SUMMARY:The hit Broadway play “Choir Boy” chronicles an African-American prep school and its star pupil, the choir boy, who happens to be gay. Written by Tarell McCraney, a MacArthur Fellowship recipient, the play explores themes not often addressed publicly within the black community or outside it. Jeffrey Brown sits down with McCraney to discuss what it means to bring important voices to the stage.
SUMMARY:A new play showing at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., chronicles the rise of a young Vladimir Putin to power in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. "Kleptocracy," written by Kenneth Lin, offers a glimpse into Putin’s confrontation with oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and explores what might have happened if Russian power had fallen into different hands. Jeffrey Brown reports.
SUMMARY:Glenda Jackson is back on Broadway for the first time since 1988, starring in Edward Albee's "Three Tall Women." Jackson, 82, sits down with Jeffrey Brown to discuss the challenge of finding interesting female roles and why she spent 23 years away from acting as a Labor Party member of the British Parliament championing women's rights.
PS: 2018 Tony Awards Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play
Glenda Jackson, "Edward Albee's Three Tall Women"
SUMMARY: It's the story of a real-life murder trial and the so-called Zoot Suit Riots, set amid rampant discrimination in 1940s Los Angeles. A play called "Zoot Suit" was a cultural phenomenon in the 1970s and '80s, launching the careers of many Chicano actors. Now it's in revival at the theater where it all began. Jeffrey Brown reports talks to writer and director Luis Valdez.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):It is a deeply American story, a Mexican-American story, “Zoot Suit” the play, set in Los Angeles in the 1940s, amid rampant discrimination, a real-life murder trial and the so-called Zoot Suit Riots.
ACTOR: The grand jury has just indicted you all for the same identical crime, not just you four, the whole entire 38th Street Gang.
JEFFREY BROWN:And “Zoot Suit,” the cultural phenomenon, reaching from its premiere in 1978 at L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum, to Broadway, to a 1981 film, and now, 38 years later, to a revival at the theater where it began.
Its writer and director, then and now, is Luis Valdez.
LUIS VALDEZ, Writer/Director, “Zoot Suit”: I believe in entertainment. I love entertainment, you know? But I love it with a purpose. I want people to come out of here thinking about what they saw, and perhaps reassessing what's happening in their own lives with their families.
And, more than anything I hope that people leave here with hope and inspiration.
JEFFREY BROWN:Valdez received a National Medal of the Arts from President Obama in 2015 for — quote — “illuminating the human spirit in the face of social injustice.”
He spent his early years in a family of migrant workers.
Is it correct what I read, that you were 6 when you first discovered your love of theater in a camp?
LUIS VALDEZ: In a camp, labor camp, I got hooked, yes. I auditioned, and I won my first role. Unfortunately, the week of the show, we were evicted from the labor camp where we were staying, and I was never in the play. So, that left a big gap, a big hole in my chest, you know?
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Ann Hornaday is a film critic for The Washington Post, and joins me now.
Well, Ann, what’s interesting about that first performance for me is, it seems to start with a kind of Hollywood construct. That famous director Howard Hawks, he’s looking for, trying to shape a type, but Lauren Bacall manages to make it more than that, right?
ANN HORNADAY, The Washington Post: Oh, it’s mythic in all of its contours, because you’re right. It was that kind of straight from Shraff kind of narrative about, you know, get me the right girl.
And, of course, it was his wife Slim who suggested then Betty Perske, Betty Bacall, that he look at her. And then he did mold her. And I think one of the contradictions of her career is that she did come to personify this ideal of independence and flintiness underneath this amazing panther-like sensuality.
And a lot of that was created by Hawks. He was the one who suggested that she lower her voice, which she exercised every day to lower. He was the one who helped her perfect the look. So it was very much a collaboration.
SUMMARY: The actors at Brave New Workshop have been writing and performing satire longer than any other theater in the United States. "MN Original" of Twin Cities Public Television takes a look at the pioneering comedic theater with an alumni list that includes Al Franken and Louie Anderson.
BRAVE NEW WORKSHOP (performance): I love you so much, Bloopeekins. Oh, I am over the moon that we are finally married. Thank you, Minnesota. Thank you, Minnesota.
LAUREN ANDERSON: Humor’s such a great tool to get things out.
BRAVE NEW WORKSHOP (performance): It is so nice to see another loving couple finally getting married. Oh, no. No, we’re not getting married. We’re getting divorced.
LAUREN ANDERSON: Once you’re laughing with people you have a shared experience with them, and people that have shared experiences relax a little bit. They calm down. They feel closer to each other. And when you feel closer and more connected you’re able to discus things in a way that you wouldn’t if you felt isolated.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
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