Midday

It's time again for a visit with Midday theatre critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins us each week with her reviews of Maryland's regional stage.

Today, Judy shares her thoughts on Macabaret, the whimsically macabre musical revue now on stage at Baltimore's Stillpointe Theatre.

Written by Scott Keys and Rob Hartmann, Macabaret is a collection of darkly humorous story-songs dealing with everything from murderous spouses and evil cows to the Andrews Sisters and OJ Simpson. The Stillpointe Theatre cast is directed by Amanda Rife, with musical direction by Stacey Antoine.

Macabaret continues at Stillpointe Theatre through December 10. Click the show link for more information.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today, we begin the hour with another installment of Midday at the Movies, our monthly convo about films and filmmaking. Tom's guest is one of our favorite film aficionados: Jed Dietz, the founder and former director of the Maryland Film Festival and Parkway Theater, who joins us on Zoom.

(Our other regular movie maven, Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday, was unable to join us today, but she'll return next month.)

The Maryland Film Festival was in the news last month for reasons that have disappointed movie fans who look forward to the annual long weekend of screenings every spring. The Board of Directors of the festival announced on the festival website that the 2023 event will not take place until 2024, saving the organization some money, and giving time for the board and staff to do some thinking about the best way to adjust to the realities of a pandemic-impacted movie industry that has not recovered from the collective hit to the solar-plexus that COVID 19 comprised.

We’ve talked a lot on this show about how movie-going habits have changed; streaming is having an obvious effect, and competition remains fierce.

Join our conversation. We’d like to know your reaction to the news that the Maryland Film Festival has been postponed until 2024. What’s your take on deciding whether to go to a theater or to stream the films you want to see?...

And we'll also be talking about some of the many new films — from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and the #MeToo movement docudrama, She Said, to director Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans — that are being released by year's end so they can be considered for the Oscars. 

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Joining Tom now is Democratic Congressman and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. He has represented southern Maryland's 5th District in the House since 1981 and was just re-elected to his 22nd term, making him far and away the longest-serving member of Congress in Maryland's history.

And he has also earned an important place in American history. He has been an influential and consequential part of Democratic leadership for nearly half of his four decades in Congress.

Along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Whip James Clyburn, Hoyer will step aside from his two-decade tenure in senior leadership when the new Congress convenes next month. On Wednesday, Representatives Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California were elected by the Democratic caucus to be the new leadership team.

Rep. Steny Hoyer joins us on Zoom from his office in Washington, D.C.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Once again, murders in our city continue to be committed with alarming, frightening and painful frequency. As you’ve undoubtedly heard, more than 300 people have been killed in Baltimore for the 8th consecutive year.

The horrible count stands at 308 as of this morning. That’s exactly the number of people killed up to this date last year. 652 people have been wounded by gunfire in 2022, three fewer than as of this date in 2021.

There are bright spots to point to. In the Western district, typically one of the city’s most violent, homicides are down 35%. That’s the district where a pilot program of the Group Violence Reduction Strategy has been in place for the past 11 months.

On Monday here on Midday, Tom spoke with Shantay Jackson, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement about her team’s work implementing the violence prevention plan that Mayor Brandon Scott rolled out in the summer of 2021.

Tomorrow on Midday, Tom will speak with Mayor Scott.

Tom's guest today is Baltimore City Police Commissioner Michael Harrison. He was appointed as our city’s top cop in 2019 after successfully overseeing a decrease in crime in his native New Orleans.

Commissioner Harrison, who is recovering from a bout of influenza, joins us on Zoom… 

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

The elections this month produced historic results as regards representation of African Americans in the electoral hierarchy of Baltimore City and the state of MD. The governor, attorney general, state superintendent of schools and state treasurer are all accomplished Black men. Here in Baltimore City, Black male leaders include the Mayor, the City Council President, the comptroller, the city state’s attorney and the police commissioner.

This is not to say that Black women have not also risen to positions in which they have shaped the trajectory of Baltimore and the state. The Speaker of the House in Annapolis, Del. Adrienne Jones and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks’ endorsements of Wes Moore for Governor were considered a considerable boost to his nascent political career. Not too long ago, the Mayor of Baltimore, the State’s Attorney, the City Council President, even the head of the Enoch Pratt Library were prominent African American women.

A few weeks ago, the Rev. Kevin Slayton, an activist and preacher who has been involved in politics and policy for years, wrote an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun in which he stated that the representation of African Americans in the halls of power could all be, quote, “the revelation of hopes our ancestors dreamed about.” But for many Black men in America, those dreams are deferred by endemic racism, poverty, and a host of other formidable challenges.

Dr. Slayton has called for a convening of elected Black officials to explore what can be done to help Black men succeed. What would such a convening look like? What could it accomplish? That’s what we want to talk about today, here on Midday.

