April 27, 2007
England still isn’t safe from filmmaker Edgar Wright. First it was invaded by zombies, in his cult hit Shaun of the Dead, and now by quick-on-the-draw super-cops. Hot Fuzz is a high-intensity Hollywood-style cop caper set in a quaint village. Kurt talks with Edgar and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
National Poetry Month is over next week, and no one is more relieved than Dean Young and Tony Hoagland -- two of America’s most highly regarded poets. They think that maybe poets should be paid NOT to write poetry. We eavesdrop on their phone call.
German composer Richard Wagner turned the love story of Tristan and Isolde into an epic opera. Epic as in, nearly 5 hours long, with almost no plot. Sometimes even the stars of the show nod off. But Amy O’Leary also talked with one woman who was aroused -- all too aroused, right there in Carnegie Hall -- by Tristan.
Video art pioneer Bill Viola is known for his mesmerizing scenes of figures moving in super-slow motion. His work is the backdrop for a landmark production of Tristan and Isolde that ran in Paris and Los Angeles and opens next week in New York. Bill tells Kurt how a near-death experience underwater as a child inspired some of the images he created for the opera.
There’s a new musical on Broadway that’s got all the buzz of a blockbuster hit and a score straight out of an indie-rock club. But even though it’s based on a 19th century German play, its themes of teen sex have some audience members squirming in their seats. Hillary Frank talked with fans of the show, young and old.
There are plenty of places you’d expect to find a brass band: on a football field, in a parade, backing Prince at the Superbowl. But on a subway platform? Sarah Lilley listened in on a band of brothers from Chicago who stop commuters in their tracks.
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National Endowment for the Humanities. Our series on creativity and science is supported in part by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
