KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

 Taylor Mac, writer/performer/co-director of “Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce” at the Curran through December 1, 2018, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

This past year was a good one for performer and playwright Taylor Mac. Winner of a MacArthur Genius Grant, he was also a finalist for his performance piece A 24-Decade history of Popular Music. His latest show, Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce, is now playing at the Curran in San Francisco through December 1st, before it moves on to Los Angeles for two performances in mid-month. Taylor Mac is playwright, co-director and star of Holiday Sauce, which has set design and costumes by his long-time collaborator Machine Dazzle, and is co-directed by Niegel Smith, the artistic director of the Flea theatre company in New York.

Curran Theatre website

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Niegel Smith, co-director of “Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce” and Artistic Director of The Flea Theatre Company in New York, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Niegel Smith previously worked with Taylor Mac on “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music” and “Hir,”, and has a thriving career Artistic Director of the celebrated off-off-Broadway theatre company, The Flea, and is associate artistic director of the Elastic Theatre Company as well. A protege of the Public Theatre’s Oskar Eustis, he has worked as director for productions around the country.

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Members of the Cirque du Soleil show “Volta,” running at the big top near AT&T Park in San Francisco through February 3, 2019 talk about the show and their work with the Montreal-based circus organization with host Richard Wolinsky.

Guests are:

Dancer Joey Arrigo, who plays the lead character “Waz” in the show.

Acrobat Bradley Henderson, hoop-diving specialist.

Steven Ross, publicist for the show.

The discussion focuses on the creation of “Volta,” the roles of the performers in the show, their history as artists, and general questions about Cirque and its international performers.

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Esi Edugyan, author of the novel, “Washington Black,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

From Wikipedia:

< Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, to Ghanaian immigrant parents, Edugyan studied creative writing at the University of Victoria, where she was mentored by Jack Hodgins. She also earned a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. Her debut novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, was published in 2004 and was shortlisted for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award in 2005.

Despite favorable reviews for her first novel, Edugyan had difficulty securing a publisher for her second fiction manuscript. She spent some time as a writer-in-residence in Stuttgart, Germany. This period inspired her to drop her unsold manuscript and write another novel, Half-Blood Blues, about a mixed-race jazz musician in World War II-era Europe who is abducted by the Nazis as a “Rhineland Bastard“.  Published in 2011, Half-Blood Blues was announced as a shortlisted nominee for that year’s Man Booker Prize.>

Washington Black tells the story of a young slave in Barbados in the 1840s who is taken under the wing of the abolitionist brother of his master. The novel follows his adventures as he wends his way through the world.

Recorded at Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera, California. Special thanks to Elaine Petrocelli.

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