Strauss talks about the revival of the Broadway classic. A new cast album has just been released. Strauss has worked as musical director in numerous off-Broadway and Broadway productions, including "Drood," "Evita," and "Very Good Eddie."
Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews the new Eddie Murphy movie, which is being billed as a return to form after the actor's recent string of critical flops. But Schiff says that Murphy has lost his cool.
Comedian and actor Garry Shandling stars in HBO's television parody, "The Larry Sanders Show." It features Shandling as a veteran talk-show host. His guests have included Mimi Rogers and Robin Williams, playing themselves. Starting December 7, "The Larry Sanders Show" will compete with late-night talk-shows by presenting a different episode each night for ten days.
Director John Duigan's latest movie is the second in a projected trilogy; the first was "The Year My Voice Broke." "Flirting" is set in a boy's boarding school in Australia. The movie's young hero falls in love with a Ugandan girl from the girls' school across the lake.
Israel's first ambassador to the United Nations and the United States Abba Eban. In 1948 he was elected to Israel's Knesset and worked in the cabinets of many Israeli leaders. Eban served with the British in the Middle East during W.W.II. He has been president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, a professor at Columbia University and worked with the Center for Advanced Studies at Princeton. His latest book, "Personal Witness," is a political memoir about the past five decades of Israel.
Journalist and professor Fred Halliday teaches international relations at the London School of Economics, and has written extensively on the Cold War and the Third World for "The Nation," and "The Middle East Report." Today he talks to Terry about international hotbeds of chaos -- the former Yugoslavia and Somalia, as well as problems in the Middle East.
Kramer is considered the "voice of articulate rage," railing against the government for its indifference to AIDS. His plays include, "The Normal Heart," and the new "The Destiny of Me."Kramer founded the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) and the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC). Terry will talk with him about being a writer, an activist, and a person with HIV.
Director of Harvard's International AIDS Center Jonathan Mann is also a member of The Global AIDS Policy Coalition which has just come out with it's first annual "AIDS in the World" report. Mann will talk with Terry about the findings in the report.
Critic Maureen Corrigan says the best she can say about Barnes's "Porcupine," about deposed communist leaders on trial in Eastern Europe, is that she "didn't not like it."
Psychologist Bernard Rimland is the director of the Autism Research Institute and is recognized by many as an authority on the treatment of autism and hyperactivity in children. He has first-hand experience: his son is autistic. Rimland was also an advisor on autism for the movie, "Rain Man." He wrote the forward to Donna Williams' autobiography.
Williams grew up in an abusive family; they didn't know she was autistic. Williams has been labeled "deaf," "retarded," and "crazy." She ran away from home at a young age, lived on the streets, and managed to put herself through college. When she was 25, she learned the word "autistic," and set out to articulate to others her experience living in "a world under glass." Her autobiography is called "Nobody Nowhere."
We broadcast a song from Vernel Bagneris and Morten Gunnar Larsen's November 12th performance of selections from their biographical musical. Because of time constraints, this tune never made it on air -- until now.
Music critic Ken Tucker says the artist's new album smartly explores familial strife, including the troubles he's had with his ex-wife Kate McGarrigle -- who sings on the record.
Last year, Wofford won an upset victory, becoming the first Democratic U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania since 1962. He was a key aide to President John F. Kennedy, helped establish the Peace Corps, and aided Martin Luther King, Jr. He also chaired the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee from 1987 to 1991. A new edition of Wofford's 1980 book, "Of Kennedy's & Kings: Making sense of the Sixties" has just been published.
The Irish writer and director has made the films "Mona Lisa," "The Company of Wolves," and "The Miracle." His new film is "The Crying Game," a love story starring Stephen Rea as an Irish Republican Army gunman with a false identity hiding in London's underworld.
This week, Nick at Nite and TBS present telecasts of three-decade old TV flops that aired only once. One of them later became "The Dick van Dyke Show." Critic David Bianculli has a review.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews "X," the opera by composer Anthony Davis, about the life and times of Malcom X. It's just came out on CD. The opera is Wagnerian in scale and style, but it also has allusions to the music of Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, and John Coltrane, and others.
Composer Anthony Davis's opera "X" based on the life of Malcolm X, and has just come out on CD. It premiered in 1986. Terry talks with David about what Malcolm X meant to him and why he decided to compose an opera on his life. Davis has received international recognition for his compositions as well as his performances as a solo pianist and the leader of the ensemble Episteme.
Early is director of Afro-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. He'll talk with Terry about why he used to like Malcolm X, and why he no longer does. His article. "Their Malcolm, My Problem," appears in December's issue of Harper's Magazine.
Book critic John Leonard reviews the new literary biography by Carol Brightman, which weaves together an exhaustive amount of material collected up to the day of McCarthy's death.
