EPISODE 304- NEIL PEPE

Neil Pepe is an acclaimed director and has been the Artistic Director of Atlantic Theater Company since 1992. Neil has been a master teacher at the Atlantic Acting School at New York University Tisch School of the Arts and an associate adjunct professor of directing at Columbia University Graduate Film Division. He has been a guest at The O’Neill Playwrights Conference as well as the American Theatre Wing. Neil holds an Honorary Doctorate as well as a BA from Kenyon College in Ohio. He has served on the Board of ART/NY as well as the Selection Committee for Harold and Mimi Steinberg Playwriting Award as well as the Pew Charitable Trust in Philadelphia. 

As a director, Neil’s Broadway credits include David Mamet;s American Buffalo, Doug Wright, Trey Anastasio and Amanda Green’s musical Hands on a Hardbody, the acclaimed revival of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, as well as Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre. At the Atlantic, Neil has most recently directed John Guare’s 3 Kinds of Exile, Moira Buffini’s Dying For It, Jez Butterworth’s Parlour Song, Mojo and The Night Heron. Other Off-Broadway and Regional credits include: Ethan Coen’s Happy Hour, Offices and Almost an Evening; Harold Pinter’s Celebration and The Room; Adam Rapp’s Dreams of Flying, Dreams of Falling; David Mamet’s American Buffalo (Donmar Warehouse, Atlantic); Romance, Keep Your Pantheon/School (Center Theatre Group, Atlantic); Zinnie Harris’ Further than the Furthest Thing (Manhattan Theater Club); Jessica Goldberg’s Refuge (Playwrights Horizons); Frank Gilroy’s The Subject Was Roses with Martin Sheen (CTG) and Eric Bogosian’s Red Angel (Williamstown Theater Festival).

EPISODE 303- MICHAEL R. JACKSON

Michael R. Jackson

The 2022 Tony Award winner , 2020 Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics’ Circle–winning A Strange Loop (which had its 2019 world premiere at Playwrights Horizons in association with Page 73 Productions) was called “a full-on laparoscopy of the heart, soul, and loins” and a “gutsy, jubilantly anguished musical with infectious melodies” by Ben Brantley for The New York Times. In The New Yorker, Vinson Cunningham wrote, “To watch this show is to enter, by some urgent, bawdy magic, an ecstatic and infinitely more colorful version of the famous surreal lithograph by M. C. Escher: the hand that lifts from the page, becoming almost real, then draws another hand, which returns the favor.” In addition to A Strange Loop, he wrote book, music, and lyrics for White Girl in Danger. Awards and associations include a New Professional Theatre Festival Award, a Jonathan Larson Grant, a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, an ASCAP Foundation Harold Adamson Award, a Whiting Award, the Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Drama Desk Award, an Obie Award, an Antonyo Award, a Fred Ebb Award, a Windham-Campbell Prize, and a Dramatists Guild Fellowship. He is an alum of Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group

 Photo credit- Joey Stocks

EPISODE 302- DENIZ AKDENIZ

An Australian native, Deniz Akdeniz has quickly made a name for himself through his performances of beloved characters. 

Deniz will next be seen reprising his breakout and widely beloved role of ‘Max’ in the upcoming second season of the critically-acclaimed and award-winning HBO Max series THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT alongside Kaley Cuoco and Zosia Mamet, which will be premiering in Spring 2022.

He was most recently seen in the new hit Warner Bros for FOX series ,THE CLEANING LADY, produced by Shay Mitchell. His other recent TV credits include: Freeform’s SIRENS and ABC’s ONCE UPON A TIME where he played the role of ‘Aladdin.’

On the film side, Deniz is widely known for his role in I, FRANKENSTEIN, directed by Stuart Beattie.  He was also seen in THE WATER DIVINE directed by Russell Crowe, Focus Feature’s THE HIGH NOTE, Netflix’s SIGHTLESS opposite Madelaine Petsch and the Australian box office feature hit, TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN, where he was nominated for an Inside Film Award in the category of “Best Actor.”

Prior to acting, Deniz trained and competed professionally in MMA. 

