Midday

It's time for our visit with theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins us each week with her reviews of local stage presentations. This week, she tells us about the national touring company production of the Broadway hit, Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, now on stage at Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre.

Directed by Lauren L. Sobon, with book by Colman Domingo, Robert Cary, and Des McAnuff and musical direction by Erika Gamez, the touring production features a 23-member cast, including Brittny Smith, Charis Michelle Gullage and Amahri Edwards-Jones. The three leads portray the late Donna Summers (who died of lung cancer in 2012) at different stages of her three-decade career as a top-40s pop star and "disco queen," and perform more than 20 of Summers' biggest hits.

Summer: the Donna Summer Musical is running through Sunday, February 20. For more information and ticketing, click here.

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

Tom's first guest today is Amanda Litman, a Democratic operative who worked on the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, and the gubernatorial campaign of Charlie Christ in Florida in 2014.

In 2017, on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, she and a friend, Ross Morales Rocketto, founded a political action committee called Run for Something, dedicated to helping young, first-time candidates navigate the vagaries of running for elective office.

There are plenty of offices to choose from. By Litman’s count, there are about a half a million elected positions in the United States. Litman advises people who are running for their State Legislatures and Congress, but she also takes under her wing people running for school boards, library boards, water-abatement boards and a host of other local offices that can directly and significantly affect communities large and small, urban and rural, red and blue.

Amanda Litman also hosts the Run for Something podcast, and she wrote a book, a how-to guide for people who want to leave the sidelines and jump into the fray. It’s called Run for Something: A Real-Talk Guide to Fixing the System Yourself. Amanda Litman joins us on Zoom from Brooklyn, New York.

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

Tom's Newsmaker guest today is Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, Jr.

Mr. Olszewski has a full plate of issues to contend with. The County has relaxed some COVID restrictions. Masks are no longer required in public buildings. As of the end of the month, masks will no longer be required in County government buildings too.

It’s budget season in Baltimore County; hundreds, maybe thousands of people are expected to participate in budget hearings. A consultant hired to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of County government offered 171 ways that the County could save hundreds of millions of dollars.

School construction is back on the front burner. Dulaney and Towson high schools are due for facelifts. The County has more than $160 million to work with from the American Rescue Plan, but not all problems can be solved with money alone.

Like other jurisdictions around the country, Baltimore County is experiencing more violent crime than in years past.

The County is Maryland’s third largest jurisdiction. After some speculation that he might run for governor, Mr. Olszewski announced last spring that he will stand for election for a second term as County Executive. He is the only Democrat who has filed to run in the primary. Kimberley Stansbury and Darren Badillo have filed to face-off against each other in the Republican primary.

Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszeski, Jr,. joins us on Zoom from his office in Towson.

We welcome your questions or comments for the County Executive.

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An important addendum to yesterday’s show:

Tom interviewed three members of the leadership team at the Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development. They spoke about the vacant house on Stricker Street in South Baltimore that was recently the scene of the terrible tragedy in which three Baltimore firefighters were killed when that home collapsed while they were fighting a fire there.

Justin Fenton is one of several excellent reporters who have been hired by the Baltimore Banner, an online platform that is scheduled to launch later this spring. In the meantime, the Banner is publishing a newsletter with stories of local interest, and this morning, Justin posted a story that tells the history of the house on Stricker Street where the firefighters were killed. He found that It is owned by a woman in Huntingdon, PA, whose husband, Robert Shore, Sr., left it to her when he passed away in 2016.

Fenton reports that the house was declared vacant by the city in 2010. That same year, the tax liens on the house were sold at public auction to First National Assets. This is a company that buys the right to collect back taxes that are owed by homeowners around the country. First National Assets foreclosed on the property in 2013, but Justin Fenton reports that a year later, the city had the foreclosure overturned because First National Assets had not paid the back taxes that were owed on the property. The city tried to sell it at three subsequent tax sales, but no buyers have been interested.

To read Justin Fenton’s story in the Baltimore Banner newsletter, click here.

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

Last month, three firefighters — Paul Butrim, Kelsey Sadler and Kenny Lacayo — died while fighting a fire in a vacant house in South Baltimore. That tragedy put the issue of Baltimore’s vacant houses back in the headlines, and top of mind for many.

For many others in our city, vacant houses and blight have been part of their lives for decades. Over the years, city officials have tried to address the problem of abandoned homes in a number of different ways. One idea currently being discussed in the Baltimore City Council is to revive the Dollar House program, a program that was implemented more than 40 years ago.

Since 2016, the Maryland Dept of Housing and Community Development claims to have demolished or stabilized 5,000 units, and they promise that 400 more are in the pipeline for demolition. But there are still 14,990 vacant houses in Baltimore City, according to the latest tally by the Mayor's office.

Two weeks ago, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott ordered a review of what city agencies are doing about those vacant houses, which the Mayor has promised will “inform a plan to deal with Baltimore’s vacant housing stock." The review is to be completed by the beginning of next month.

Today on Midday, a conversation with the senior leadership of the Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development about the plan to rid the city of blight, and the overall strategy for creating safe, quality affordable housing for the thousands of Baltimore City residents who need it.

Joining Tom on Zoom today are: Alice Kennedy, the Housing Commissioner; Jason Hessler, the Deputy Commissioner for Permits & Litigation; and Kate Edwards, the Acting Deputy Commissioner for Development.

