KPFA - Bookwaves/Artwaves

[caption id="attachment_262369" align="alignleft" width="370"] Octavia Butler and Richard A. Lupoff in 1983.[/caption]

Octavia Butler (1947-2006) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded in 1983.

Octavia Butler, who died in 2006 at the age of 58, was one of the giants of modern science fiction. Winner of multiple awards for her short fiction and novels, her work explored issues involving gender, race, and power and featured protagonists often at odds with their societies. At the time she began writing, there were no other African-American women writing in the field, but she was not merely a pioneer: she was a master of the genre. Her first novel, Patternmaster, was published in 1976 and was followed by a series of sequels. Along with those books, she wrote a stand-alone novel, Kindred in 1979. It’s a masterpiece, a time travel story of a modern African American woman suddenly finding herself in the racist antebellum South.

By 1983, with her handful of novels and a growing reputation within the field, she made a visit to a science fiction convention in San Jose California, where she met up with Richard Wolinsky and his co-host Richard A. Lupoff. At that time, she had yet to win her first Hugo or Nebula Award, and was still unknown outside the field. This interview was the first of two recorded with Octavia Butler. The second interview, from 1998, will be posted later this year.

Also: Review of the musical "Hamilton."

 

Jonathan Allen, co-author of “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s DoomedCampaign” inconversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Nobody expected Hillary Clinton to lose the 2016 presidential election. Jonathan Allen and his co-author Amie Parnes followed the campaign from the beginning to the dreadful night in November when Donald Trump was elected president. This book dissects the campaign from the vantage point of its conclusion. Richard Wolinsky follows up with key questions concerning the private server, the media’s focus on e-mails, the possibility of a rigged election, Clinton’s gaffes and why she was given less wiggle room than Donald Trump.

 

Mitch Jeserich’s interview with Jonathan Allen. [1]

An extended version of this interview can be found as a Radio Wolinsky podcast. [2]

 

[1] https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-may-4-2017/

[2] https://kpfa.org/area941/episode/shattered-inside-hillary-clintons-doomed-campaign/

Richard Wolinsky and Simon McBurney.

Simon McBurney, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Simon McBurney is the director and performer of “The Encounter,” a theatrical piece inspired by the Book Amazon Beaming by Petru Popescu, playing at the Curran in San Francisco through May 7th. Simon McBurney is the artistic director of Complicite, a London based theatrical company. He’s directed several plays and operas over the years, and acted in such films as The Theory of Everything, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, and other films, as well as the TV series The Borgias and The Casual Vacancy. “The Encounter” comes to San Francisco after a successful run in London and New York, and an American tour.

“The Encounter” involves the use of headphones and binaural sounds to not only tell the story of the photographer Loren McIntyre in the jungles of Peru but to take the audience on its own trip/

An extended version of this interview can be found as a Bay Area Theater [1] podcast. Curran website [2].

Also: A brief interview with Evren Odcikin, director of the Golden Thread [3]production, "Autobiography of a Terrorist" at Potrero Stage in San Francisco.

[1] https://kpfa.org/area941/episode/interview-simon-mcburney-encounter-curran/

[2] https://sfcurran.com/shows/the-encounter/

[3] http://www.goldenthread.org/

Susan Faludi talks with host Richard Wolinsky about her latest book, In The Darkroom, which is about a search for identity … specifically the identity of her father, who moved to Hungary and had a sex-change operation late in his life, and with whom she reconnected. Susan Faludi is the author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women and Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man.

In this interview she discusses issues of transgender, the relationship between transgender and feminism, the Holocaust in Hungary, and how working on this book changed her life.

An extended version of this interview can be found as a Radio Wolinsky podcast.

Susan Faludi website [1]

Also: Review of "Temple," at Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley

[1] http://susanfaludi.com/

Laura Tillman, author of The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts: Murder and Memory in an American City, is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky. This book is the true story of a horrific murder in Brownsville, Texas, and its relationship to the community, putting violent crime in the context of society at large.

Weekly theater review: "Noises Off" at San Francisco Playhouse.

 

Robert Hurwitt, former drama critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, and before that the San Francisco Examiner and the East Bay Express, is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky.

Robert Hurwitt retired in April 2016 after a long and distinguished career as a critic and theater reviewer. Born as a “red diaper baby” and growing up in New York City’s suburbs, his love of theater began early. After moving to San Francisco and working as a free-lance writer, he was hired by the Express and later the Examiner — and when the Examiner was bought by Hearst, the San Francisco Chronicle, where he spent several years as the single most important critic in the region.