EPISODE 301 - HARVEY FIERSTEIN

HARVEY FIERSTEIN wrote the books ( or adapted the books ) for the Broadway musicals Funny Girl, Kinky Boots. Newsies as well as Torch Song Trilogy (Tony®, Drama Desk, and OBIE Awards), La Cage aux Folles (Tony® and Drama Desk Awards), The Sissy Duckling (Humanitas Award), A Catered Affair (12 Drama Desk nominations), Safe Sex (Ace Award), Legs Diamond, Spookhouse, Flatbush Tosca, Common Ground, and more. His political editorials have been published in The New York Times, TV Guide, The Huffington Post, and broadcast on PBS’s “In the Life”. His children’s book, The Sissy Duckling, is now in its fifth printing. As an actor, Mr. Fierstein is known worldwide for his performances in films like Mrs. Doubtfire and Independence Day, and on stage in Hairspray (Tony Award®), Fiddler on the Roof, La Cage aux Folles, Torch Song Trilogy (Tony Award®), and TV shows such as “Smash,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “The Good Wife,” “Cheers” (Emmy nomination), “The Simpsons,” and “Nurse Jackie.”

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Acclaimed originally for his groundbreaking writing and performance in his 1981 Torch Song Trilogy, Harvey Fierstein has refined and redefined the persona of the drag queen in the theater. Two years later, Fierstein brought that insight and humor into his book for the musical adaptation of  La Cage aux Folles. As Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times, this “is the first Broadway musical ever to give center stage to a homosexual love affair – but don’t go expecting an earthquake. The show at the Palace is the schmaltziest, most old-fashioned major musical Broadway has seen since ‘Annie,’ and it’s likely to be just as popular with children of all ages.”

 Fierstein subsequently wrote the book for Legs Diamond (1988) with music and lyrics by Peter Allen, who also starred in the show. He did not return to Broadway until 2002, when he took on the role of Edna Turnblad in the musical adaptation of Hairspray (book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan; music by Marc Shaiman; lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman). According to Ben Brantley, Fierstein’s performance as Edna “is not just a cross-dressing sight gag. She’s every forgotten housewife, recreated in monumental proportions and waiting for something to tap her hidden magnificence.”

 After playing Tevye in the 2004 revival of Fiddler on the Roof, Harvey Fierstein wrote the book and starred in the 2008 musical, A Catered Affair. As a writer and actor, Fierstein has won three Drama Desk Awards and four Tonys®, most recently for his portrayal of Edna in Hairspray.

His most recent memoir is called I Was Better Last Night.

EPISODE 300- DAVID MORSE

DAVID MORSE received Emmy® nominations for his roles on “House” and HBO’s “John Adams,” and has appeared in numerous television series, including Emmy-nominated “Escape at Dannemora," “The Chair,” “The Morning Show," “The Deuce," "The Good Lord Bird,” “Hack,” “Treme,” “True Detective,” “Outsiders,” and “St. Elsewhere." Morse’s film credits include The Green Mile (1999), 16 Blocks (2006), The Hurt Locker (2009), World War Z (2013) and Concussion (2015). A stage veteran, Morse is currently on Broadway in Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize winning show How I Learned to Drive, reprising the role he originated opposite Mary-Louise Parker Off-Broadway in 1997.  He previously starred on Broadway in the 2018 revival of The Iceman Cometh, for which he received a Tony Award nomination. His other notable stage performances include the 1984 Los Angeles production of Of Mice and Men; Lanford Wilson’s Redwood Curtain, in which he originated the role of Lyman; Heather MacDonald’s An Almost Holy Picture; the Broadway production of The Seafarer; the Off-Broadway production of The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin; and the original Off-Broadway production of How I Learned to Drive, for which he won a Lucille Lortel Award, a Drama Desk Award and an Obie Award®.

EPISODE 299 - EMILY ROTHSTEIN

Emily Rothstein

Director, Comedy Development, NBC/Peacock

New Jersey native Emily Rothstein began her career after graduating from the University of Southern California with a degree in Cinematic Arts.  She spent nine years at ABC Studios where she worked in both drama and comedy development, assisting the drama team in the development of such series as AMERICAN CRIME and HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER, and the comedy team on THE MUPPETS and AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE. She has been working at NBC Universal on the comedy development team across all platforms since September of 2019 where she is responsible for developing new projects in addition to identifying new voices and emerging talent. She has worked on series such as “Wolf Like Me” and on the upcoming series based on the “Pitch Perfect” movie franchise for Peacock in addition to “Mr. Mayor” on NBC.

