Politics and Prose Presents

Politics and Prose Presents

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Politics and Prose Presents episodes

  • Cheryl W. Thompson — Forgotten Souls - with Leonard Downie Jr.

    NPR investigative journalist and the daughter of a Tuskegee Airman, Cheryl W. Thompson explores the stories of the 27 Tuskegee Airmen – the Black pilots who fought for America in WWII – who went missing in combat, the lives they lived, the reasons their planes went down, why the remains of all but two were never found, and the impact their disappearances had on their families and communities.
    In 1945, World War II ended one of the deadliest conflicts in history. Geared for battle were nearly 1,000 trailblazing Black pilots trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field, an unrepentantly segregated facility in Alabama. Hailing from the Iowa cornfields to the Texas Gulf Coast to the tobacco plantations of North Carolina, the Tuskegee Airmen already proved, under the toughest circumstances, to be among the most resilient and defiantly patriotic men of the Army Air Corps.
    27 of them disappeared during the final critical missions in Europe. So, too, would the government’s efforts to find them or help to bring closure to the loved ones that the valiant 332nd Fighter Group left behind.
    In Forgotten Souls, award-winning investigative journalist Cheryl W. Thompson delves into the true stories of the Black combat pilots who faced unimaginable racism—before, during and after the war—from a military that told them they were less than, even as their courage and aviation prowess saved scores of White brothers-in-arms from the enemy and possibly death.
    As cruel as war itself could be, the friends, family, communities and fellow Tuskegee Airmen who mourned the lost pilots never imagined how unforgivable it could get. After 80 years, Forgotten Souls honors the impact they made, and the sacrifices they endured on America’s behalf.

    Cheryl W. Thompson is an award-winning investigative reporter for National Public Radio, an associate professor of journalism at George Washington University, and author of Forgotten Souls: The Search for the Lost Tuskegee Airmen. She is the recipient of more than 40 journalism awards, including an Emmy and 5 National Headliners, and served as reporting coach for the Pulitzer Prize-winning NPR podcast No Compromise. During more than 20 years as a reporter for The Washington Post, she was part of teams that won two Pulitzer Prizes for national reporting. She served as a Pulitzer Prize juror for the Investigative Reporting category in 2022 and chaired the jury in 2023. She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and Investigative Reporters and Editors, where she was elected the first Black president in 2018 and served an unprecedented three terms. She is also a founding and current board member of the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism and a member of the advisory board for the Fund for Investigative Journalism. She is currently a member of the National Press Foundation Board and the Spotlight DC Board, and a two-time graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The daughter of a Tuskegee Airman, she is a Chicago native who lives outside Washington, DC, and can be found online at CherylWThompson.com.

    Thompson is in conversation with Leonard Downie Jr., who was the Executive Editor of the Washington Post. Downie has spent his entire journalistic career at the paper, where he started as a summer intern reporter in 1965. He soon became a prize-winning investigative reporter on the paper's Metro desk. In 1974, when he was Assistant Managing Editor for Metropolitan News, Downie oversaw the paper's Watergate coverage.

    PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781496750778?ic_referral=Ic6RZ2HQu6YqBZvMES5-icOKC3TjJ-7bXIXKpFF455AwMznekkPZl2pdCs9VuhmYcFqLCsJc07_lkpGVaPNe_H85BNLx7ZLfgvdFec59XIEn8pnxX11BbRa6f8PHod2G6JU-C6Y

    57 min
  • Gabriel Sherman - BONFIRE OF THE MURDOCHS: How the Epic Fight to Control the Last Great Media Dynasty Broke a Family and the World - WITH JULIA IOFFE

