Theater

David Hare's plays and screenplays include Plenty, Skylight, The Blue Room, The Hours and Stuff Happens.

Books
Arts

Dramatist David Hare Says, Like Many Writers, He's Driven By Doubt

8:22am October 31, 2015

by NPR Staff

"My ability to see what's going on in a room or analyze what's going on inside a person comes from my own doubts about what's going on inside myself," he says. Hare's memoir is The Blue Touch Paper.

Stephen Van Cleef, a fictional Seneca Village resident played by Billy Eugene Jones (left), meets a New York City police officer, played by Andy Truschinski, in The People Before the Park at Premiere Stages at Kean University in Union, N.J.

Lives Displaced By Central Park Take Center Stage In New Play

6:24am October 20, 2015

by Hansi Lo Wang

The land that became New York City's Central Park was once home to Manhattan's first-known community of African-American property owners. A new play explores how eminent domain forced them out.

Queue Listen Now

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Allen Elizabethan Theatre, featuring a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Arts

O Romeo, Romeo, What The Heck Are You Saying?

11:14am October 17, 2015

by Aaron Scott

Wherefore art "thou"? Why not "you" instead? The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is making an ambitious — and controversial — attempt to rewrite the Bard's plays into modern-day English.

Queue Listen Now

Arts

After Decades On Stage, Arthur Miller's Works Defy The Final Curtain

10:48am October 17, 2015

by Tom Vitale

The great American playwright was born a century ago Saturday. An activist as much as he was a writer, Miller challenged social ills in playscripts — and set a new standard for the citizen-artist.

Arts
Economy

Alexander Hamilton's Financial Legacy Is A Hit Musical

7:33pm October 15, 2015

by Jim Zarroli

Hamilton, the hottest ticket on Broadway, is a musical about the decidedly un-hot topic of his crucial role in U.S. economics. What can we learn about debt and the dollar through rhymes and R&B?

Queue Listen Now

Hasan Minhaj performs in his new one-man show "Homecoming King".

Arts

Hasan Minhaj Of 'Daily Show' On Prom, Indian Dads And White Folks At Desi Weddings

2:30pm October 15, 2015

by Elizabeth Blair

Homecoming King is the comedian's absorbing tale about the first-generation American experience and the NBA (New Brown America).

Queue Listen Now

In the new Deaf West production of Spring Awakening, the deaf lead actors have doubles in the background who speak and sing for them, and everyone signs.

Arts

'Spring Awakening' Returns To Broadway — In Sign Language

2:22pm October 14, 2015

by Neda Ulaby

The hit musical only closed six years ago, and now it's back, in a well-reviewed revival featuring hearing and deaf actors, who sing and sign during the performance.

Queue Listen Now

Music & Culture

At 84, Award-Winning Actress Rita Moreno Tries New Projects

9:05am October 12, 2015

by Felix Contreras

Rita Moreno will receive the Kennedy Center Honor next month for her career in show business. With a new gig as a voice in an animated TV series and a new album, there's no way she's done performing.

Queue Listen Now

Arts

From Ingenue To Antigone: Juliette Binoche Discusses Acting, Aging And Family

2:03pm September 28, 2015

The Oscar-winning actress plays Antigone in a new translation of Sophocles' 2,000-year-old tragedy. "It's a very powerful play," Binoche says. Sophocles "still is bringing so much truth in our lives."

Queue Listen Now

Actor and illustionist Geoff Sobelle calls his one-man show The Object Lesson a "meditation on our relationship to things, and to objects and stuff."

Arts

Out Of 'The Object Lesson,' An Education In The Power Of Kept Things

7:00pm September 27, 2015

by Arun Rath

Geoff Sobelle calls his new one-man play "a meditation on our relationship to things." On a visit to the show, NPR's Arun Rath gathers a lesson in the meaning of stuff -- and the memories it can bear.

Queue Listen Now