Photo Credit- @sharonsuhfoto

EPISODE 298 - MELISSA GILBERT

Melissa Gilbert starred as Laura Ingalls Wilder on the hit NBC television show Little House on the Prairie. She has starred in numerous movies and plays and served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild. She is the author of Prairie Tale, Daisy and Josephine, My Prairie Cookbook, and Back to the Prairie. She resides in the Catskills and New York City with her husband, Timothy Busfield.

Photo Credit- Eileen Connoly

EPISODE 297 - MONA MANSOUR

Mona Mansour grew up in a Southern California suburb, the daughter of a Lebanese immigrant father and American mother from Seattle. Her earliest obsessions included the kidnapping of heiress Patricia Hearst and the various battles of World War Two. Global politics were brought inside when various cousins, uncles and aunties came to live with the family during the Lebanese Civil War. She studied acting as an undergrad, but in her senior year a class in improvisation led her down that path; she then studied at Second City Chicago and was a member of the Groundlings Sunday Company, which gave her a visceral first taste of writing. Her first play was ME AND THE SLA, where she got to turn a childhood obsession into a solo play about a kidnapped heiress, urban terrorists, and the nature of brainwashing.

Her commitment to the theater deepened after a move to New York City in the wake of the Sept. 11th attacks. At this point, the Middle Eastern theater community was ascending, fired up by an urgent need to change the narrative around Arabs and Arab Americans. Into that community Mona began to write into her bicultural existence. This awakened in her a deep desire to create complicated and difficult roles for Middle Eastern performers, who especially then, but still now, often play only cab drivers, imams, bodega owners, and terrorists. 

The questions around her own father, who left Lebanon by choice, took her to his village in Southern Lebanon, and an examination of the “villages” next to it, the camps Mieh-Mieh and Ain El Hilweh, where thousands of Palestinians live in stasis, stuck in place since 1948. Through this work, the notion of displacement became a theme she began to explore. Her first play written of the trilogy, URGE FOR GOING, got her into the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group in 2009. This life-changing event brought her into conversation with other playwrights and gave her a home at the Public Theater and other places. Around this time she got introduced to the works of the poet Mourid Barghouti, whose memoirs, I Saw Ramallah and I Was Born There, I Was Born Here -- with their oscillations from humor to gravitas, and seamless pivots back and forth in history--- deeply influenced not just the Trilogy but all her work. 

In 2019 she formed a theater company, SOCIETY, with Scott Illingworth and Tim Nicolai. The point was to create a company where work could be created, joint stock style, with improvisation, research and discussion, as fast and furious as possible. Their first production, BEGINNING DAYS OF TRUE JUBILATION, was performed entirely on Zoom in August 2020. The play, with its cast of 10, explores the absurdity, chaos and psychic cost of a fictitious start-up. The play will go up again, in person, in summer 2022 at the New Ohio. 

Photo Credit- Layla Sharabi

EPISODE 296 - JODI PICOULT

JODI PICOULT is the author of 27 novels, with over 40 million copies sold worldwide. Her last eleven books have debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and five have been made into movies, with two more – A SPARK OF LIGHT and BOOK OF TWO WAYS – being adapted as limited series. She is the recipient of multiple awards, including the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, the Alex Award from YALSA, the NH Literary Award for Outstanding Literary Merit, and the esteemed Sarah Josepha Hale Award. She holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of New Haven. Two of her books, BETWEEN THE LINES and OFF THE PAGE (co-written with daughter Samantha van Leer) have been adapted as a Broadway-bound musical; she is also the co-librettist of the new musical BREATHE, which premiered in 2021, and of the musical adaptation of THE BOOK THIEF musical, which will premiere in the UK in 2022. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband.

EPISODE 295 - MARY CLAY BOLAND

Mary Clay Boland is a two time Emmy award winning casting Director.

