The Big Listen

Actor Larenz Tate slides into your ears with the new fictional audio series, Bronzeville. And comedian Marina Franklin does impressions of her family. Plus, we go back to college with Chioke I'Anson and find ourselves charmed by Charm City.

Jonathan Groff isn't just a luminary of stage and screen. He's now a bona fide podcast star. And a really nice guy. His newest project, 36 Questions, where he plays opposite Jessie Shelton, is a podcast based on the New York Times Modern Love column titled "To Fall In Love With Anyone, Do This." The story follows a couple trying to repair their broken marriage by asking each other the 36 questions that lead to love. And it's told in musical form. So it's a podcast musical. Or a musical podcast.

If you haven't listened to S-Town yet, hop to it! But what to think about this complicated piece of aural literature? Media ethicist Kelly McBride helps us sort through our feelings. And we visit a lively S-Town Hall in Chicago. Plus, we unpack the many Muslim American identities with See Something Say Something's Ahmed Ali Akbar. And Irish writer and comedian Maeve Higgins introduces us to some of her favorite immigration stories. Including her own.

As a species, humans love to explore. And then they love to podcast about their explorations. This week we head out on an adventure with the overlanding couple behind the podcast, Let's Not Panic. And we talk traveling while black and female with On She Goes host Aminatou Sow. Also, we hear tales of survival and derring-do from the Outside Podcast. Plus, a National Geographic explorer tells us what podcasts she's listening to when she's trekking to far-flung locales.

This week on The Big Listen, we gobble candy with Ronna & Beverly, pet a lot of hypothetical dogs with the host of Can I Pet Your Dog? and peer inside prison life with Written Inside. Plus: a woman who used podcasts to help her get to sleep!

Kids love being read to. But what about adults? According to actor LeVar Burton, they love it, too! We talk to the Reading Rainbow star about his new podcast for adults, LeVar Burton Reads. Also, we dig into black culture with the hosts of The Nod, and we unpack the stories behind the sports with Jody Avirgan of ESPN's 30 For 30 podcast. Plus: writer and director Ingrid Jungermann on her new feature film "Women Who Kill," about a pair of true crime podcasters.

Invisibilia's Hanna Rosen and Alix Spiegel tell us what they listen to when they aren't making concept albums about concepts. We hear from the women of By The Book about self-help books, meet the creator of KPCC's bilingual radionovela Celestial Blood. Plus, the Swedish true crime podcast Spår.

Actress Gillian Jacobs lets us in on what podcasts she listens to when she's in the shower. Then we head out to sea to learn about cargo ships with Containers' Alexis Madrigal, and we tickle the ivories with some of piano's greatest young stars with The Competition. And we get fizzy with the hosts of the heavily carbonated Seltzer Death Match.

America's hat is turning 150 years old! To celebrate Canada Day and our neighbors to the North, we talk to the women behind Love Me, a CBC podcast about the messiness of relationships, and we get a more realistic look at Canadian history with Canadaland's Jesse Brown. Then we catch up with Canadian-American hybrid Jonathan Goldstein, the self-styled mealy-mouthed mensch behind Wiretap and now Heavyweight. Plus: Native storytelling from the world's first indigenous podcast network.

Comedians Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher host a comedy show--in real life, in a podcast and on their TV sitcom, Take My Wife. We talk about their dog, their meta lifestyle and their favorite podcasts. And we find out if the host of The New York Times' The Daily ever sleeps and learn some art history with The Lonely Palette.