On Demand
WNYC's Coverage of the Republican National Convention
Live performances in Soundcheck's studios
Studio 360: Patti LuPone on playing Mama Rose
Selected Shorts featuring "The Trouble of Marcie Flint," by John Cheever
Radio Rookies: Brooklyn Broadcast Workshop
On the Media: Surviving Convention Coverage
Street Shots Challenge
Survival Kit Archive
May 2004
Yeardley Smith
Sunday, May 30, 2004
For most of her adult life, Yeardley Smith has been the voice behind Lisa Simpson, the saxophone-playing, socially-conscious 8-year-old vegetarian, on TV’s longest-running animated series, The Simpsons. But her career also includes a stint on Broadway, in The Real Thing, a solo Off-Broadway show called Yeardley Smith: More, movies like As Good as It Gets, and roles in Dharma and Greg, Herman’s Head, Murphy Brown and other TV sitcoms. We’ve invited her to take a vacation from the Simpson family home in Springfield for a few months, so let’s ask her what she’d take along in her survival kit.
Mick Foley
Sunday, May 23, 2004
In his 16 years as a professional wrestler, Mick Foley suffered numerous broken bones, eight concussions, hundreds of stitches; he had chairs broken over his head, and lost an ear and several teeth. So I’m not sure he’ll consider spending time in a remote location a hardship. In fact, for the last few years he’s traded in his spandex jumpsuit, leather mask and alter-egos Cactus Jack, Dude Love and Mankind for the writer’s life, producing two memoirs, Have a Nice Day and Foley is Good, two children’s books and a novel. Let’s find out what this wrestler turned writer would pack in his cultural survival kit.
Doris Lessing
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Doris Lessing was born in Persia, and grew up on a bush farm in Southern Rhodesia. Her unusual childhood may have been the ideal background for a writer; in the last 50 years, she’s written at least that many volumes of short stories, novels, essays, poetry and plays, and her writings have dealt with everything from colonialism and Communism to sexual politics and romantic love. Her early Children of Violence novels were seen as groundbreaking, The Golden Notebook galvanized a generation of women, and her Canopus in Argos series brought science fiction to a new level. Let’s find out what “one of the finest writers of the 20th century” would pack in her cultural survival kit.
Rita Moreno
Sunday, May 09, 2004
Rita Moreno began singing and dancing at the age of 5, and by 13, she was in the cast of a Broadway show. Her Grand Slam of show business awards - an Oscar for West Side Story, a Tony for The Ritz, a Grammy for the Electric Company children’s albums, and two Emmys for The Muppet Show and The Rockford Files - earned her a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Her TV and film roles include everything from a hooker in the film Carnal Knowledge to a nun in the prison series Oz, and she’s also got a fabulous nightclub act. I’m not sure I could even get her to take a break from her career long enough to spend a few months in an isolated place, but let’s see what she would pack in her survival kit if she did agree to go.
Robert MacNeil
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Robert MacNeil has covered most of the major news stories of the last fifty years: the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, the assassination of JFK, Watergate, September 11; and as co-anchor of the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour for 20 years, he helped shape our consciousness of world events. He’s also written novels and works of non-fiction examining the nature of language and the news business. Let’s try to find out what makes this respected newsman tick, by taking a look in his survival kit.