Theater

The Homefront Collection, a new DVD set from Warner Home Video, showcases three World War II-era Hollywood musicals: This Is the Army, Thank Your Lucky Stars and Hollywood Canteen.

The two collaborated on the new Steve Coogan comedy, about a failed actor and overzealous drama teacher who mounts a musical sequel to Shakespeare's most famous tragedy.

Dorothy's Toto and Elle's Bruiser have a friend in common: animal trainer Bill Berloni. Berloni has been training stage animals for over 30 years. His new book is Broadway Tails: Heartfelt Stories of Rescued Dogs Who Became Showbiz Superstars.

Singer and actress Kelli O'Hara has received three Tony nominations in as many years. She currently stars in the crowd-pleasing revival of South Pacific.

Fresh Air's film critic says the set-up is smart — but the setups are wittier than the payoffs, and oh, what lackluster tasks await the aging adventurer and his spawn.

Songwriters David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger wrote the songs for Cry-Baby, a Broadway musical based on John Water's 1990 film of the same name. Fresh Air's rock critic talks with both about their contribution to the show.

Julie Andrews has spent her life in the public eye, but she's never had much to say about her life before stardom — until now. The Sound of Music star joins Terry Gross to discuss her new memoir.

Fresh Air's classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new DVD release of a lesser-known Kurt Weill opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahoganny.

Canadian actor and comedian Mark McKinney joins Terry Gross to discuss his career, including Slings and Arrows, the critically acclaimed miniseries about a Shakespearean theater troupe. It's out now in a DVD box.

The Threepenny Opera revolutionized musical theater. Playwright and lyricist Bertolt Brecht, composer Kurt Weill and actress Lotte Lenya created a sensation when their show opened in Berlin in 1928.

Two years later, the great German director G.W. Pabst turned it into a movie, and it's just been released as a Criterion Collection DVD.

She was a home-grown phenomenon, an operatic soprano trained entirely in the U.S. in an era when most singers developed their craft in Europe, and she made a notable second career after her retirement as a formidable arts administrator and advocate. Fresh Air spoke with her in 1985.

Beverly Sills, the Brooklyn-born opera star with the charming smile and the clean, silvery coloratura, died Monday at the age of 78. Fresh Air's classical music critic pays tribute.

Singer Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, who helped bridge '50s doo-wop and '60s rock 'n' roll, are celebrated in a new four-CD box set called Jersey Beat. The group released two dozen Top 40 hits, including "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Sherry" and "Walk Like a Man." Jersey Boys, the Tony Award winning Broadway musical, is based on the lives of the Four Seasons.

As artistic director of the Encores series at New York's City Center, Jack Viertel is the go-to guy for one of New York's hottest musical-theater tickets. It's just the latest phase, though, in an impressive theatrical career.

Victor Garber will star in the upcoming ABC drama Eli Stone. He has just finished a short run of Stephen Sondheim's Follies for the New York City Center's Encores! series. Viewers may remember him best as Jack Bristow on the hit TV show Alias. Broadway credits include Death Trap, Noises Off and Sweeney Todd.

Writer Stefan Kanfer. His new book is “Stardust Lost: The Triumph, Tragedy, and Mishugas of the Yiddish Theater in America.” It’s about the glory days of Yiddish theater in the late 19th and early 20th century. Kanfer was a writer and editor at Time magazine for 20 years and is the author of many books including biographies of Lucille Ball and Groucho Marx.

Richard Gilman, who died Saturday at age 83, was a writer and professor at the Yale School of Drama. Ben Brantley of The New York Times writes, "Mr. Gilman was one of a breed of philosopher-critics... who came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. They located in modern drama the elements of abstraction, alienation and absurdity that had long been at the core of discussions of other forms of art and literature." In this archive interview from 1987, Gilman recounts his conversion from Judaism to Catholicism and then to atheism.

Playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute has earned a reputation for writing characters who are selfish, mean, misanthropic and misogynistic. His films include In the Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbors. His plays include "The Mercy Seat", "Some Girls" and "Fat Pig". The New Yorker's John Lahr says his plays are "complex and unnerving," and that "there's no playwright on the planet who is writing better." "Wrecks" is LaBute's new one-man play starring Ed Harris.

Actress Diane Lane co-stars with Adrian Brody, Ben Affleck and Bob Hoskins in the new film Hollywoodland. The film is based on the real-life mystery surrounding the death of actor George Reeves, who played Superman on TV.

We rebroadcast an interview with late mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt. She had been called the "reigning Handel diva of our day." She appeared in Peter Sellars' productions of Handel and Mozart. This interview originally aired on April 8, 1996.