Boland started her career at Circle Repertory Theater where she had the honor to work with many brilliant playwrights and actors. Circle Rep was the perfect atmosphere to hone Mary Clay’s casting instincts and enable her to witness the best acting has to offer. Transitioning to television Boland became the Casting Associate at Walken/Jaffe Casting where she was the Casting Associate on the first two seasons of the Emmy award winning show The Sopranos as well as the feature films But I’m a Cheerleader, The Legend of Wiry Spindell, First Look and many other films over a three year period.

Boland then moved on to the casting department of Warner Brothers Studios television where she worked on casting over 40 pilots including Everwood, Smallville, Gilmore Girls, George Lopez, and Without a Trace. While at Warner Brothers, Boland also cast the first two seasons of Third Watch, NBC and Witch Blade. In addition to that Boland was also responsible for the New York casting of their existing LA based shows ER, THE WEST WING, and FRIENDS. Throughout her career, Boland has also served as the Casting Director for many independent films that have played heavily on the festival circuit. Such films as MARCONI BROS. starring Dan Fogler, BEST THIEF IN THE WORLD starring Mary Louise Parker, CONFESS starring Melissa Leo, and many more.

Mary Clay worked as the Casting Director for CBS’ AS THE WORLD TURNS for 8 years and won two Day Time Emmys for Outstanding achievement in casting a drama series.

Boland went on to open her own company where she cast the first season of the Adult Swim series YOUR PRETTY FACE IS GOING TO HELL. She also cast a Warner Bros. Web series FINDING CODY starring Cody Simpson. She cast the film FOUR which won best ensemble cast at the LA Film Festival.

For the last eight years Mary Clay has focused on motherhood while also keeping her foot immersed in the Louisville Film community. She has resided on the board of the Louisville Film Society. She was appointed by the mayor to be on the Louisville Film Commission. On the commission she acted as a liaison between New York and Los Angeles film productions that wished to shoot in KY and take advantage of their state tax film incentives. She taught media and film studies as a guest lecturer for the Governor’s School of the Arts and has also led multiple workshops on auditioning technique.

In 2022 Mary Clay took over as head of MCM Creative’s casting division where she will be focusing on scripted television and features.  MCM is a full service production and post-production facility located in midtown Manhattan.  www.mcmcasting.com

Photo Credit- Morgane Rondot

EPISODE 294- KATHLEEN MONTELEONE

Kathleen Monteleone is an actress, singer/songwriter, producer and writer who captivates audiences with her memorable performances and storytelling. 

Born in Germany, Kathleen is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College where she majored in theatre/musical theatre. Her career kick-started when she competed for the role of Sandy on NBC’s GREASE: You’re the One That I Want. Soon after she landed roles as Elle Woods in the national tour of Legally Blonde The Musical and Dede Halcyon-Day in Tales of The City The Musical. She made her Broadway debut originating the role of Heather Stovall in Hands On A Hardbody. 

On the television side, Kathleen’s credits include the feature Are You Joking? directed by Jake Wilson, TNT’s Good Behavior alongside Michelle Dockery, and Comedy Central’s Goatface with Hasan Minhaj.

Monteleone will next be seen starring in the feature film American Reject, which she also wrote and produced. The film, directed by Marlo Hunter, is a big-hearted comedy about a finalist who gets the boot from America’s hottest singing competition and is forced to move back in with her mother as reality cameras follow her every move. It is inspired by Kathleen’s true story and is a tale of finding oneself that features original music. The film won both “Best of Fest” at the Adirondack Film Festival and the Audience Award for Narrative Feature at Bend Film Festival in 2020. In addition, the film screened at the New Orleans Film Festival and the Las Vegas International Film & Screenwriting Festival in November of the same year, where the Las Vegas jury awarded Kathleen “Best Actress.” The film is set to release on-demand in April 2022. 

Monteleone splits her time between New Orleans and New York City with her husband and 4 children

Photo Credit- Nathan Johnson

EPISODE 293 - SHARON WHEATLEY

Sharon Wheatley originated the role of Diane in COME FROM AWAY where she appears nightly at The Schoenfeld Theater. Sharon can also be seen in the film version for Apple TV +, and on the cast recording. Previous Broadway includes Avenue Q, Les Misérables, Cats and The Phantom of the Opera. Also a writer, Sharon’s most recent book DRIVE Stories From Somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere, about finding happiness in hard moments, came out March 1, 2022 and is available on her website sharonwheatley.com and wherever books are sold.

