KPFA - Bookwaves/Artwaves

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Helen Benedict, co-author (with Eyad Awwadawnon) of “Map of Hope and Sorrow: Stories of Refugees Trapped in Greece,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Helen Benedict is the author of seven novels, including “Wolf Season” and “Sand Queen,” and five books of non-fiction. Her latest book, “Map of Hope and Sorrow,” co-written by Eyad Awwadawnon, a Syrian refugee who was planning to get a law degree in Damascus, is partly an oral history of refugees coming to Greece after escaping from their home countries. Helen Benedict teaches journalism at Columbia University,.

In the interview, she discusses how she first came to meet Eyad, and then takes a look at the stories of the refugees in the book, focusing on stories that didn’t quite make it into the book, and then looks at the harsh terrain of life in the camps.

Complete 54-minute interview.

Review of “Little Shop of Horrors” at TheatreWorks Lucie Stern Theater in Palo Alto through December 31, 2022.

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 22, 2022: Helen Benedict appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Derek Goldman, co-playwright (with Clark Young) and director of “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski,” starring David Straithairn, playing at Berkeley Rep’s Peets Theatre through December 18th, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Recorded by zencastr on November 16, 2022.

“Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski,” tells the story of holocaust witness Jan Karski, who was sent to Poland to report back on what he’d seen. When he returned to the United States and Britain, no one believed him when he spoke of the atrocities he’d seen. The play uses Karski’s words and Straithairn’s acting chops to bring to life his memories as a living camera to Nazi horrors, and as a warning about humanity’s inhumanity.

Derek Goldman is the Artistic Director for the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University, where he is a Professor of Theater and Performance Studies. Over the course of his career he’s authored more than thirty professionally produced plays and directed over 90 productions. A film version of “Remember This” played at film festivals in 2022 and is scheduled to air on “Great Performances” on PBS some time in 2023.

Complete 42-minute interview

William Gibson is best known as the father of the Cyberpunk movement in science fiction, beginning with “Neuromancer” in 1984 and continuing to his most recent novel, “Agency,” published in 2020. Its prequel in the Jackpot series from 2014, “Peripheral” is now an Amazon Prime TV series.

On February 4, 2003, he was in the KPFA studios on the book tour for his novel, “Pattern Recognition”  and was interviewed by Richard Wolinsky. During the long interview, he took time to discuss how “Neuromancer” came to be written, and the origins of “Cyberpunk.” That excerpt from the interview is heard on this program.

Complete 47-minute interview.

Review of “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812” at Shotgun Players Ashby Stage through February 25 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 – December 1, 2022: Derek Goldman – William Gibson appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in New York City on August 10, 1983.

Isaac Asimov, who died at the age of 72 in 1992, was considered, along with Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein, one of the three great masters of American science fiction in the 20th century.

Isaac Asimov began sending in stories and getting published in science fiction magazines at the age of nineteen, and at the age of 21, with the publication of the short story “Nightfall” in John W. Campbell’s Astounding Stories magazine. moved into the first ranks of science fiction writers. That status was confirmed a year later with the publication of the short story, “Foundation,” later renamed “The Encyclopedists,” which would be the first of several short stories and novellas republished as the three volumes of the Foundation trilogy.

In the 1940s, he turned to a series of stories focused on robots, which became the collection I Robot and then in the 1950s turned to novels, including Pebble in the Sky, The Caves of Steel and The End of Eternity. Along the way, through his entire career, he wrote dozens of non-fiction books on a wide variety of topics, along with young adult novels, and mystery novels and short stories. In the end, the number of books he wrote or edited exceeded 500, not counting separate short stories and articles.

This interview was conducted in a New York City bookstore Asimov was visiting to sign copies of a new collection, The Union Club Mysteries, a year after his return to the world of the Foundation trilogy, Foundation’s Edge, was published. Because his two –volume autobiography had come out a couple of years earlier and dealt with the plots and themes of his fiction, the interview focused instead on his life as a writer and his work with editors and publishers.

Isaac Asimov Wikipedia entry.

Complete 47-minute Radio Wolinsky podcast.

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), the legendary author who passed away in 2012, sat down for an interview with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff in 1992 at his home in Los Angeles.

Though called a science fiction or fantasy writer, Ray Bradbury spanned all genres, from poetry to mystery to mainstream fiction. Among his works include The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Farenheit 451 and The Illustrated Man.

This interview has been digitized and re-edited by Richard Wolinsky. Complete 38-minute Radio Wolinsky podcast.