    The real succession story of the Murdoch empire is more shocking than the fictional TV series.
    When Rupert Murdoch made a fateful decision about who should inherit his media colossus, he believed that pitting his children against each other would produce the most capable heir. Twenty-five years later, that gamble would tear apart one of the world’s most powerful families and trigger a multi-billion dollar reckoning in a succession battle featuring betrayals, lawsuits, and revenge plots.
    In Bonfire of the Murdochs, bestselling author Gabriel Sherman tells the inside story of this epic family war, one whose seeds were planted a half-century ago in Australia when the complicated patriarch left his homeland to conquer the world and please the ghost of his judgmental father. That quest culminated in a media empire that controlled Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and tabloids on three continents, which wielded more political and cultural power than any single company in modern times.
    But Rupert’s plan to rip up the secret trust controlling his empire and anoint his conservative firstborn son Lachlan as successor set him on a collision course with his three more liberal children What price would Rupert pay to secure his legacy? For the aging patriarch, this would be his final and most personal deal.
    Based on interviews with more than 150 sources, Bonfire of the Murdochs is a richly textured narrative where each child plays their predestined role in a blood feud that explodes in a courtroom showdown. There, Murdoch’s children weaponize his own secrets against him. It is a tragedy Shakespeare would have appreciated, where getting everything you want costs everything you love.

    Gabriel Sherman is an award-winning journalist and screenwriter. He has been covering the Murdochs since 2008. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Loudest Voice in the Room about the late Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. He is the screenwriter of the twice Oscar-nominated film The Apprentice and has covered national politics for New York magazine and Vanity Fair. He lives in London with his wife, son, and daughter plus their dog and cat.

    Sherman is in conversation with Julia Ioffe, a Russian-born American journalist. Her articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Foreign Policy, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, The New Republic, Politico, and The Atlantic. Ioffe has appeared on television programs on MSNBC, CBS, PBS, and other news channels as a Russia expert. She is a founding partner and Washington correspondent at Puck.

    PURCHASE:

    https://politics-prose.com/book/9781982167417?ic_referral=OXQ8zQFntGd_6J66ZFXFobpeeiRp0xM5urgxKcA_0qUwM8lMXuWIVK_W9WUBdIjiy0WG7-raxp7uYsKriOcfdSmv7MnLfMVUxA6rlYMF0_IjG26CizM1gMgWhGm7SOZGmPYVL1k

    58 min
  • Jason Zengerle — Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind - with Jonathan Martin

    From a seasoned political journalist, an eye-opening examination of Tucker Carlson’s rise through conservative media and politics, and his ideological transformation over the past thirty years, tracking the concurrent shifts in the political and media landscapes which have both influenced and succumbed to the hyperpartisan politics of today.
    To many, Tucker Carlson is synonymous with modern conservative politics. Carlson has been present on our screens for almost three decades and is as infamous for his bow tie as he is for his increasingly extreme right-wing views. But those who knew Carlson in his earlier days in political journalism remember a very different man—a serious and gifted writer and commentator who enjoyed debating with liberal friends and calling out conservative failures in equal measure. Now after watching Carlson turn away from measured reporting, while simultaneously gaining unparalleled power in Donald Trump’s Republican Party, most are left asking, What the hell happened to Tucker? 
    New York Times Magazine writer Jason Zengerle’s rich and evocative character study of Carlson tells the story of how the former Fox News talking head rose through the ranks of conservative media, from his early days as a young writer at The Weekly Standard to his current perch as one of the most powerful voices in right-wing politics. Through deep reporting and a sweeping view of the political and media landscapes over the past thirty years, Zengerle reveals how Carlson’s career offers a unique lens into the radical transformation of American conservatism and, just as importantly, the media that covers and ultimately shapes it. As conservative news outlets fight daily over who can report the most disreputable stories, and clicks and views take precedence over facts and substance, Carlson’s evolution tells the larger story of how the right has radicalized and taken the media with it.

    Jason Zengerle is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. He previously was the political correspondent for GQ, a contributing editor for New York Magazine, and a senior editor for The New Republic and has written for The Atlantic, Slate, Politico, and numerous other publications. His book Hated By All The Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind publishes January 27 from Crooked Media Reads / Zando.

    Zengerle is in conversation with Jonathan Martin, the politics bureau chief and senior political columnist at POLITICO, where he writes a reported column.  Prior to starting his column in 2022, Martin was the national political correspondent for The New York Times.  Covering elections in all 50 states, he served as the publication’s top political reporter for nearly a decade.  He is the co-author This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future, which spent three weeks on The New York Times best-seller list and gave readers in-the-room access to the extraordinary events of the 2020 election and its aftermath.  Martin is a contributor to NBC's "Meet the Press."  He and his wife, Betsy, live in Washington and New Orleans.

