, a former LAPD detective who becomes the police chief in a small New Enngland town, and six novels featuring Sunny Randall, a female detective. Eventually there was some crossover between the three series. Along the way, he also wrote a handful of westerns, the Cole and Hitch series, and two books featuring Raymond Chandler’s detective, Philip Marlow. When Parker died in 2010 of a sudden heart attack, the family decided to let other writers continue the Spenser, Stone and western series, which go on to this day.

Complete 40-minute Interview.

Review of “As You Like It” at San Francisco Playhouse through January 14, 2023.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. All times Pacific Standard Time.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Playbill List of Streaming Theatre: Updated weekly, this is probably the best list you’ll find of national and international streaming plays and musicals. Each week has its own webpage, so scroll down.

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write [email protected]

The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – January 5, 2023: Vanessa Veselka – Robert B. Parker appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Shelley Singer (1939-2022), mystery author of six Jake Samson mysteries and four Barrett Lake mysteries, and former book reviewer on KPFA, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded on November 19, 1986 at her East Bay home.

Mystery and suspense novelist Shelley Singer died of heart failure on November 10, 2022 at the age of 83. The author of six mysteries, two science fiction novels, one mainstream novel and several short stories, she was a key writer in the Sisters in Crime movement of the nineties. She also taught fiction writing and served as a manuscript consultant.

Richard Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky interviewed Shelley Singer at her home on November 19, 1986. At the time of the interview, she’d published three Jake Samson mysteries with a fourth on the way, along with an early science fiction novel.

A few months after the interview, she joined the two Richards for a monthly series of book review programs. Her participation lasted two or three years before she moved north and after a time chose to forgo the long commute to Berkeley.

Warm and welcoming, but not suffering fools, Shelley was a joy to work with, and her reviews were well-thought out and incisive. But it was her friendship at the time that was most important.

Over the course of the next decades of her life, Shelly continued to write Jake Samson mysteries, moved over to a new amateur detective, Barrett Lake, and began a three-volume science fiction series, of which the first volume, “Torch Song” was published in 2014.

“Torch Song” and the Jake Samson mysteries are available through Amazon. This interview was digitized and edited in December 2022 and has not been heard in over thirty years. Complete interview.

Philip Pullman, author of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, “The Golden Compass,” “The Subtle Knife” and “The Amber Spyglass” is interviewed by host Richard Wolinsky. Recorded November 30, 2000.

Philip Pullman is the acclaimed author of a series of three  tantasy novels, titled collectively, “His Dark Materials” (there’s also a novella, a short story and a graphic novel in the series). Originally marketed as young adult novels, these books take on Judeo-Christian notions of morality as well as the way belief systems are manipulated by organized religion — all in the guise of a coming of age fantasy taking place on a world like, and very unlike, our own.

A failed 2007 version of “The Golden Compass” opened in theaters, and was not followed by sequels. Currently HBO is running a series based on the trilogy.

In 2017, Philip Pullman began a prequel series, “The Book of Dust,” with “La Belle Sauvage,” and dealing with the events where Lyra, as a baby, is brought to Oxford. The second volume in that series, “The Secret Commonwealth,” was published in October, 2019.

This interview was conducted during Philip Pullman’s only author tour through the United States. The program has been remastered and reedited in 2019 by Richard Wolinsky.

(featured image, 2008, Anna via Flickr, Creative Commons)

Complete 30-minute interview.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. All times Pacific Standard Time.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Playbill List of Streaming Theatre: Updated weekly, this is probably the best list you’ll find of national and international streaming plays and musicals. Each week has its own webpage, so scroll down.

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write [email protected]

The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – December 29, 2022: Shelley Singer – Philip Pullman appeared first on KPFA.