Rev. Kevin Slayton is the senior pastor at Northwood-Appold United Methodist Church, and an adjunct professor at Lancaster Theological Seminary. He joins Tom here in Studio A…

Also joining us is Dr. Lester Spence, a Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University, who specializes in the study of black, racial, and urban politics. Dr. Spence joins us on Zoom.

And later in the program, we welcome Rep. Kweisi Mfume to the conversation. Congressman Mfume earlier this month won re-election to serve in Congress representing Maryland's 7th District. He speaks with us on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

And now, another installment in our occasional series, Midday in the Neighborhood, which we are producing in conjunction with our partners at the Baltimore Banner.

Today, we turn our focus to Little Italy, a historic neighborhood filled with great places to eat, and families whose legacies extend back for generations.

Joining Tom in Studio A is Baltimore Banner neighborhood reporter Clara Longo de Freitas, who covers communities on the east side of the city…

Mary Ann Campanella joins us as well, via Zoom from her home in Little Italy. A lifelong resident and community activist in the enclave, she is featured in a recent Banner story that Clara and Jasmine Vaughn-Hall wrote about people who are living in their childhood homes…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Last week, for the eighth consecutive year, Baltimore reached the grim milestone of more than 300 homicides in the year, with a month still to go. There are those who insist on telling the story of our city by focusing on the number of murders. But to tell it only through the lens of crime is, of course, to tell our city’s story incompletely, and it does a disservice to those who help make Baltimore’s story a positive one.

But the murder rate is definitely something to which political and law enforcement leaders should be held accountable. Mayor Brandon Scott made promises about the rate at which violence in our city would be reduced that he has not been able to keep. Two years ago, Scott promised a 15% annual reduction in the number of annual murders. That goal remains merely an aspiration.

It's not that the Mayor hasn’t thought about how to improve this situation. In July of last year, he released a five year, comprehensive violence prevention plan. At the heart of this plan is GVRS, or Group Violence Reduction Strategy, launched in partnership with the Baltimore Police Department, the State’s Attorney’s Office and federal partners.

A pilot program of GVRS has been in place for almost a year in the Western Police District. Has it been effective, and is it ready to be scaled up to other areas in the city?

The plan is overseen by Shantay Jackson, who directs the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, or MONSE. Last June, a year after the plan was released, Ms. Jackson faced a frustrated Baltimore City Council, many of whose members expressed impatience with the pace of improvement.

As 2022 nears a close, we’ve invited Director Jackson to be with us today to explain what the Group Violence Reduction Strategy is, and to assess its value moving forward.

MONSE Director Shantay Jackson joins us on Zoom…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

(This conversation first aired on September 28, 2022)

Good afternoon and welcome to an archive edition of Midday. 

This past Wednesday - the night before Thanksgiving - a beloved Baltimore television newsman made his final appearance in a newscast, before retiring after a 52-year career. Stan Stovall is an award-winning news anchor who has been a fixture on local television for decades. In 1971, at a station in Phoenix, Arizona, Stan became the youngest anchor in the United States, and the first African American anchor in the state of Arizona. He was 18 years old. His career behind the desk and in the field has taken him to Philadelphia and St. Louis, and as a journalist with a keen interest in international affairs, he has reported from Southeast Asia, Central America, Russia, Ukraine, and Italy.

But it is his work at WMAR and WBAL that has endeared him to generations of viewers in the Baltimore metropolitan area.

Stan first joined the team at WBAL in 1978, and after about six years, he moved to WMAR TV, the ABC affiliate in Baltimore, where he sat at the anchor desk for 13 years. He re-joined WBAL in 2003. For a while, he anchored the morning broadcast, which began at 5:00 AM, and every day, he came back to the station to lead the 5:00 PM newscast. In 2013, he was named anchor of the 6:00 and 11:00 broadcasts.

This past September, he was inducted into the Gold Circle by the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, in honor of his 50 + years in TV broadcasting. A Gold Circle award is an honor that has been bestowed on only 23 people.

Having made the decision to step away from the anchor desk, we thought it would be great to ask Stan to reflect on his career. As you will hear him explain when he spoke with Tom Hall in late September, the exact date of his final broadcast was a closely held secret.

This Thanksgiving weekend is the first weekend in what we hope will be Stan's long and happy retirement.

Stan Stovall joined Tom in Studio A.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's the 7th anniversary edition of the universally beloved What Ya Got Cookin'? Pre-Thanksgiving Special here on Midday.

Thursday will mark the third Thanksgiving with COVID hovering over the table. COVID infections and infections from other viruses are on the rise. The Maryland Department of Health reports 18 deaths from COVID related disease in the last 24 hours. Twenty-three people were hospitalized for COVID-19 in Maryland yesterday. But lots of people have been vaccinated and boosted against COVID, and life is a whole lot more normal than it was over the last two Thanksgiving Days.

Our mission here on Midday is simple: we've got two wonderful chefs at your disposal to share recipes and tips to help make your Thanksgiving dinner a delicious and memorable affair.

