Susan Stamberg

There's a joke in LA that everyone — from your dog walker to your dry cleaner — is writing a screenplay. C.W. Neill pokes fun at that romantic Hollywood craft in This Movie Will Require Dinosaurs.

Built in the late 1920s by movie moguls, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple is a Los Angeles landmark — and also a statement the LA Jewish community made to itself, and to the city.

It's the end of the month, which means it's time for the best of the month, including new music from Kyle Hall, Tessela, Cassy and more.

Albert Paley's eye-catching gates, archways and sculptures frame transitions and elevate otherwise routine paths. An exhibit in Washington, D.C., is celebrating the work of the American metalsmith.

In the 1800s, still-life painting was the bottom feeder of the art world, but that's where the French painter chose to leave his mark. "I want to astonish Paris with an apple," he's said to have said.

The designer and his lover, Pierre Berge, had deliberately defined roles — Saint Laurent was the fragile artist and Berge was the ultimate manager. A new film tells their story.

Some people just can't keep a beat. A Montreal neuroscientist describes the problem as a "musical brain disorder" rather than a mere problem of coordination.

An exhibit at Smithsonian's Archives of American Art investigates the relationship between artists and their models. The stern woman in Grant Wood's American Gothic? That was actually his sister, Nan.

After World War II, portraiture fell out of fashion. But an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery celebrates some rebel artists who found new, clever and funny ways to portray the human figure.

A new exhibit explores the intense relationship between French painter Edgar Degas and American painter Mary Cassatt. No one knows whether it was romantic, but there was certainly no lack of passion.

In the 1950s Abstract Expressionism was wow-ing the art world and elbowing Realism out of galleries. Art lover Sara Roby set out to change that, and a new exhibit celebrates the impact she had.

Nowhere is the legacy of Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington — among the greatest composer/bandleaders in history — more profound than at the Washington, D.C., arts high school that bears his name.

Severe damage was reported in Tupelo, Miss., where the mayor said homes and business were destroyed. The severe weather is expected to continue through the night.

Seventy-five years ago, Marian Anderson made history when she sang to crowd of 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial. The Daughters of the American Revolution had denied her the use of Constitution Hall.

A special concert this weekend will commemorate Marian Anderson's historic performance on Easter Sunday 1939 at the Lincoln Memorial. Soprano Alyson Cambridge will be among those performing.

After World War II ended, Rosie the Riveter traded in her factory blues for June Cleaver's pink apron. A new exhibit traces pink back to the beginning — when plenty of boys wore it, too.

Eight hundred years ago, tea traveled to Japan from China in simple, ceramic storage jars. These ancient jugs, now on display in Washington, D.C., helped launch Japan's tea culture.

In the early 1960s, a young couple in Boston set out to make audio recordings of relatively young, up-and-coming writers — like James Baldwin, Philip Roth and John Updike — reading their own works.

Believe it or not, the person responsible for keeping each and every shot of a movie in focus never looks through a camera lens. NPR's Susan Stamberg explains the role of the focus puller.

On a movie set, every scene and every take gets "slated" during filming, and there's that distinctive clap sound we all know. But what's it for? The job of the clapper, revealed.