KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

Arthur Laurents (1917-2011), interviewed on April 7, 2000 by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, during the tour for his memoir, Original Story By …

Arthur Laurents was one of the giants of American culture. A playwright, librettist and director, he was one of the collaborators on two of the greatest musicals in the history of Broadway, West Side Story and Gypsy. In Hollywood, he was best known for the screenplays to The Way We Were and The Turning Point.

He spent most of World II in New York, working on propaganda films under George Cukor, A playwright with a huge hit after the war, The Time of the Cuckoo (which became the Katharine Hepbutn film Summertime), Laurents then moved to Hollywood where his career as a screenwriter was interrupted by the blacklist. He went to Europe but returned to write the screenplay for the Ingrid Bergman film, Anastasia.

Coming back to New York, he collaborated with Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim on West Side Story, then with Sondheim and Jule Styne on Gypsy. He also wrote the libretto for Jerry Herman’s hit, La Cage Aux Folles. Along the way, he continued to write plays and direct. His final two years saw two new plays and, at the age of 92, he directed a successful revival of West Side Story.

This interview was digitized, remastered and re-edited in 2016 by Richard Wolinsky. A shorter version aired on the Arts-Waves radio program.

Arthur Laurents Wikipedia page.

Left: the creative team for West Side Story. Center: Richard Rodgers, Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim working on the ill-fated musical “Do I Hear a Waltz?” based on Laurents’ play “The Time of the Cuckoo.” Right: Poster for the original production of “West Side Story.”

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James Gleick, whose latest book is Time Travel, is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky.

The author of The Information, an all-encompassing exploration about how we give and receive information, returns with Time Travel, which focuses on the history of time travel in literature and physics, and on the various paradoxes and possibilities of the idea of time travel. In this interview, he talks about H.G. Wells and his time machine, about Robert Heinlein and the role of science fiction in talking about time, and of course on the physics of time, infinite realities and how and why we focus so clearly on the concept.

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Marisa Silver, author of the novel Little Nothing is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky.

Marisa Silver, who began her artistic career in her twenties as a film director (Permanent Record, He Said She Said), and then turned to novels (The God of War, Mary Coin), discusses her latest novel, Little Nothing, a fantasy set in Eastern Europe in the early years of the twentieth century, and involves a girl who changes form and identity as the world becomes modern.

In the interview, Marisa Silver talks about the relationship between the film-making and novel-writing, the role of themes in her work, and the nature of her artistic choices. Marisa Silver is the daughter of the noted independent film director Joan Micklin Silver.

A shorter version of this interview aired on KPFA’s Bookwaves program.

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Jacqueline Woodson, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

One of the leading writers of children’s and young adult fiction, Jacqueline Woodson’s latest adult novel, “Another Brooklyn,” tells the story of four African American girls growing up in Brooklyn during the 1970s, focusing on August, a transplant from the South with a single father, growing up during a turbulent era and struggling to find herself. “Another Brooklyn” is a finalist for this year’s National Book Award for fiction.

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James Grissom, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

James Grissom is the author of Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog. In 1982, Grissom spent five days with the great playwright, who had a task for him: go to all the actresses who were his muses over the years, and discuss what they meant to Williams. Williams died five months later, and starting in 1989, Grissom began the project of interviewing each of these actresses, plus actors and directors affiliated with Williams. This book, which examines both Williams’ work and the nature of acting, is the result. Recorded in August, 2015 in New York City. The book is recently available in trade paperback.

An shorter version of this interview aired on Bookwaves on October 15, 2015.

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