    PURCHASE:

    https://politics-prose.com/book/9781638932932?ic_referral=fuMM0AkD5VgJPkcaERVK7_KXK9kSR8Mk04dOFnM7Gt0wM2DrUf4Uhc3cjHPv_7EYFSEd1TE4voh1YczjaN5hspr6iSh-5uBtj8qM-lcixz-e27oVevC0qVqN0KDv5Eueq90uqJY

    1 hr
  • Stephen Fishbach — Escape! - with Dalton Ross

    A propulsive debut novel following a has-been reality TV star and a disgraced producer who get one last shot at redemption on a show set on a remote island, only to discover that the plot twists are beyond what they ever imagined.
    Everyone gets the story arc they deserve.
    Kent Duvall, a faded reality show winner, just wants another chance at glory—to find his way out of his depressing life and back to his highlight reel. When a scandal is captured on camera at a charity event, he gets his shot, on a new jungle survival show with seven other contestants. Each of them has been cast as a type—Ruddy the bully, Miriam the nerd, Ashley the love interest—but everyone is more than they appear. 
    The contestants’ goals seem simple—survive the wild, build a raft, win treasure. But Beck Bermann, a reality producer who suffered her own public shaming, sees them as characters in her redemption arc.
    As the schemes and strategies spiral out, breakout camps sabotage each other and rival producers struggle to control the storyline. Soon the question becomes less about who will win than who will make it out in one piece.

    Stephen Fishbach is a Pushcart Prize–winning writer and former television executive. A two-time Survivor contestant (voted onto the show the second time by more than ten million fans), he’s worked on the network side as a vice president at MTV and freelanced for a reality producers’ trade group. He cohosts a weekly Survivor podcast as well as the literary podcast Paraphrase. Stephen graduated with honors from Yale and received an MFA in fiction at NYU. In 2009 he was named one of People magazine’s hottest bachelors. His short story “To Sharks”—an excerpt from Escape!—was published by One Story and garnered Stephen the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and two daughters.

    Fishbach is in conversation with Dalton Ross, an Editorial Director at Entertainment Weekly, where he has covered all things pop culture for over 26 years. He has written several weekly columns for the magazine, including “What to Watch,” “The Hit List,” “Ask Dalton,” and a back page column titled "The Glutton" that alternated in a rotation along with writers Stephen King and Mark Harris. In addition to writing and editing for EW, Ross also hosted a daily morning radio show on SiriusXM for eight years titled EW Live, and has appeared on TV shows such as American Idol, The View, The Talking Dead, NBC’s TODAY, ABC’s Good Morning America, and CBS This Morning, as well as MTV, ESPN, VH1, Bravo, AMC, Fox News, and CNBC.  

    PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9798217048151?ic_referral=ffE3Wc2r9VZWmgaUrkipP8T83oI_YGOfrNqYy-_1VLkwMzAax1JkgcNdVSW4Fe9g_aieuXUWBO8Eup4pQJbJgpzgUDmptETsSKArmpfxerzQFtEXKh2FU1-rBwv4Ug-lZfKnNDo

    1 hr 2 min
  • Lisa Gail Collins & Glexis Novoa - ART & HISTORIES - with Kaira M. Cabañas

    As the first volume in the new series Art &, this book signals a bold new vision for a more dynamic study of art
    Each essay in this groundbreaking volume—the first in an exciting new series from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts—engages aesthetic and cultural debates that situate research on the arts at the intersection of various disciplines, including architecture, film, literature, curatorial and museum studies, and the arts of performance. Reflecting the series’ goal to engage with different cultural contexts and time periods, newly commissioned essays from emerging and established scholars address subjects ranging from medieval dance and ancient Assyrian reliefs to expressions of gender embodiment and the art of the Afro-Atlantic. First-person narratives ground theoretical considerations of the theme.
     
    Reflecting a commitment to embracing the book form as a space for art itself, the book includes a detachable accordion-fold insert with a work from Miami-based artist Glexis Novoa. One of his signature horizon lines unites Washington, DC, and the artist’s native Havana. Meticulous drawings executed on travertine marble entangle the two cities and their monuments, symbolizing both violent and triumphant histories and their ideological reversals.

    Lisa Gail Collins is professor of art on the Sarah Gibson Blanding Chair and director of the American studies program at Vassar College. She received her BA in art history from Dartmouth College and her PhD in American studies from University of Minnesota. Her latest book, Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee’s Bend Quilt—a meditation on suffering, creativity, resilience, and grace—was recently published by University of Washington Press.

