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On today’s “Leonard Lopate at Large,” Leonard will open the phones so that Al and Larry Ubell can take any winter home-repair questions you’ve got. No problem is too big (or small) for these masters of improving your residence!

Today, on Leonard Lopate at Large, it’s musical theatre lyricist and composer Stephen Schwartz who wrote the hit musicals “Godspell,” “Pippin” and “Wicked” and contributed lyrics for the films “Pocahontas,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Enchanted.” Stephen is a recipient of the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics, four Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards and six Tony Award nominations. In 2015, Steven received the Isabelle Stevenson Award, a special Tony Award for his commitment to serving artists and fostering new talent.  Stephen is joined by Carol de Giere, author of the book “Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz, from Godspell to Wicked.”

Join Leonard for a special Leonard Lopate at Large with master instrumentalist. Kenny Werner has been a world-class pianist and composer for over 40 years. His prolific collection of recordings, both as a bandleader and a sideman performing with jazz luminaries like Lee Koonitz and Archie Shepp, continue to have a profound effect on audiences around the world. In 1996, Kenny wrote his landmark book “Effortless Mastery: Liberating The Master Musician Within.” He has since created videos, lectured worldwide and authored numerous articles on how musicians, artists or even business people can allow their “master creator” within to lift a performance to it’s highest level, showing us how to be spontaneous, fearless, joyful and disciplined in our work and in our life.

Paul Rieckhoff is the executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a non-partisan non-profit group founded in 2004. With tens of thousands of members in all 50 US states, IAVA is America’s first and largest Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans group.Today, on Leonard Lopate at Large,Paul Rieckhoff discusses the issues facing members of the military currently in combat and those long retired from it.

For 14 seasons, “Saturday Night Live’s” Darrell Hammond delighted crowds with his uncanny impersonations of Sean Connery, Regis Philbin, and (most notably) former President Bill Clinton. Mimicking over 107 celebrities, Hammond found fame on the sketch show, appearing on films and even performing at the White House Correspondents’ dinner. But behind-the-scenes, the comedian suffered.

Plagued by incapacitating flashbacks, Hammond struggled to cope, eventually turning to substance abuse and self-harm. After 50 years of pain and misdiagnoses, he discovered the root of his ailments: repressed memories from his youth. Documentarian Michelle Esrick captured Hammond’s story in the film “Cracked Up.”

Esrick, who met Hammond via mutual friends years ago, could tell they were both on a healing path and wanted to tell the actor’s story with a balance of comedic clips, interviews, and the intricate sculptures from the artist Dustin Yellin. 

Today on Leonard Lopate At Large, Leonard’s guest  Brooke Jarvis will be joined by two of the scientists, Dr. Arthur Shapiro of UC Davis and Dr. David Wagner of the University of Connecticut, for a discussion of what is behind this massive insect disappearance.“Because insects are legion, inconspicuous and hard to meaningfully track, the fear that there might be far fewer than before was more felt than documented,” writes New York Times reporter Brooke Jarvis in her article “The Insect Apocalypse Is Here: What does it mean for the rest of life on Earth?”

“People noticed it by canals or in backyards or under streetlights at night — familiar places that had become unfamiliarly empty. The feeling was so common that entomologists developed a shorthand for it, named for the way many people first began to notice that they weren’t seeing as many bugs. They called it the windshield phenomenon.”

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Today, on Leonard Lopate at Large, Leonard talks with the directors of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra about their unique approach to performing classical music.

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1972 by a group of like-minded young musicians determined to combine the intimacy and warmth of a chamber ensemble with the richness of an orchestra.

The ensemble performs without a conductor, rotating musical leadership roles for each work, with a focus on presenting diverse repertoire through collaboration and open dialogue.

Orpheus aims to bring this unique approach to students of all ages through its worldwide education and engagement programs: Access Orpheus-NYC, Orpheus Music Academy, Orpheus Leadership Institute, and their newest project Orpheus Reflections, a program for people with Alzheimers and dementia and their caregivers.

Today on Leonard Lopate at Large, Leonard and  Twyla Tharp discuss “Minimalism and Me” and her seminal dance performances from 1965 to 1971 that inspired it.

One of the most important dancers and choreographers of the last century, Twyla Tharp has been pushing modern dance forward for more than 60 years. With her latest show, “Minimalism and Me,” currently in the midst of a three-week run at the Joyce Theater, Twyla revisits the creation of her influential early works and their relationship to the minimalist art movement of that era.

Twyla Tharp has choreographed more than 160 works: 129 dances, 12 television specials, 6 Hollywood films, 4 full-length ballets, 4 Broadway shows, and 2 figure skating routines. Tharp has received 1 Tony Award, 2 Emmy Awards, 19 honorary doctorates, the Vietnam Veterans of America President’s Award, the National Medal of the Arts (2004), the Jerome Robbins Prize (2008), and a Kennedy Center Honor (2008). Her many grants include the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Tharp published her autobiography, Push Comes to Shove (1992), as well as two instructional books, The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life (2003) and The Collaborative Habit:  Life Lessons for Working Together(2009).

Tharp continues to create.

On today’s Leonard Lopate At Large, Join Christopher and Leonard for a discussion on how to make your holiday dishes something special.

Renowned chef and cookbook author Christopher Kimball is the founder of Milk Street and the host of “Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television” and “Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio,” a weekly public radio show and podcast.

In 1980 Christopher founded Cook’s Magazine and served as publisher and editorial director through 1989. In 1993, Mr. Kimball re-launched Cook’s Magazine as Cook’s Illustrated and went on to found Cook’s Country magazine in 2004. In 2001 Kimball was hired by PBS to host a half-hour cooking show called “America’s Test Kitchen,” a concept of his own creation. In his 16 years at the helm, “America’s Test Kitchen” became public television’s most-watched cooking show, eventually drawing nearly 2 million viewers a week. Kimball added “Cook’s Country” in 2008. 

Today on Leonard Lopate at Large: Mary Hogan Camp, art historian and docent coordinator at the Morgan Museum, will talk about the exhibition and why Pontormo deserves to be considered one of the master artists of the Renaissance.

Jacopo Carucci, called Pontormo after the Tuscan town he came from, was a leader of the Mannerist movement that dominated Italian painting in the 16th century.

Michelangelo once predicted that a 19- year-old Pontormo “will exalt this art to the heavens.” At a small show currently at the Morgan Library and Museum, Pontormo’s 1528 painting “Visitation” is being seen in America for the first time—on loan from a small church near Florence.  The New Yorker has called it “one of the damnedest great paintings of all time.”