Ray Bradbury Wikipedia entry

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Most in-person events still require proof of full vaccination for all audience members over 12 and masks. Many venues will require proof of boosters. Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination status 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 – November 24, 2022: Isaac Asimov – Ray Bradbury appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Emma Rice, whose latest production, an adaptation of Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights” plays at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre November 18th through January 1st, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Emma Rice was formerly the Artistic Director of Kneehigh Theatre, which brought several shows to Berkeley Rep, including Brief Encounter, and The Wild Bride, along with 946 (The Story of Adolpho Tips). Her new company, Wise Children, as formed in 2017 following a short stint as Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, produced several live video productions during the pandemic shutdown, including Wuthering Heights, which now airs on Sky Arts.

The production of Wuthering Heights focuses not on the romance angle of previous adaptations, but on how it’s actually a story of abuse, revenge and passion, told with a Greek Chorus and some irreverence. Wise Children website.  Headshot: Suki Dhanda.

Julie Powell (1973-2022) was the best-selling author of  “Julie & Julia,” which was based on her blog posts in which she duplicated all of Julia Child’s recipes in the classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She was interviewed by Richard Wolinsky on December 16, 2009 while she was on tour for her second (and it turned out, her last) book, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession.

Julie Powell died of cardiac arrest on October 26, 2022 at the age of 49. Shortly before her death, she began writing a series of articles about food for Salon. Julie & Julia became a hit Nora Ephron film with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Cleaving is the story of how she learned to be a butcher, intertwined with the story of the challenges in her marriage.

Review of “Colonialism is Terrible but Pho is Delicious” at Aurora Theatre through December 4, 2022.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Most in-person events still require proof of full vaccination for all audience members over 12 and masks. Many venues will require proof of boosters. Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination status 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 – November 17, 2022: Emma Rice – Julie Powell appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Richard Powers, author of “Bewilderment,” just out in trade paperback, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded via zencastr on September 27, 2021.

Richard Powers is one of America’s most distinguished novelists. In 2006, his novel The Echo Maker, won the National Book Award and was a finmalist for the Pulitzer, and his most recent novel, The Overstory, was short-listed for the Booker Prize and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

“Bewilderment” is the story of a father and son relationship, set in a world slightly different from our own, in which a president much like Donald Trump won re-election. The father is an astrobiologist exploring planets based on spectroscopic input whose wife died before the book opens; he is dealing with his continued grief and with issues involving his brilliant son who has a host of psychological issues. Long-listed for the National Book Award, and the subject of excellent reviews, “Bewilderment” is a meditation on grief, on love, on science and on the wonders of nature.

Complete 43-minute interview.

Lisa Ramirez, playwright, “The Book of Sand” at the Oakland Theater Project, November 11 – December 4th, and Associate Artistic Director of the Oakland Theater Project, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Second of two parts.

Lisa Ramirez is a bi-coastal actor and playwright. She recently appeared in “Water by the Spoonful” at San Francisco Playhouse. Among the plays she has written are “Exit Cuckoo,” a one-person play about nannies, and “To the Bone.” During the pandemic shutdown, she presented a solo version of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” in a parking lot in Oakland, using radios. She also works with the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles

Oakland Theater Project website.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Most in-person events still require proof of full vaccination for all audience members over 12 and masks. Many venues will require proof of boosters. Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination status 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 – November 10, 2022: Richard Powers – Lisa Ramirez (part two) appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

George Saunders, author of the short story collection, Liberation Day, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

George Saunders is the highly acclaimed author of several short story collections, including “Tenth of December,”  and “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline,” and others, along with political commentary that has appeared in The New Yorker and other magazines. He won the 2017 Booker Prize for his only novel to date, “Lincoln in the Bardo.”

This latest collection, “Liberation Day,” contains nine stories, some of which, including the title story, are science fiction. Others delve into the minds of people coping with their lives. There are subtle political implications in several of them, but all of them are stunning works of fiction.

The interview was recorded on October 10, 2022 and was edited by Richard Wolinsky October 26-28, 2022. Complete 45-minute interview.

Lisa Ramirez, playwright, “The Book of Sand” at the Oakland Theater Project, November 11 – December 4th, and Associate Artistic Director of the Oakland Theater Project, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Lisa Ramirez is a bi-coastal actor and playwright. She recently appeared in “Water by the Spoonful” at San Francisco Playhouse. Among the plays she has written are “Exit Cuckoo,” a one-person play about nannies, and “To the Bone.” During the pandemic shutdown, she presented a solo version of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” in a parking lot in Oakland, using radios. She also works with the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles

Oakland Theater Project website.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Most in-person events still require proof of full vaccination for all audience members over 12 and masks. Many venues will require proof of boosters. Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination status 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 – November 3, 2022: George Saunders – Lisa Ramirez (part one) appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Jesse Green, New York Times theatre critic, and co-author of “Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Mary Rodgers (1931-2014) was the daughter of composer Richard Rodgers, and is best known as the composer of the hit musical “Once Upon a Mattress” and the novel, “Freaky Friday,” which has been adapted into various media. But she is also known as the best friend of composer Stephen Sondheim, as well as for knowing, as the book points out, pretty much everyone in the Broadway universe.

