Terry Gross

This year marks the centennial of the birth of German-born Kurt Weill, considered one of the 20th century’s most influential composers. And Monday, April 3, is the 50th anniversary of his death. He and lyricist Bertolt Brecht revolutionized musical theatre with a blend of cabaret and classical traditions resulting in “The Threepenny Opera” “Seven Deadly Sins” and others. In 1933 Weill, a Jew, fled Berlin and in 1935 came to America where he began working in American theatre. We talk about Weill with Kim Kowlake (Koe-WALL-kee), President of the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music.

Journalist Bill Turque is Washington correspondent for Newsweek and author of the new biography, “Inventing Al Gore” (Houghton Mifflin). Turque covered both of Gore’s vice presidential campaigns and the Clinton White House. He began work on the book in 1997

Religion scholar and former nun Karen Armstrong. She’s the author of the bestselling book, “A History of God.” Her new book, “The Battle for God” examines the fundamentalist movement in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faiths that began to emerge in the 1970s. She writes that today’s fundamentalist movements differ from previous ones, in that they are no longer throwbacks to the past, but are complex movements that are shaped by the modern culture they also decry.