Hear all stories from this pageadd all to playlist
After nearly 20 years away from the stage, he's back on Broadway in The Country Girl, directed by Mike Nichols. His character: a washed-up actor with a love for the bottle and an uncertain gift.Web Extra: Scenes from the Show, Extended Interviews
Kent Thompson, the artistic director of the Denver Center Theatre Company, champions new plays.
If she can't be a star, she'll make stars of her daughters — and woe to anyone who gets in the way.Web Extra:Everything Rose: Songs, Extended Interviews
April 7, 2008 · Ruslana, Ukraine's biggest pop star, switches between two roles on stage: a limp, pale, synthetic woman chained to a machine for energy and a vibrant warrior whose energy comes from clean, renewable resources. But in post-Soviet Ukraine, her fans are more interested in capitalist consumption than conservation.Web Extra: Video: Ruslana's Revolution
April 7, 2008 · For his Pulitzer-prize winning feature story, Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post convinced world-class violinist Joshua Bell to play beautiful music in a Metrorail station to gauge commuters' reaction.
March 29, 2008 · When your stock in trade is your voice, the slightest tickle in the back of your throat is scary. An opera singer gives advice about how to preserve and protect your voice.
March 26, 2008 · The keyboardist delivers a historically informed performance worthy of the passion behind Handel's Organ Concertos on a new CD. Egarr possesses a remarkable gift for combining subtle musical gestures with forward–moving, irrepressible rhythms.Web Extra: Hear the Music
March 16, 2008 · For the first time, August Wilson's famed Century Cycle — a series of 10 plays about the African-American experience — will be presented under one roof. The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., will stage the works in chronological order this month.
March 15, 2008 · She's one of theater's Everest roles, exhausting, perilous — and irresistible to any actress with a sense of adventure. Even Marge Simpson couldn't resist her. NPR's Lynn Neary asks why Streetcar is such a wild ride.Web Extra: Video, More Interviews
March 8, 2008 · Solas Nua is perhaps the only theater group in the country that produces nothing but contemporary Irish plays. Linda Murray, its founder and artistic director, talks with Jacki Lyden about how rapidly Irish identity is changing and how that is reflected in a new "Golden Age" of Irish drama.
March 8, 2008 · Victoria Wood wrote and starred in Housewife 49, a film that follows one woman's life amid the challenges of wartime England.
March 1, 2008 · The famous Chicago improvisation comedy troupe is taking shots at the presidential candidates. Its most recent revue, Between Barack and a Hard Place, got a pretty good review from Obama himself: He was seen belly laughing from the audience.
March 1, 2008 · Three new off-Broadway musicals are pushing boundaries in terms of subject matter and style. Even if shows based on, say, indie cartoons or expressionism generate only a mixed response, they're more thought-provoking than such spectacles as The Little Mermaid and Young Frankenstein.
February 25, 2008 · On a night when the acting awards had a distinctly international flavor, a quintessentially American story of violence — No Country for Old Men — made the deepest impression on Oscar voters at the 80th annual Academy Awards, getting the nod for Best Picture.Web Extra: Red Carpet Caption Contest
February 26, 2008 · This year's Academy Awards got the worst ratings in ceremony history. Madeleine Brand talks to comedy duo Frangela, former Seinfeld writer Peter Mehlman and others about how they'd fix the show. Prince, gambling and bare midriffs are part of the plan.
Michel Martin talks with Newsweek reporter Allison Samuels about her new book, Off the Record. In the book, Samuels details her experience as a reporter covering celebrities and sports figures for the magazine.
A New York City play examines Pakistan's past, connecting it with the present.
French mime Marcel Marceau, often described as bringing poetry to silence, died Saturday at age 84.
Ian McKellen, a stage star long before Lord of the Rings, is tackling the tragedy at last.
A Place for Us is an hour-long documentary, hosted by NPR's Scott Simon, exploring the creation and the extraordinary cultural influence of a musical that changed the way Broadway thought of musicals. Explore the special below — or click to watch an audio slideshow.