    Glexis Novoa was a key participant in the vibrant art scene known as the renaissance of Cuban art in the 1980s. He was the founder of the Grupo Provisional, a pioneer of performance, political activism, and collectivist practices. Residing in Miami since 1995, Novoa is recognized for his site-specific wall drawings, which exist on the border between ephemeral art and architecture.

    Collins and Novoa are in conversation with Kaira M. Cabañas, associate dean for academic programs and publications at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (the Center) at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. She is the author of multiple volumes, including Immanent Vitalities: Meaning and Materiality in Modern and Contemporary Art (2021) and Learning from Madness: Brazilian Modernism and Global Contemporary Art (2018).

    PURCHASE:

    https://politics-prose.com/product/art-histories?v=1945890&ic_referral=Y0j62qs9sOGV37K1pIe0N9lHhsq5ttWTaZJG9OGmfCowM8OdfQb5XGDs6ff16N7317Fxa7hV0R1uzT-jvYC54w3IQiPyhVQiDHtI04cPQK-I2IDNrZTU24nzl2rIkfnUqAgjEDs

    59 min
  • Nicholas A. Brown-Cáceres & David H. Plylar — Let the People Hear It: One Hundred Years of Concerts at the Library of Congress

    Since 1925, the Library of Congress has presented one of the most prestigious and innovative concert series in the United States. Philanthropist Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge founded the series with the purpose of sharing music of the highest caliber with the American people. Her vision was clear: concerts would be free and open to all, the finest touring artists and ensembles would appear, and both traditional and new repertoire would be performed.
    The Library's Coolidge Auditorium, renowned for its sublime acoustics, has hosted the world premiere of Martha Graham and Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring, (1944), residencies by the likes of Rosanne Cash and John Adams, and the 2023 Salute to Strayhorn festival marking the arrival of the jazz legend's collection at the Library. Among the more than 700 new works commissioned by the Library of Congress are compositions by stalwarts of twentieth century music, such as Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg, and newer voices including George Walker and Tania Le n.
    Let the People Hear It: Concerts from the Library of Congress at 100 shares the history of this remarkable series through the people, music, and collections that have inspired countless listeners. Photographs, historical documents, and unique music manuscripts demonstrate how the concert series enriched and preserved America's musical, dance, and theater heritage, all while fostering a community of music lovers.

    Nicholas A. Brown-Cáceres is acting chief of the Library of Congress's Music Division. He previously served in senior leadership roles at the Prince George's County Memorial Library System and Washington Performing Arts and he is a former Army bandsman.

    Dr. David H. Plylar is a music specialist and concert producer at the Library of Congress. He is also a composer and pianist who writes about music.


    PURCHASE:

    https://politics-prose.com/book/9780844495941?ic_referral=73m1eSRR_nobz-dWPGdDy9YCBghDSVZo8TOHzhTlQMswM2tWThoR1odYj-DpNqDt0fRllbDhnJ4aw9CSRggCA5A-3jPlM_v5689ZeJnX56nITrnudrZnJ8wJaZOlh9VhSp7zoc4

    1 hr 2 min
  • Dick Harpootlian — Dig Me a Grave: The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Who Seduced the South - with Josh Dawsey

    The definitive true “Southern Gothic” account of the life, crimes, conviction, and execution of Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins, the charismatic, brutal, well-liked, remorseless South Carolina serial killer who was dubbed the Charles Manson of the South—written by the prosecutor who brought him to justice.
    Of the hundreds of murder cases that noted South Carolina attorney Dick Harpootlian has prosecuted, one in particular haunts him. Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins was a serial killer and rapist, a master manipulator who claimed to have killed over 100 people and is known to have murdered over a dozen, including a toddler, and his own teenage niece. Yet it was on Death Row that he pulled off his most audacious murder—killing another inmate with a military grade explosive.
    As personable as he was ruthless, Pee Wee defied easy categories. He killed to avenge minor slights as well as for pleasure, using any convenient method—including stabbing, shooting, poison, suffocation, and drowning. Evidence suggested he forced at least one victim to dig his own grave, stand in it, and be shot.
    With escalating callousness, Pee Wee murdered acquaintances, friends, family members, and strangers. Yet within his North Charleston community he was well-liked—a family man who took neighborhood kids to the beach and hosted cookouts. Ice-cold within but outwardly charming, he joked with judges, reporters, and Harpootlian himself, but didn’t hesitate to hatch a plot to kidnap the prosecutor’s daughter in order to extort an escape.
    Dig Me a Grave is a haunting look at a prolific, remorseless killer, as well as a provocative exploration of justice and the death penalty.

