Midday

It's Thursday, and time for theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck's weekly review of a regional stage production. This week, she joins Tom to talk about the latest offering from Baltimore Rock Opera Society, a kid-friendly musical production called Welcome to Shakesville.Conceived by Sarah Gorman and directed for the BROS by Lucia A. Treasure, Welcome to Shakesville tells a story of a gifted young African American artist named Betty and her journey toward artistic self-awareness. As the BROS program puts it, it's a ----hip and trippy---- journey that's told, and sung, using the pop-culture imagery, puppetry, fantasy and multi-genre music that energized such iconic 60s and 70's TV shows and movies as H.R. Pufnstuf, The Muppet Show, and Yellow Submarine. The BROS production features lead performances by Jacquan Knox as Betty and Matthew Casella as Jimmy, with music from a 10-man band called The Far Outs.The Baltimore Rock Opera Society's production of Welcome to Shakesville continues at Zion Church of the City of Baltimore (Zion Lutheran), located at 400 Lexington Street, through Sunday, June 16. For showtimes, directions and ticketing information, click here.

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Tom's guest today is Adam Gopnik, who has been a staff writer for the New Yorker Magazine for the past 33 years.His new book is called A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism. It is an homage to liberalism, in which he explores its roots in Montaigne and the Enlightenment, and traces its history through the present day.Gopnik observes that liberalism was preceded by humanism and an affection for, and elevation of, a sense of community forged around shared choices. He calls it a fact-first philosophy with a feelings-first history. While most people associate liberalism with a left-leaning world view, to Gopnik’s eye, it ends in the center, although it is not to be confused with centrism, and he distinguishes it not just from a conservative orientation on the right, but also from the more radical left. It favors reform over revolution. And it is premised in love and empathy. He writes that liberalism is “a belief that the sympathy that binds human society together can disconnect us from our clannish and suspicious past.”

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Today on Midday, it’s Midday Culture Connections with Dr. Sheri Parks, the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Is there a certain mythology about summer camp, and our notions of what an American summer is all about? What were your experiences as a child, and what experiences do you seek out for your children? For many poor kids, the opportunities and promise of summer are often out of reach. But one group of Baltimore City youth will have the opportunity to learn and explore way beyond the borders of the city. Joining us now is Sharayna Christmas the Executive Director of Muse 360 Arts and New Generation Scholars, a program that provides Baltimore City youth the opportunity to travel abroad and study the history and culture of the African Diaspora. This program was livestreamed on WYPR's Facebook page, and you can see the video here.

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Today on Midday, an update on what’s going on in Israeli politics, and the status of the stalled Middle East peace process..For analysis and context, Tom is joined today by four guests with decades of experience with the protracted pursuit of an Israeli-Palestinian accord, and a deep appreciation for the complexity of this seemingly intractable conflict. We begin with Natan Sachs, the Director and a Fellow of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He joins us on the line from the Brookings radio studio in Washington, DC. Then, we turn to Martin Indyk, the former US Ambassador to Israel in the Clinton Administration, and a special U.S. Envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from 2013-2014, for the Obama Administration. He’s now a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He joins us from his home in New York City.Dr. Shibley Telhami joins us as well. He’s the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. He has also served as a senior advisor to the U.S. State Department, an advisor to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and he’s a non-resident scholar at the Brookings Institution. He joins us from the Brookings' radio studio.And in the final segment, we're joined in the studio by Dr. Jerome Segal, a former research scholar at the Center for International Security Studies at the University of Maryland, and an activist for Middle East peace since the 1980s. Segal is the president of The Jewish Peace Lobby, a non-profit group he founded in Silver Spring, Maryland in 1989.

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A new wave of state laws has heated-up the debate over a woman’s right to choose. Five states have passed laws restricting access to abortion. Could these laws reverse Roe v Wade? Toms guests are Diana Philip of NARAL, Pro-Choice MD; University of Baltimore Law Professor Kim Wehle; and Steven Aden of Americans United for Life.