As always, we welcome listener questions and comments.
Our call-in lines are out-of-service today, but you can email us at [email protected], or Tweet us @MiddayWYPR

A note to our listeners: We experienced some technical difficulties with the recording of the first several minutes of today's live Midday broadcast. As a result, host Tom Hall provides a recap in today's podcast of the brief dialogue that took place before normal recording began, with our apologies to you and to our guests.

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

Tom's Midday Newsmaker guest today is Dr. Darryl L. Williams, the Superintendent of the Baltimore County Public School System. He was appointed to the post in 2019, and he has been contending with problems caused by COVID-19 nearly ever since.

The pandemic has led to almost every school system in the country facing staffing shortages, and enrollment numbers have dipped here and across America.

It’s budget season for the state’s third largest school system. Last month, Dr. Williams proposed a budget that would add nearly 400 positions next year. A report released last fall by an independent consulting firm suggested that the County school administration is bloated, and it suggested changes that could save the system tens of millions of dollars.

Dr. Darryl L. Williams joins us on Zoom for the hour today to discuss these and other issues...

And we welcome listener comments and questions!

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

Happy Valentine’s Day! Today on our show, it’s Midday on Romance. A little later, Tom speaks with a medieval historian who has written a history of love in what she calls five fantasies. Barbara Rosenwein looks at love through the ages and how human beings fall in love and stay in love.

Of course, in order for that to happen, you’ve got to meet someone with whom you are inclined to be in love. An apartment search company called Rent Café has just published the results of a survey that names the best places to “mingle as a single.”

Baltimore comes in 5th in the country because of the high number of single households. 69% of households in Baltimore are headed by single folks, about four points behind Detroit, the leader in this regard at 73%.

Tom's first guest is in the business of bringing some of those singles together into meaningful relationships. Kimberly Simonetti is a commercial photographer, dating expert, and the co-founder of The Match Pro, a matchmaking service in Towson.

Kimberly joins us on Zoom…and we welcome your love stories!

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Next, Tom turns to a historian of the middle ages, who has just published her second book in a series exploring the history of human emotions. Dr. Barbara Rosenwein is Professor Emerita at Loyola University Chicago. Her latest book is called Love: A History in Five Fantasies. It looks at love through the lens of Like-Mindedness, Transcendence, Obligation, Obsession and Insatiability. It’s a fun and fascinating take on how our notions of love have evolved through the ages.

Barbara Rosenwein joins us on our digital line from Evanston, Illinois.

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

Next on today's Midday on Books, Tom welcomes back to the program the award-winning author of more than 60 books for children, Carole Boston Weatherford.

She is the winner of two Caldecott Medals and a Newbery Award. Her last book on the Tulsa race massacre won the Coretta Scott King Author Award and Illustrator awards from the American Library Association.

She will be appearing in a virtual event at the Enoch Pratt Library next Thursday, February 17 at 6pm to introduce her latest book, The Faith of Elijah Cummings: The North Star of Equal Justice. For more information and to register for the free event, click here.

Tom also talks with Carole about two other biographies for children she's had published recently: Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi Calls the House to Order, and Call Me Miss Hamilton, about Mary Hamilton, the late Black civil rights activist and union organizer.

Carole Boston Weatherford joins us today on Zoom from her birth city, Baltimore.

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

It's Midday on Books today, and Tom's first guest is Tessa Hadley, an award-winning British writer whose short stories are familiar to many readers of The New Yorker, where she’s been a contributing writer for 20 years.

She is the author of eight novels, the latest of which is an explosive exploration of loyalty and betrayal, love and passion, and individual and cultural transformation. It’s called Free Love.

Tessa Hadley joins us on Zoom from her home in Cardiff, Wales.

(This conversation was recorded earlier this week, so we're not able to take any calls.)

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

Time now for another visit with our theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins us each week with her reviews of important local stage productions. Today, she tells us about Everyman Theatre's world premiere of Behold, A Negress, Jacqueline E. Lawton's historical drama about the intimate relationship between a White artist in late-18th century Paris and her muse, a formerly enslaved Black woman.

Directed by Tatyana-Marie Carlo and starring Everyman resident company actor Hannah Kelly as the artist, Marie, and Jessica Natalie Smith as the muse, Madeleine, the play explores the intersection of race, art and feminism during times of social unrest and political upheaval.

Behold, A Negress continues at Everyman Theatre through February 27. Video streaming option available beginning February 18. For showtimes and ticketing info, click here.

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

Today, it’s Midday on Parenting. We begin with a conversation about a movement known as “Gentle Parenting.” It advocates an approach to raising children based on understanding, empathy and respect, and which shuns traditional parental notions of corporal discipline and autocratic control over children's behavior.

A series of Tik Tok videos by a former TV news reporter, Kayla Sullivan, has gone viral. More than 34 million viewers have seen Kayla’s mock news reports chronicling her toddler’s tantrums. Here’s a sample.

Joining Tom now is Kristen MacNeil. She’s a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst with a background in School Psychology, and the founder of the Gentle Parenting Institute...

Kristen MacNeil joins us on Zoom from Buffalo, New York.

Then, Tom is joined by Dr. Charissa Cheah. She’s a developmental psychologist, a professor of psychology and an affiliate faculty member in the Asian Studies Department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.Dr. Cheah is also the director of UMBC's Culture, Child, and Adolescent Development Laboratory.

Dr. Charissa Cheah joins us on Zoom from Baltimore.

We welcome listener comments and questions.

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If you or a loved one has contemplated suicide, operators on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provide 24/7 free and confidential support. Give them a call at 1-800-273-8255.

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