Arts

Nora Ephron's final play, Lucky Guy, tells the story of controversial New York columnist Mike McAlary, played by Tom Hanks. (Also pictured: Peter Gerety as John Cotter).

Arts

Nora Ephron's 'Lucky Guy' And Tom Hanks Make Their Broadway Debuts

8:57pm April 01, 2013

by Jeff Lunden

Lucky Guy is one of the spring theater season's most highly anticipated plays. It stars Hanks, in his first Broadway performance, as tabloid journalist Mike McAlary. Director George Wolfe calls Ephron's last play "a love poem to journalism."

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

In Digestion: Mary Roach Explains What Happens To The Food We Eat

1:54pm April 01, 2013

With books like Stiff and Spook, Roach has built a reputation for making unpalatable subjects entertaining. In her new book, Gulp, she tackles the human digestive system, from the mouth on down. Along the way, she gets a sedation-free colonoscopy and goes on location for a fecal transplant.

Queue Listen Now

Arts

NC A&T E. Gwynn Dancers Perform "Diggin' Our Roots: From South Africa to South America"

9:50am April 01, 2013

by David Ford

The E. Gwynn Dancers of NC A &T State University are ready to transport you to a different place and time with their upcoming production Diggin' Our Roots: From South Africa to South America.

Queue Listen Now

Director Cristian Mungiu on the set of his new film, Beyond the Hills. As in his earlier 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the filmmaker focuses on two young women adrift in the post-Soviet wilderness of Romania.

Arts

Cristian Mungiu: Metaphor Or Not, 'Hills' Has Eyes For Romania's Past

6:28pm March 31, 2013

by Howie Movshovitz

Already the poster child for his country's so-called New Wave of filmmakers, the director takes another realistic dive into the post-Communist Eastern Bloc with Beyond the Hills. Though he hesitates to call it a straight metaphor, the symbolism of the film is uncanny.

Queue Listen Now

Arts

A Fossilized Confection Baked For Easter 1807

10:34am March 30, 2013

A British couple believes they've come across a hot cross bun that was baked more than 200 years ago. Host Scott Simon explains.

Queue Listen Now

Science
Arts

Gripping Science Tales Need Not Be Science Fiction

9:19am March 30, 2013

When does a story about science become science fiction? Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss and theoretical physicist Brian Greene discuss how to spin a yarn about string theory or the Big Bang, without hyping the science. And novelist Ian McEwan, whose books touch on neurosurgery and quantum field theory, talks about what science offers to fiction.

Queue Listen Now

Over the past three decades, Arthur and Cynthia Wood turned their four-story home into a work of art. They purchased the brick tenement at the intersection of Downing and Quincy streets in 1979 for $2,100 in cash.

Arts

Self-Taught Architect Behind Brooklyn's 'Broken Angel' Faces Eviction

7:55pm March 29, 2013

by Joel Rose

Over the past three decades, artist and sculptor Arthur Wood has turned his four-story home into a towering cathedral built out of salvaged junk. But after a fire in 2006, the New York City Department of Buildings determined that the Clinton Hill landmark was no longer a safe place to live.

Queue Listen Now

Jean (Vincent Rottiers) assists his ailing father, the artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), in his studio on the French Riviera.

Arts

A Film So Sumptuous, 'Renoir' Himself Might Have Helped Out

7:55pm March 29, 2013

by Bob Mondello

The slow, silky pace of Gilles Bourdos' biopic Renoir might burden a lesser subject. But the beauty of the cinematography suggests the aesthetic of the Impressionist master, lending the whole film a surreally beautiful air. (Recommended)

Queue Listen Now

Rodney Ascher, director of the experimental documentary Room 237, leads an exploration of differing interpretations of Stanley Kubrick's classic horror film The Shining.

Arts

Hunting For Secrets In 'The Shining's' Room 237

2:05pm March 29, 2013

by John Powers

A new documentary looks at obsessive fans of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror film The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. These fanatics look for hidden meanings in the movie, and while some of their theories sound outrageous, it's too simple to call such thinking deranged.

Queue Listen Now

In Robot & Frank, a robot cares for an aging ex-burglar who has dementia. Frank Langella, who plays the burglar, says his character "becomes fond of the robot only because it is a tool for his wicked, wicked ways."

Arts

Frank Langella: A Career 'Like A Chekhov Play'

2:03pm March 29, 2013

In the movie Robot & Frank, the actor plays an aging ex-burglar who learns to take advantage of his robot caretaker. Langella, 74, tells Fresh Air why he was drawn to the role, and discusses the ups and downs of his long career.

Queue Listen Now