The Leonard Lopate Show
Bridging the Gaps
Friday, January 27, 2006
On today’s show, a history of happiness…and how it came to be seen as a fundamental right in America. Also on the show: a celebration of 100 years of Catalan Cinema. And we’ll pay tribute to 50 years of the Public Theater. Plus, this week’s Please Explain is all about bridges. And we’ll end the show with our latest Past Present feature from the WNYC Archives.
50 Years of the Public Theater
We celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Public Theater with its new artistic director, Oskar Eustis, and one of its biggest fans, Rosie Perez.
Events: Rosie Perez and Oskar Eustis will be participating in:
The Public Sings
Monday, January 30th at 7:30pm
New York City Center
West 55th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues)
For tickets: call 877-581-1212 (toll free) or 212-581-1212; or click here
Listen to Sara Fishko's piece "New York Shakespeare"...a history of Shakespeare in the Park originally broadcast on 6/24/2005.
Music:
Aquarius, Track 1, from the HAIR soundtrack, and One, Track 11, from A Chorus Line soundtrack.
Happiness Is...
The Declaration of Independence lists the “pursuit of happiness” as an inalienable right. In Happiness: A History, Darrin McMahon explores how our modern, Western ideal of happiness evolved over the past 2,000 years.
Music:
Tracks 7 and 8 from the Mumford Soundtrack, Hollywood Records both scored by Bill Schnee.
Another Spanish Cinema: Film in Catalunya
Film historian Roman Gubern and filmmaker Jordi Torrent (“East of the Compass”) pay tribute to Catalan Cinema--the subject of a current festival at Lincoln Center.
» Read a review of the Catalan Cinema
Music:
Tracks 10 and 15 from Cancion: Lyrical Guitar Music of Spain by Richard Jacobowski, Gateway Classics composed by Federico Mompou
Times Square in the 1940's
Though she's now all but forgotten, Cornelia Otis Skinner was a well-known American actress and author in the mid-20th century. In today's Past Present feature, we'll hear her monologue Times Square at the Theatre Hour, originally performed on WNYC in the early 1940s. Ms. Skinner's sketches of an aggressive vendor, a gossipy young woman, and a Southern tourist suggest that the array of characters in Times Square might not have changed that much in the last 60 years.
» Past Present series
Please Explain: Bridges
There are 2,027 bridges in New York City. On this week's edition of Please Explain, we'll learn how bridges work, and how they serve the communities that build them. Khaled Mahmoud, bridge engineer and president of Bridge Technology Consulting, joins us. He's also chairman of the Bridge Engineering Association. Also, Henry Petroski, Professor of Civil Engineering and History at Duke University. Mr. Petroski is also the author of several books, including Engineers of Dreams, a history of America's great bridges, and the forthcoming Success Through Failure: The Paradox of Design.
Music:
Tracks 1 and 6 on the Sonatine Soundtrack
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