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Today, the world marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day -- the massive Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France that began on this day in 1944. Early this morning, eastern time, Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron of France, and President Donald Trump spoke at a ceremony marking the anniversary, which included more than 60 World War Two veterans, and a large crowd in Normandy, France, near the graves of more than 9,300 Americans killed in the epic battle. Over the course of three months, a million Allied soldiers joined the battle to turn the tide of the Second World War. Nazi Germany surrendered less than a year later.The existential threat to liberal democracies was a preoccupation not only of the political and military leaders of the day, but also of scores of filmmakers – then, and ever since. Today, we’re going to talk about the movies about and inspired by World War Two; films that were made soon after the conflict, and in the decades that followed. Joining Tom are Midday's go-to movie mavens: Jed Dietz is the founding director of the Maryland Film Festival; Ann Hornaday is the film critic for the Washington Post and the author of the book TALKING PICTURES: HOW TO WATCH MOVIES…Listeners are welcome to join the conversation. What’s your favorite World War 2 movie? How do you think movies about that war have helped succeeding generations understand the sacrifices made 75 years ago to defeat fascism in Europe?

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It's Thursday, and Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck join us for another of her weekly reviews of the Maryland regional stage. Today, she tells us about the new touring production of The Play That Goes Wrong, on stage now at Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre.The Tony Award-winning British farce -- likened in its program to an illegitimate offspring of Sherlock Holmes and Monty Python -- was written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields. Originally produced in 2012 by Mischief Theatre at London's Old Red Lion Theatre, it premiered on Broadway in 2017. It's been performed and licensed for production in more than 20 countries.This touring production of The Play That Goes Wrong is directed by Chris Bean, who also stars as Inspector Carter. Other featured players are Robert Grove, Jonathan Harris, Sandra Wilkinson, Max Bennett and Dennis Tyde. The show continues at the Hippodrome until Sunday, June 9. For more information, click here.

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Two days after the April 2015 uprising following the funeral of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox played at Camden Yards in the only Major League Baseball game ever played without fans. What did the game mean to a city reeling from the worst violence since the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr? And what was it like for the players and the press to be the ones on the inside looking out? Kevin Cowherd was a longtime Baltimore Sun sports columnist and features writer. His new book tells the story of that historic day. It’s called When the Crowd Didn’t Roar: How Baseball's Strangest Game Ever Gave a Broken City Hope.

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As of last Wednesday, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was one of 17 American symphonies who hire their players for a full 52 weeks each year. As of last Thursday, that is no longer the case. After 8 months of negotiations with the players, BSO management has abruptly shortened its season, cutting all of the events they’d announced for this summer. Does it matter if the BSO plays for 40 weeks each year instead of 52? Does a world class orchestra have to be full-time? How should the BSO balance the aspiration for excellence with the realities of the marketplace for classical music? What’s going on with the state’s largest arts organization? To answer that question, Tom talks first with Baltimore Symphony Musicians' Players Committee co-chairs Brian Prechtl and Greg Mulligan, and a little later, with the Symphony's President and CEO Peter Kjome. Then, Nicholas Cohen, the Executive Director of Maryland Citizens for the Arts, joins Tom to discuss the BSO funding crisis, the prospects for continued public support for the arts, and plans for this week's first-ever Maryland Arts Summit.This conversation was live-streamed on WYPR' Facebook page, and you can watch the video here.

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Rep. Jamie Raskin joins Tom. Raskin represents Maryland’s 8th District. He is a member of both the House Judiciary Committee and the Oversight and Reform Committee, which is chaired by another Maryland Congressman, Elijah Cummings. As President Trump meets with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace, Rep. Raskin discusses how support for an impeachment inquiry is being fueled by the Special Counsel's report and the intensifying legal clashes between the Trump White House and Congressional Democrats.

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