Theater

Beverly Sills, the Brooklyn-born opera star with the charming smile and the clean, silvery coloratura, died Monday at the age of 78. Fresh Air's classical music critic pays tribute.

American opera visionary Sarah Caldwell founded the Opera Company of Boston in 1958. The company's principal prima donna was Beverly Sills, and Placido Domingo was an unknown young tenor when he first sang with the company. Caldwell died on March 23 at the age of 82.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz tells us what music he most wants to remember from the 20th Century. His selections come from the new box set “Stravinsky REV: Conducting Stravinsky” (Sony), The Dvorak Cello Concerto with Pablo Casals (EMI Reference disc), Joseph Szigeti’s Prokofiev Concerto (Pearl), Artur Schnabel on a currently out-of-print Schubert CD (Arabesque). And Maria Callas’s recordings (EMI)

An excerpt from the next edition of "This American Life" from WBEZ: a performance excerpt from monologist, actor and writer Spalding Gray. His latest show "It's a Slippery Slope" opens this Sunday at New York's Lincoln Center Theater. This excerpt was recorded at Chicago's Goodman Theater.

A new monologue by the NPR commentator, playwright, and housecleaner. "Drama Bug" was featured on This American Life, a nationally broadcast radio program hosted by Ira Glass and produced at WBEZ in Chicago. Sedaris is known nationally for his humor writing; he launched his radio commentator career with his "SantaLand Diaries," broadcast during NPR's "Morning Edition in 1992.

A new performance piece by performance artist David Cale.

Performance artist David Cale. He'll do a reading from his show, now in San Francisco, "Deep in a Dream of You." (rebroadcast of 9/27/1990)

O'Keefe, who wrote the performance piece Shimmer, returns to read excerpts from his newest work, VID.

John O'Keefe returns to Fresh Air to perform a selection from his one-man show, Shimmer. This time, he talks about the brutality of living in a youth detention center.

Playwright John O'Keefe has a new one-man show called Shimmer, about his adolescence. He joins Fresh Air to perform a short excerpt.