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In Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun, a black family buys a house in an all-white neighborhood — and even before they move in, the neighbors are up in arms. Clybourne Park, on Broadway now, is set in that very same house. It is “sort of a parallel play,” explains ...

Nina Arianda is the it-girl on Broadway — she’s nominated for a Tony for her performance in David Ives’ comedy Venus In Fur.  The show is a play within a play:  a writer has adapted an erotic novel for the stage, and he’s having a hell of a time casting the lead.  Enter Vanda: a sexy ...

The 66th annual Tony Awards are Sunday, June 10. Here's a round-up of Kurt Andersen's conversations with some of the nominees: James Corden (One Man, Two Guvnors), Suzan-Lori Parks (The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess), Bruce Norris (Clybourne Park), Jon Robin Baitz (Other Desert Cities), and Nina Arianda (Venus in Fur).

Chris Adrian's novels tell dark, fantastical stories that draw on his experience working as a pediatric oncologist. Adrian tells Kurt how writing helps him deal with the emotional burden of the medicine he practices. Anne Marie Nest reads selections from Adrian's forthcoming novel ...

If you're a fan of the reboot of British sci-fi TV series Doctor Who, Steven Moffat is the patron saint of nerd cool. He's the visionary show runner and writer behind some of the series’ most creepy and popular episodes. He recently reinvented another classic British superhero, who’s similarly ...

It’s the first poem about David Bowie to win the Pulitzer Prize. Tracy K. Smith’s collection Life on Mars contains many references to the man she salutes as the “Pope of Pop." Smith admits she became “kind of obsessed” with Bowie’s extraterrestrial alter ego Ziggy Stardust late. He seemed ...

Poem: "Don't You Wonder Sometimes"

Last month, we announced our Significant Objects story contest. We picked out three objects from a thrift store — a doll ($5), a thermos with the Marlboro logo ($5), and a wooden trinket ($1) — and asked you to perform creative alchemy, turning junk into treasure by giving it ...

Lena Dunham is the creator, director, and star of the new HBO series Girls, and, at 25, happy to be called a girl herself. The show follows four young women trying to carve out adult lives for themselves in New York City, struggling with independence, sex, and work. Comparisons ...

Bonus Track: Kurt’s extended conversation with Lena Dunham

Over the last decade, Kerry Washington has became well-known for terrific performances in movies like The Last King of Scotland and Ray. She’s now the star of her own new network series, which even today is a rare feat for an African-American actress. In Scandal, Washington ...

Bonus Track: Striking a Scandalous Pose

Last month, we announced our Significant Object story contest. We picked out three objects from a thrift store — a doll ($5), a thermos with the Marlboro logo ($5), and a wooden trinket ($1). We want you to perform creative alchemy, turning the junk into treasure by giving ...

Enter Studio 360's Significant Objects story contest

Sergio Muñoz was only seven years old when he became a devotee of the band Kiss. He discovered the Alive! album in Tower Records and was mesmerized by the cover. Isolated and lonely, a recent immigrant from Mexico, Muñoz connected to the band’s fantasy life ...

Video: Kiss, “Watching You”

Last week we announced our Significant Object story contest. We picked out three objects from a thrift store: a doll ($5), a thermos with the Marlboro logo ($5), and a wooden trinket ($1). We want you to perform creative alchemy, turning the junk into treasure by giving it a backstory ...

Enter Studio 360's Significant Objects story contest

It all started with a broken coffee cup. “It was a totally meaningless thing,” remembers Rob Walker, “but it happened to be a coffee cup that I had bought on a trip with my now-wife.” The ceramic casualty made Walker realize that the stories we attach to objects may be ...

Enter Studio 360's Significant Objects story contest

In the 1980s, Marion Roach was a party girl and aspiring writer, clerking for The New York Times by day and hitting the clubs by night. She was in love with New York and felt she was living in the center of the universe. One day she was handed a copy of William Kennedy’s novel Legs ...

Daniel Eagan knew from a young age that he wanted to pursue a career in film. The movie he credits with setting him on that path, Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels  (1941), also gave him nightmares. The movie is about a disgruntled director named John Sullivan. Fed up ...

Video: A scene from Sullivan’s Travels

Jacqueline Woodson is one of the most successful writers of young adult lit working today. But her books aren’t about vampires or rich girls. The winner of three Newbery Awards, Woodson deals with tough subjects. Her latest novel, Beneath a Meth Moon, tackles drug addiction ...

Bonus Track: Jacqueline Woodson reads from Beneath a Meth Moon

Porgy and Bess was groundbreaking: an opera about poor African-Americans in South Carolina, starring a cripple, a tramp, and a drug dealer.  This weekend a new production opens on Broadway entitled The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, but it’s not the one George and Ira presented in 1935. ...

Video: a song from the Broadway production

Last month, the illustrator-turned-author Lou Beach released a book of extremely short stories — each just 420 characters long. Kurt Andersen challenged our listeners to write their own 420-characters stories. Hundreds poured in; you can read them all here. Lou Beach judged the contest ...

You don't get much more famous than Angelina Jolie. The acting roles that made her famous (the troubled teen in Girl Interrupted, the ass-kicking archeologist in Tomb Raider) have long been overshadowed by her personal life – the endless stream of chatter about her six children with Brad ...

Computers have taken over an astonishing array of tasks humans used to do. They fly our planes, give us directions, recommend books, set us up on dates.  But can they tell us a good story? Meet Brutus, a computer programmed to write fiction.  Through a series of mathematical equations, its ...

Bonus Track: “Self-Betrayal,” written by Brutus