    Dick Harpootlian is one of South Carolina’s leading courtroom advocates with 30 years of trial experience as a prosecutor, defense attorney, and civil litigator. As the Fifth Circuit’s chief homicide prosecutor, Mr. Harpootlian personally prosecuted hundreds of murder cases, including 12 death penalty cases. For the last 20 years, Mr. Harpootlian’s private practice has earned him state and national recognition for his efforts on behalf of civil litigants and criminal defendants. He has appeared on 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, ABC Nightly News, NBC Nightly News, Dateline NBC, and various CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and Fox News broadcasts.

    Harpootlian is in conversation with Josh Dawsey, an investigative reporter focused on politics at The Wall Street Journal. He most recently worked as a political enterprise and investigations reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the Post in 2017 and covered the White House from 2017 to 2021. He was part of the team of journalists that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the newspaper’s coverage of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and a team that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for coverage of the role of the AR-15 in American life. He is also a two-time recipient of the White House Correspondents Association award for news reporting, a lecturer at the Allbritton Journalism Institute, and co-author of 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America. Josh is a proud graduate of the University of South Carolina and the enthusiastic owner of a rambunctious rescue dog named Pepper.

    PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780806542881?ic_referral=qz_3R1nEyjin_zfOHSSKReUEsT675OjkGwbaTqOMKRAwM4TsFuHuuvbdkn37ySHswDQzlOUh_qAWhe2giA43ZncxqeAMElhfMSsVmkSzqmF86XinPxIXz04zG-FS8wLEJhsyQl0

    1 hr 11 min
  • Michael O’Hanlon — TO DARE MIGHTY THINGS: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution - with Bradley Graham

    The definitive history of U.S. defense strategy.

    Much of the history of U.S. defense over the course of 250 years has been a story of success. Insulated by two oceans and mostly friendly neighbors, but constantly ambitious abroad, America has dared mighty things and often achieved them, argues defense analyst Michael O’Hanlon. After growing into a continental power, largely through force of arms, during the first half of its history, it then led the way to coalition victories in two world wars, pursued peace in the Cold War, and has contributed to the most democratic period in human history. But it is a more “dangerous nation” than most citizens appreciate, given that its leaders, as well its people, are highly self-confident and activist. O’Hanlon claims that only by understanding this “national DNA” can we hope to steer safely through the twenty-first century. He further argues that, in contrast to its consistently assertive grand strategy, there has been no single defining American “way of war” since 1775—a good thing, since what often worked for the country in the past may be of less relevance for the modern age.

    Michael O’Hanlon holds the Philip H. Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of many books, including The Art of War in an Age of Peace: U.S. Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint. He teaches at Columbia and Georgetown Universities and lives in Bethesda, MD.

    O’Hanlon is in conversation with Bradley Graham, co-owner of Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, DC.  He and his wife, Lissa Muscatine, assumed ownership of P&P in 2011. Previously, Brad spent 30 years with The Washington Post as a reporter and editor focused mostly on foreign and national security affairs. He also has written two books---Hit to Kill, an account published in 2001 of renewed U.S. efforts to build a national missile defense system, and By His Own Rules, a biography of Donald Rumsfeld published in 2009.

    PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780300279931?ic_referral=wy28epOyFTG7wwxPr4rfancApIYDWcb9h0UlTGJShfUwMxCSw_jMjGHGwlylsZDKmC38FvH7SNLW1LI9GTswOQtUh_JGoT9GlhfaSR0Ci0EwaacSKeLxqMzucHh5VjkpFKjCz44

    1 hr 3 min
  • Daniyal Mueenuddin — This Is Where the Serpent Lives - with Varun Gauri