John Shields is a chef and the proprietor of Gertrude's Chesapeake Kitchen at the Baltimore Museum of Art. His latest book is The New Chesapeake Kitchen…

Chef Damian Mosley is the creative force behind Blacksauce Kitchen, which you can find at the Waverly Farmer’s Market and at their storefront on 29th Street in Remington…

And we’ll also check in with Tom's mom, Rosemary Hall, to find out what she’s bringing to Thanksgiving with his nephew in South Carolina.

Whatever you love about Thanksgiving, we’d love to hear about it. What are your family food traditions? Which of the six million ways to make cranberry sauce will you choose tomorrow? Who’s coming to your place, or whose place are you going to?Let’s talk, and let’s share with each other the things we love about Thanksgiving, culinary or otherwise.

A FEW OF THE RECIPES MENTIONED ON TODAY'S SHOW:

Rosemary Hall (Tom's mom) recommends:Katie Lee’s (Food Network) Santa Brownie Bites

Chef John Shields recommends:

Champagne Cabbage & Apples
John notes: “Not that I really understand the concept, but some people just do not like sauerkraut—go figure. But I found a solution--a little devious, but a solution nevertheless. And here it is: a braised champagne “kraut,” with ginger, caraway, and a goodly amount of tart apples. The secret is rinsing the sauerkraut well under cold water, and then the kraut naysayers will enjoy a plateful extolling the virtues of cabbage, and, of course, champagne. Honestly, whether you like kraut or not, this dish really is a crowd pleaser.”

Serves 8

6 tablespoons butter or olive oil
2 slices bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (optional)
1 small onion, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
1 teaspoon minced garlic
3 tart apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
2 jars (2 pounds each) sauerkraut, rinsed in cold water several times and drained
2 cups dry champagne
1 teaspoon caraway seed (optional)
Salt and black pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In a heavy ovenproof pot, melt the butter, and if using, render the bacon for a few minutes. Add the onion, ginger, and garlic.
Sauté for 4 minutes. Add the apples and sauté for 2 minutes longer.
Place the rinsed sauerkraut into the pot. Pour in the champagne, caraway seed, salt, and pepper. Toss together and bring to a boil.

Cover tightly and bake in the oven for 1 hour.
####

Maple-Glazed Sweet Potatoes
John notes: “Sweet potatoes play a major role in the kitchens of the Bay, and I play the role of chief cook at family holiday gatherings. I would be in the doghouse if I did not prepare this traditional dish, in which the cooked sweet potatoes are glazed with an orange-scented maple syrup and topped with black walnuts. Be careful about eating the sweet potatoes piping hot: They tend to stick to the lips.”

Serves 4 to 6

6 large sweet potatoes
¾ cup (firmly packed) brown sugar
4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter
¼ cup maple syrup
Grated zest of 1 orange
Juice of 1 orange
½ cup chopped black walnuts

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Generously butter a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the sweet potatoes and boil until just tender, about 30 to 35 minutes. Drain and peel the sweet potatoes. Cut them into quarters and spread in the baking dish.

Combine the brown sugar, 1/2 cup water, butter, maple syrup, orange zest, and orange juice in a heavy-bottomed pan. Stir to dissolve the sugar, bring to a boil, and cook until the mixture forms a syrup, about 5 minutes. Pour the syrup over the yams and sprinkle with the chopped nuts.

Cover the baking dish tightly with foil.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the sweet potatoes and boil until just tender, about 30 to 35 minutes.

Drain and peel the sweet potatoes. Cut them into quarters and spread in the baking dish.

Combine the brown sugar, 1/2 cup water, butter, maple syrup, orange zest, and orange juice in a heavy-bottomed pan. Stir to dissolve the sugar, bring to a boil, and cook until the mixture forms a syrup, about 5 minutes.

Pour the syrup over the yams and sprinkle with the chopped nuts.

Cover the baking dish tightly with foil.Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and continue to bake for 10 minutes more. Remove from the oven and let stand 5 minutes before serving.

####

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Donald Trump has announced his third candidacy for the US presidency, amid growing calls from some Republicans to move past Trump and on to a new generation of leaders. If that happens, and we do move into a post-Trump era, will Maryland Governor Larry Hogan impress Republicans as a model for how the GOP can attract a diverse coalition of support?

Tom's guest today explores that hypothesis in her new book by taking a close look at Hogan’s rise in Maryland politics. Dr. Mileah Kromer directs the Sarah T. Hughes Center for Politics at Goucher College, which runs the esteemed Goucher Poll of Maryland public opinion.

Dr. Kromer examines how Hogan, a Republican in a deeply Democratic state, won two elections, and over two terms, enjoyed some of the highest approval ratings of any Governor in the country.

The book is called Blue-State Republican:  How Larry Hogan Won Where Republicans Lose and Lessons for a Future GOP. 

Mileah Kromer joins Tom today in Studio A…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.