In this interview, he discusses his life and career, his feelings about criticism, and recommends three shows currently running in San Francisco.

A 45-minute version of this interview can be found as a Radio Wolinsky podcast. [1]

[1] https://kpfa.org/area941/episode/interview-robert-hurwitt-former-theater-critic-sf-chronicle/

Bharati Mukherjee, who died at the age of 76 in January, 2017, was a novelist who wrote primarily about the immigrant experience in America. Born in Calcutta in 1940, she attended university in India, and then came to Iowa Writers Workshop in the United States. It was there she met her husband Clark Blaise, and set herself on the path toward American citizenship. Her first novel, The Tiger’s Daughter, was published in 1972. She would write several novels afterward, focusing most often on the life of the immigrant: As she said in 2003, “the narrative of immigration is the epic narrative of this millennium.” Her work culminated in a loose trilogy about Indians in both America and India, Desirable Daughters in 2002, The Tree Bride in 2004, and Miss New India in 2011. Richard Wolinsky interviewed Bharati Mukherjee about Miss New India at KPFA in 2011. These are excerpts from that interview.

Weekly theater review: The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel, directed by Jonathan Moscone, at the magic theatre in San Francisco's Fort Mason Center.

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Steven Bach (1938-2009) author of the biography "Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl" interviewed in 2007 by Richard Wolinsky. The play "Leni" by Sarah Greenman plays at Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley through May 7, 2017.

Leni Riefenstahl was the film maker behind the Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Reifenstahl, who died in 2003 at the age of a hundred and one, to the end of her life denied her work was political, that she was an artist.

Stephen Bach, who died at the age of 70 in 2009, had been a studio executive and began writing  books with "Final Cut", his memoir about the making of the film Heaven’s Gate. He followed that with a biography of the playwright Moss Hart, and then a biography of actress Marlene Dietrich, which as he says, led him to Leni Riefenstahl. The interview was recorded in the KPFA studios on May 7, 2007.

Also: a review of the play "Peerless" at Marin Theatre Company through April 2, 2017.

An extended version of this interview can be found as a Radio Wolinsky [1]podcast.

 

[1] https://kpfa.org/area941/episode/steven-bach-1938-2007-leni-reifenstahl/

Josh Kornbluth and Jacob Kornbluth, creators of the film “Love and Taxes,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Josh Kornbluth is a noted monologuist, having come into the field after seeing Spaulding Gray in action. Jacob Kornbluth, his younger brother, is a documentarian working with Robert Reich on Reich’s blogposts on Facebook, and director of tthe forthcoming film, “Saving Capitalism.” Together, they’ve created a film based on one of Josh’s monologues, using the monologue interspersed with comic re-enactments and dramatic scenes, featuring several Bay Area actors.

In this interview, they talk about the film, Josh talks about his work and Jake talks about becoming a director and the nuts and bolts of filming.

An extended version of this interview can be found as a Radio Wolinsky [1] podcast.

Also: a review of "John," by Annie Baker, now at ACT Strand Theater. [2]

[1] https://kpfa.org/area941/episode/josh-jacob-kornbluth-love-taxes/

[2] http://www.act-sf.org/home/box_office/1617_season/john.html

[caption id="attachment_257583" align="alignleft" width="327"] Ayesha Jordan and Liesl Tommy[/caption]

Liesl Tommy, director, and Ayesha Jordan, one of the performers in Danai Gurira’s Tony-nominated play Eclipsed, in coversation with host Richard Wolinsky

Eclipsed runs at the Curran Theater in San Francisco through March 19, 2017 in a short, limited run.

Liesl Tommy, born in apartheid South Africa in a township of Capetown, is today an award-winning director, recently the associate artistic director at Berkeley Rep, and directed the acclaimed production of Party People, about the history of the Black Panther party. Ayesha Jordan served as understudy to Tony-nominated Lupita Nyongo in the key role of the unnamed Girl in the Broadway production of Eclipsed, and takes on the role here in San Francisco.

Eclipsed is set during the second Liberian Civil War, and concerns the plight of four women, kidnapped and forcibly married to a commander of the rebel army.

Eclipsed received six Tony Award nominations for its Broadway production, including one for Liesl Tommy, the first woman of color ever nominated for the Tony for Best Director. Eclipsed is co-produced by New York’s non-profit Public Theatre.

Curran Theater website [1]

A extended version of this interview can be heard on the Bay Area Theater [2]podcast.

Also: a review of Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins" from Bay Area Musicals at the Alcazar in San Francisco.

[1] https://sfcurran.com/

[2] https://kpfa.org/area941/episode/interview-liesl-tommy-ayesha-jordan-eclipsed-curran/