    A stunning new work from universally acclaimed Daniyal Mueenuddin, whose debut short story collection won the Story Prize and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.
    Moving from Pakistan’s dazzling chaotic cities to its lawless feudal countryside, This Is Where the Serpent Lives powerfully evokes contemporary feudal Pakistan, following the destinies of a dozen unforgettable characters whose lives are linked through violence and tragedy, triumph, and love. Orphaned as a little boy and fending for himself in the city streets, Yazid rises to a place of responsibility and respect in the Lahore household of Colonel Atar, a powerful industrialist and politician, only to find that position threatened by conflicting loyalties and misplaced trust. Born on Colonel Atar’s country estate to a poor gardener, Saqib is entrusted with the management of a pioneering business, but he overreaches and finds himself an outlaw, confronting the violence of the corrupt Punjab Police. The colonel’s son competes with his cherished brother for the love of a woman and discovers that her choice colors his life with unexpected darkness as well as light.
    In matters of power and money and the heart, Mueenuddin’s characters struggle to choose between paths that are moral and just and more worldly choices that allow them to survive in the systems of caste, capital, and social power that so tightly grip their culture. Intimate and epic, elegiac and profoundly moving, This Is Where the Serpent Lives is a tour de force destined to become a classic of contemporary literature.

    Daniyal Mueenuddin was brought up in Lahore, Pakistan, and Elroy, Wisconsin. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Yale Law School, his stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope, and The Best American Short Stories 2008, selected by Salman Rushdie. His collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. For a number of years he practiced law in New York. He now lives in Oslo.

    Mueenuddin is in conversation with Varun Gauri, whose debut novel, For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus, was selected for NPR’s Books We Love 2024, chosen as a Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Winner in Adult Fiction, and won the 2024 Carol Trawick Fiction Prize. A social scientist by training, Varun has led research projects on social policy and behavioral economics in dozens of countries around the world, and his academic work has been covered in The New York Times, The Economist, Le Monde, The Hindu, and The Guardian. Varun now teaches at Princeton University and serves on the board of The Writer's Center in Bethesda, MD. 

    PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/daniyal-mueenuddin-011726

    1 hr
  • Caitlin Vincent — Opera Wars: Inside the World of Opera and the Battles for Its Future - with Chelsea Denni

    Blunt, irreverent, and at times wittily subversive, Opera Wars spotlights opera’s colorful and sometimes warring personalities, increasingly fierce controversies over content, and the battles being waged for its economic future.
    Drawing on interviews with dozens of opera insiders—as well as her own experience as an award-winning librettist, trained vocalist, opera company director, and arts commentator—Caitlin Vincent deftly unravels clichés and presumptions, exposing such debates as how much fidelity is owed to long-dead opera composers whose plots often stir racial and gender sensitivities, whether there’s any cure for typecasting that leaves talented performers out of work and other performers chained to the same roles, and what explains the bizarre kowtowing of opera companies to the demands of traditionalist patrons.
    Vincent never shrinks from depicting the industry’s top-to-bottom messiness and its stubborn resistance to change. Yet, like a lover who can’t quite break away, she always comes back to her veneration for the artform and in these pages stirringly evokes those moments on stage that can be counted on to make ardent fans of the most skeptical.

    Caitlin Vincent is an award-winning librettist, trained vocalist, opera company director, and arts commentator. Her librettos have won all three of America’s top opera prizes and her vocal work is featured on the Grammy Award–nominated album 40@40. Vincent was the artistic director of The Figaro Project from 2009 to 2014. She writes frequently on the arts for such outlets as The Conversation and Limelight, and her perspective on opera has been featured in The New York Times. She holds a PhD from Deakin University (Australia), an MM from Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins, and a BA from Harvard. She was born in the US but currently makes her home in Melbourne, Australia. 

    Vincent will be in conversation with Chelsea Dennis, the Director of Production at Washington National Opera, where she leads the Technical, Costume, Stage Management, and Rehearsal departments. Before joining WNO in 2023, she served as Director of Production at The Santa Fe Opera, the company where she began her career as a Stage Management Intern in 2004. Over the past two decades, Chelsea has been a leader within the Stage Management departments of prominent opera companies across the country, including Los Angeles Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and San Francisco Opera. Her production work includes the Grammy Award–winning The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs as well as Broadway’s Tony Award–winning Fences. She holds a degree in Technical Theatre from San Francisco State University and is originally from Coronado, California.

    PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/caitlin-vincent-011526

    56 min

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