The memoir tells the story of her life from her perspective, with additional material created by Jesse Green, who is the New York Times chief theatre critic. The interview covers elements of her life, and focuses on the nature of criticism. Recorded September 8, 2022.

Complete 48-minute interview.

Clive Barker, noted horror and dark fantasy author, in conversation with the Probabilities crew, Richard A. Lupoff, Lawrence Davidson and Richard Wolinsky, recorded September, 1987 while he was on tour for his fantasy novel, “Weaveworld.” Digitized, remastered and edited in October 2022. Hosted by Richard Wolinsky.

The last quarter of the 20th century was a golden age of horror novels. Leading the pack, of course, was Steven King. But there was also Peter Straub, Anne Rice, Dean Koontz and several others. One of the leading authors of the period was Clive Barker, who burst onto the scene in his early thirties with The Books of Blood, followed by novels and short stories specializing in horror and dark fantasy. He was also the writer and director of what is now a classic in the field, Hellraiser and its villains, Pinhead and the Cenobites.

The Probabilities Crew, Richard Lupoff, Lawrence Davidson and myself, we interviewed Clive Barker three times, first in 1987 then a year later, and finally in 1996.

This interview was recorded a few months after Clive’s 35th birthday,  was also several months before the release of the original Hellraiser film which premiered the following September.

As of 2022, there have been seventeen Clive Barker novels in all, five short story collections, fourteen plays, and a variety of comic books and graphic novels, several screenplays, teleplays and adaptations, and three feature length films he directed. A new version of Hellraiser, based on his original screenplay, now streams on Hulu, along with Books of Blood from 2020. Candyman, from 2021, streams on Amazon Prime, as does the original 1987 Hellraiser.

In 2012, Clive Barker he went into a coma following a disastrous visit with a dentist. Since that time, no new novels have been forthcoming, though he is credited with involvement in a number of published works and film and television adaptations.

Complete 49-minute interview.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Most in-person events still require proof of full vaccination for all audience members over 12 and masks. Many venues will require proof of boosters. Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination status 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 – October 27, 2022: Jesse Green – Clive Barker appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Vauhini Vara, author of the novel,  “The Immortal King Rao,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Recorded via zencastr September 8, 2022.

Vauhini Vara studied at the Iowa Writers Workshop, worked as tech reporter at The Wall Street Journal and wrote for the business section of The New Yorker. She is a contributing writer at Wired. Her upcoming collection of short stories, This is Salvaged, will be published in 2023.

The Immortal King Rao tells two stories, that of a fictional tech billionaire who grew up in humble beginnings in the 1950s in southern India and eventually came to the United States, and during the novel flashes forward a hundred years to a dystopia in which algorithms determine the success or failure of any individual.

Bill Irwin, creator and performer of “On Beckett,” which was performed at the Toni Rembe (formerly Geary) Theatre, October 19-23, 2022, interviewed by Richard Wolinsky when the show was first performed in 2017.

Bill Irwin won the Tony Award for his portrayal of George opposite Kathleen Turner’s Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” on Broadway. He performed as both Lucky and Vladimir in productions on Broadway of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” and performed in A.C.T.’s recent production of Beckett’s “Endgame.” A veteran of several TV shows and films,  currently he appears regularly on the TV show “Law & Order: SVU” and appeared previously on “Sleepy Hollow,” and “Legion.” A founder of the legendary Pickle Family Circus, he has also appeared in San Francisco and New York in the shows “Fool Moon” and “Old Hats.”

Bill Irwin’s interest in Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) goes back to college and his performances of Beckett not only include the mentioned plays but other works as well.

The interview was recorded January 9, 2017 in a dressing room at the Strand Theatre in San Francisco.

Review: “Indecent” by Paula Vogel, at San Francisco Playhouse through November 5, 2022.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Most in-person events still require proof of full vaccination for all audience members over 12 and masks. Many venues will require proof of boosters. Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination status 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 – October 20, 2022: Vauhini Vara – Bill Irwin appeared first on KPFA.