Midday

Tom's guest is Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, Jr. In his first year in office, he’s pushed through landmark housing legislation and the county’s first income tax increase in nearly 3 decades. What’s next for the County as we enter the New Year?

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Today, our series Midday on Higher Education series continues. Tom's guest is
Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III, the President of the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Dr. Hrabowski has led UMBC since 1992, and he’s been collecting national accolades ever since. U.S. News & World Report named him one of America’s Best Leaders. Time Magazine called him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. UMBC is among the nation’s top research universities; it’s also a national leader in inclusiveness and academic innovation.

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Today we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates as Tom is joined in the studio by Delegate Talmadge Branch, a veteran state lawmaker who has represented Baltimore and the 45th District in the Maryland House since 1995. He has also been the Democratic Majority Whip since 2007.

Del. Branch is a candidate, running in a crowded field of 24 Democrats (and 8 Republicans), for the 7th District U.S. Congressional seat vacated by the recent death of Representative Elijah Cummings.

In Annapolis, Mr. Branch has served on the House Ways and Means committee; he’s a member of the Legislative Policy Committee and the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus. He chairs the alcoholic beverages subcommittee, and is the former House Chair of the Joint Committee on Welfare Reform.

Talmadge Branch is 63 years old. He lives in Baltimore. He is currently unmarried, and he’s the father of three children.

During the hour, we welcome your calls, emails, tweets and Facebook comments for Delegate Branch.

This conversation was livestreamed on WYPR's Facebook page. Watch the video here.

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

It's Thursday and time again for theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins us each week with her reviews of the Maryland stage. Today, we hear her take on Baltimore Center Stage's new production of Men On Boats.

The 2015 play by Jaclyn Backhaus, directed at Center Stage by Jenny Koons, is based on the published journals of John Wesley Powell, who led an 1869 expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers into the then-unknown geological wonders of the Grand Canyon. In Backhaus' comedic retelling of the historic wild-water journey, Powell's all-white-male expeditionary team is played by a gender-nonconforming ensemble of color, featuring Ceci Fernandez as John Wesley Powell, Kai Heath as Hall, and Haruna Lee as Old Shady, among the cast of ten. Scenic design credits go to Stephanie Osin Cohen.



Men On Boats continues at Baltimore Center Stage through Sunday, December 22. For location and ticket information, click here.


The special Baltimore Center Stage benefit event discussed by Tom and Judy -- a special celebrity reading/discussion of Thornton Wilder's revered but rarely produced classic, The Long Christmas Dinner -- happens on Monday, December 16 at 7pm at Baltimore Center Stage. The cast and discussants will include R. Eric Thomas, the Barrymore Award-winning playwright, humorist and Elle Magazine contributor; Tracie Thoms, an acclaimed actor known for her performances in Rent, The Devil Wears Prada, and Cold Case; and Paula Vogel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of How I Learned to Drive and a Tony Award nominee for Indecent. For event & ticket information, click here.


Because of NPR's special live coverage Thursday of the House Judiciary Committee's mark-up of the Articles of Impeachment, this week's theater review could not be broadcast live, so we are posting it as an online-only feature, available here and on Midday's regular podcast.

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Our Conversation with the Candidates series continues with Kimberly Klacik, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Congress.

Klacik is a GOP strategist and activist who lives in Baltimore County. She is the Executive Director and Founder of “Potential Me,” a nonprofit which provides works with disadvantaged women.

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Republican candidate Liz Matory is an author and the CEO of a small publishing house called Liberty Lives Media. She holds a BA from Columbia University, a law degree from Howard University, and an MBA from the University of MD.

Ms. Matory is mounting her third campaign for Congress after unsuccessful bids in two other districts.

We livestreamed this conversation the WYPR Facebook page. Click here to watch the video.

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

It's another episode of Midday's Conversations With The Candidates series. Tom's next guest is Dr Mark Gosnell, a Democratic candidate in the 7th District -- the seat made available by the death of Rep. Elijah Cummings.

Dr. Gosnell is the Director of the Intensive Care Unit at Medstar Harbor Hospital and also the chief of pulmonary medicine there. This is his first run for public office. Healthcare is one of his chief policy concerns.

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

The business of diversity is booming. Corporations and cultural institutions spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on diversity training, yet despite the ubiquity and expense of these efforts, overall racial, gender and ethnic diversity remains an aspiration rather than a reality.

Today on Midday: what's been tried, what has succeeded and what's flopped in efforts to achieve more inclusion in American life.

Dr. Pamela Newkirk is an award-winning journalist, professor of Journalism at NYU and author of the book "Diversity, Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business."

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Today, the multiple-Tony and Olivier-Award winning American playwright Ken Ludwig joins Tom and Midday theater critic J.Wynn Rousuck for a conversation about his life and work. Ludwig has written 28 plays and musicals, and has had six of them on Broadway. They've been performed in over 30 countries in more than 20 languages, and are produced somewhere in the United States every night of the year.

He talks about two works now running simultaneously in our area: his newest play, Dear Jack, Dear Louise, which opened this week at DC's Arena Stage, and his acclaimed adaptation of novelist Agathie Christie's classic who-done-it, Murder on the Orient Express, now in a new production at Baltimore's Everyman Theatre.

Ken Ludwig speaks with us today from NPR studios in Washington, DC.

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

It's the December edition of Midday at the Movies, our monthly feature about films and filmmaking, and joining Tom to consider the cascade of pre-Oscars holiday movies are two of our favorite film fans: here in the studio, Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday, who is also the author of Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies; and on the line from Manhattan, Maryland Film Festival founder Jed Dietz.

Today, Tom and the movie mavens talk about some interesting new angles on male identity being explored in new films such as Martin Scorsese's The Irishman; James Mangold's Ford v. Ferrari; Marielle Heller's A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood; ​and Melina Matsoukas' Queen and Slim.

And Tom asks listeners to share their favorite holiday movie; he votes, as always, for Love, Actually, the 2003 romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon (and many more...)

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