Sharon is mom to Charlotte and Tobi, and wife to stage manager, Martha Donaldson. They are animal people, often unable to sit on their own couch due to the four legged creatures seeking comfort there.

Sharon grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and went to college there, getting her BFA in musical theater from CCM. Sharon has done a little TV stuff and a little film stuff, but really loves writing most of all. In addition to her most recent book, DRIVE, Sharon has a previous memoir, ‘Til the Fat Girl Sings.

EPISODE 292 - PERI GILPIN

Best-known to television audiences as radio producer ‘Roz Doyle’ in NBC’s Emmy-winning comedy series FRASIER, Peri Gilpin plays Annie Murphy’s Mom on AMC’s Kevin Can F Himself, Abbie Jacobson’s mom on COMEDY CENTRAL’S BROAD CITY, as Homeland Security’s Katherine Cooper on CBS’s SCORPION. She starred alongside Craig Robinson and Amandla Stenberg in MR. ROBINSON other television credits are roles in MASTERS OF SEX, MEN AT WORK, MAKE IT OR BREAK IT, CSI, MODERN FAMILY, LAW AND ORDER, HOT IN CLEVELAND, and DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. Gilpin has appeared in the films HOW TO KILL YOUR NEIGHBOR’S DOG, with Kenneth Branagh and Robin Wright Penn, and SPRING FORWARD, with Liev Schreiber. Siobhan Fallon Hogan’s RUSHED directed by Vibeke Muasya and WE BROKE UP directed by Jeff Rosenberg. Gilpin is a creator and executive producer of BLESSED AND HIGHLY FAVORED in development at Amazon Studios. She has numerous theatre credits and studied drama at the University of Texas in Austin and the British-American Academy in London. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and twin daughters.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKKXPlqvRBMcmmHLWXFxTwsfStZBRBQFGjvJhgWsCfnVLKnzJwBLDBZrSrwxwgBcQnsB

EPISODE 291 - BRAD OSCAR

Brad Oscar has been seen on Broadway in  Mrs. Doubtfire, Something Rotten! (Tony nomination), Big Fish, Nice Work..., The Addams Family, Spamalot, The Producers (Tony nomination), Jekyll & Hyde and Aspects of Love. National Tours: The Phantom of the Opera, Young Frankenstein, Jekyll & Hyde. West End: The Producers. Off Broadway: Broadway Bounty Hunter, Nassim, Sweeney Todd (Barrow Street Theatre), Forbidden Broadway (Theater East). Regional credits: The Gods of Comedy (McCarter/Old Globe), Hairspray (KC Starlight), The Squirrels (La Jolla Playhouse), Fiddler on the Roof (Barrington Stage), Barnum (Asolo Rep, Maltz Jupiter Theatre; Carbonell Award for Best Actor, Musical), The Mystery of Irma Vep, Cabaret, Damn Yankees (Arena Stage). Film: Ghost Town, The Producers. TV: Madam Secretary, Smash, The Good Wife, three Law & Order. 

EPISODE 290 - ELAINE Del VALLE

Elaine Del Valle is a Brownsville, Brooklyn bred Puerto Rican multi-hyphenate filmmaker.

She is the winner of the HBO Latinx short film award, and was featured in the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) Director showcase. Her films have been supported by WarnerMedia 150, Knight Foundation, Fractured Atlas and the Sundance Institute.

As a WRITER/DIRECTOR her short films, Me 3.769 and Princess Cut, went on to air on HBOmax. Her most recent project, Brownsville Bred recently won the Audience Award at the 2022 SXSW Festival in the “Episodic Pilot Competition” category

Brownsville Bred
Showrunner/Director/Screenwriter: Elaine Del Valle, Producers: Adrienne Lovette, Elaine Del Valle, Leslie Cohen, Debbie Esko-Gold, Eddie Frente

Elaine is a Lynn Shelton award finalist and two-time Imagen Impact award nominee. Redefine Magazine and Miami New Times named her a Filmmaker to Watch. Ad Age called her short documentary, Tagged (filmed entirely on a mobile phone) “compelling.”

