What I Listen to in My Car, Part 2: Changes in the Media Diet

The news on the radio is still too depressing to listen to as I drive to work, so podcasts via Spotify on my phone are my choice of automotive media diet. Recently I stumbled on a quirky history podcast called Not Past It. Each Wednesday host Simone Polanen examines a moment in history from that same week and how it changed our world. Their snarky, off-beat approach is what grabs me. Also the subject matter which can range from vital and heavy (the Fugitive Slave Law, Lizzie Borden, abortion) to frivolous and fun (beanie babies, the LaLa Land-Midnight mixup at the Oscars, Paris Hilton's sex tape, Zsa Zsa Gabor slapping a cop, Patti LaBelle's infamous train wreck of a performance at the White House Christmas Tree lighting ceremony where the back up singers were missing and cue cards were mixed up. Evidently the last named event has gone viral, but I had never heard about it.)

B'way Update: Window Replaces Room

Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan
in The Sign in Sidney Brusteins's Window
Credit: Catalina Kulczar

Donald Trump's 34-count indictment isn't the only big news coming out of Manhattan this week. The revival of Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window which recently finished its run at BAM is transferring to Broadway just in time to qualify for the 2023 Tony Awards. The play about a group of bohemian Greenwich Village residents in the 1960s will begin previews on April 25 at the James Earl Jones Theater and open two days later on April 27, the last possible day for Tony Award consideration. The quickie transfer and short preview period were made possible when the Jones' previous resident, a stage version of Emily Donoghue's novel Room, was postponed indefinitely because a major backer withdrew funding. The cast from the BAM production, directed by Anne Kaufman, will repeat their performances including Oscar Isaac (Scenes from a Marriage, Hamlet) and Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Big Knife) in the lead roles of Sidney and Iris, an idealistic intellectual and his wife, an aspiring actress.