While Elaine loves expressing emotion through her camera, she’s most proud of being referred to as an “actor’s director.” Her many years as an ACTOR trained by Wynn Handman at New York City’s Carnegie Hall, combined with her passion to bring authentic Latina voices to entertainment is what led her to create her autobiographical one-woman stage play, Brownsville Bred.

Elaine went on to perform Brownsville Bred off-Broadway, where the New York Times raved, "From Girlhood Trials To Onstage Triumph."

Empowered and fulfilled by the experience, Elaine would continue to act while creating content representative of her Latina experience. Elaine's most recent acting role is as a recurring guest star in the ABC series Queens.

As a WRITER/CREATOR, Elaine's original drama pilot, The System, landed a pilot order with CBS and Sutton Street Productions (Jane The Virgin). Under her banner company, Del Valle Productions and Casting, Elaine is a CSA casting director who has cast talented actors in hundreds of projects and PRODUCED over 50 film titles.

Elaine spends her free time speaking at youth director & arts programs in underserved communities.

More About Elaine Del Valle on https://Linktr.ee/delvalle

EPISODE 289 - WILL SWENSON

Broadway: Waitress, Disaster, Les Miserables, Hair (Tony Award Nomination), 110 in the Shade, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Brooklyn: The Musical, Lestat. Off-Broadway, tours and concerts: Assassins, Rock of Ages, Camelot (NY Philharmonic), The Slugbearers of Kayrol Island, Adrift In Macao, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Miss Saigon, We Will Rock You, Fame. Will's first feature film as a writer and director was Sons of Provo, which won several film festivals, and was released in 2005.

He is married to actress Audra McDonald.

EPISODE 288 - ELERI WARD

ELERI WARD is an New York City-based actor, singer, and musician whose original pop music has been called “soaring” (Nexus Music Blog), “astonishing” (Rising Artists), and “dreamy” (Neon Music). Her most recent EP, Friction, was released in 2021. She has been singing and acting since she was eight years old, and has always strived to carve out her own space with the uniqueness she brings to the theater. Eleri studied songwriting at Berklee College of Music before transferring and graduating from The Boston Conservatory with a BFA in Musical Theater and an emphasis in Songwriting, which shows itself clearly in the way she has taken on the Sondheim canon. www.eleriward.com @eleriward

Photo Credit - David Noles

EPISODE 287 - STEVEN SATER

Steven Sater is the author and lyricist of Spring Awakening, winner of eight Tony Awards on Broadway and produced in 25 countries around the world. He has also collaborated with Duncan Sheik on Umbrage (HERE); Nero (Magic Theatre, New York Stage and Film); The Nightingale (La Jolla Playhouse and American Conservatory Theater); and the critically acclaimed album Phantom Moon (Nonesuch). Other plays include the long-running Carbondale Dreams; Perfect For You, Doll (Rosenthal Prize); Umbrage (Steppenwolf New Play Prize); A Footnote to the Iliad (New York Stage and Film); Asylum (Naked Angels); and a reconceived musical version of Shakespeare’s Tempest (Lyric Hammersmith). He is currently at work with Burt Bacharach on a new musical as well. Additionally, Sater works as a pop/rock lyricist and screenwriter (the forthcoming Chitty Chitty Bang Bang remake for Sony Pictures). Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Score, the Drama Desk and Outer Critics’ Circle awards for Best Lyrics, the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album and the 2010 Olivier Award for Best New Musical for Spring Awakening.

His most recent project includes the Grammy nominated album Some Lovers , co written with Burt Bacharach.

Photo Credit- Nina Subin

EPISODE 286 - JAMIE BERNSTEIN

Jamie Bernstein is a writer, narrator, broadcaster and filmmaker who has transformed a lifetime of loving music into a career of sharing her knowledge and excitement with others. 

Inspired by her father Leonard Bernstein’s lifelong impulse to share and teach, Jamie has devised multiple ways of communicating her own excitement about orchestral music. Beginning 15 years ago with “The Bernstein Beat,” a family concert about her father’s music modeled after his own groundbreaking Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic, Jamie has gone on to design, write and narrate concerts for worldwide audiences of all ages about the music of Mozart, Copland, Stravinsky, and many others. 

Until the pandemic restricted her travels, Jamie crisscrossed the world as a concert narrator, appearing everywhere from Beijing to London to Vancouver. A frequent speaker on musical topics, Jamie has presented talks around the world, from conferences in Japan to seminars at Harvard University. In Spanish-speaking locations such as Madrid, Sevilla, and Caracas, Jamie narrates en español – thanks to her Chilean-born mother, Felicia Montealegre, who raised her children to be bilingual.

In her role as a broadcaster, Jamie has produced and hosted shows for radio stations in the United States and Great Britain. She has presented the New York Philharmonic’s live national radio broadcasts, as well as live broadcasts from Tanglewood. 

Jamie is the co-director of a film documentary, Crescendo: the Power of Music -- which focuses on children in struggling urban communities who participate in youth orchestra programs for social transformation inspired by Venezuela’s groundbreaking El Sistema movement. The film has won numerous prizes on the festival circuit, and is now viewable on iTunes. More about Crescendo: the Power of Music can be found at http://www.crescendofilmdoc.com

Jamie has also directed her father’s chamber opera, Trouble in Tahiti, in various locations around the country, including the Moab Music Festival, Festival del Sole in Napa, CA, and Tanglewood. 

Jamie’s memoir, Famous Father Girl, was published by HarperCollins in  June of 2018, as the Leonard Bernstein centennial celebrations were at their peak all around the world. The paperback was released in June of 2019. The author also performs the audiobook.

Jamie writes articles and poetry, which have appeared in such publications as Symphony, DoubleTake, the Nation, Opera News, and Musical America. She also edits “Prelude, Fugue & Riffs,” a newsletter about issues and events pertaining to her father’s legacy.

 More about Jamie’s multifaceted life can be found on her website: jamiebernstein.net 

Photo Credit- Carol Friedman

EPISODE 285- ADAM DURITZ

For more than two decades, the GRAMMY and Academy Award-nominated rock band Counting Crows have enchanted listeners worldwide with their intensely soulful and intricate take on timeless rock & roll. Exploding onto the music scene in 1993 with their multi-platinum breakout album, August and Everything After, the band has gone on to release seven studio albums, selling more than 20 million records worldwide, and is revered as one of the world’s most pre-eminent live touring rock bands. 

In October 1996, the band's double-platinum sophomore studio album, Recovering the Satellites, debuted at number one and further solidified their growing reputation as one of the leading American alternative rock bands in the world. A follow up to their early success; Counting Crows went on to release This Desert Life (1999), Hard Candy (2002), Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings (2008), Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did on Our Summer Vacation) (2012), Echoes of the Outlaw Roadshow (2013),and Somewhere Under Wonderland (2014.)  In 2004, Counting Crows recorded the chart-topping “Accidentally in Love” for the animated motion picture Shrek 2. The instant success of the track earned them an Academy Award nomination for “Best Original Song” at the 2005 Academy Awards, a Golden Globe nomination for “Best Original Song” and a GRAMMY Award nomination for “Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.” 

In September 2014, Counting Crows released their critically acclaimed seventh studio album, Somewhere Under Wonderland, which debuted at No. 10 on the charts and was heralded by The Daily Telegraph as “… the best collection of songs since their debut.” The album consisted of nine sprawling tracks around rich sonic tapestries, which yielded some of the most grandiose yet intimate songs Counting Crows had recorded to date. 2018 marked 25 years since the band's inception and sent Adam Duritz, Jim Bogios, David Bryson, Charlie Gillingham, David Immergluck, Millard Powers, and Dan Vickrey back on the road for the “25 YEARS AND COUNTING” tour. In 2021, Counting Crows ranked #8 on Billboards’ “Greatest of All Time: Adult Alternative Artists” 25th anniversary chart. 

After seven years, Adam Duritz and Counting Crows have returned with Butter Miracle: Suite One released on May 21,2021.

Photo Credit- Mark Seliger