Arts, Theater & Film

  Christmas day has finally arrived, a day for gifts and giving. We're hoping you can finally put the busy-ness and commercial hubbub of the season aside and enjoy our gift to you: two timeless holiday stories.

As the historian and writer Les Standiford notes, Charles Dickens’ famous tale A Christmas Story didn’t just change his life, it reinvented the way we celebrate the holiday.

We recently uncovered a collection of radio essays by the late naturalist and environmentalist Ellen Meloy. So we're reintroducing you to the beauty and wit found in her extraordinary writing. (Rebroadcast)

RadioWest and Plan-B Theatre present the latest in our original radio drama series. It's Utah playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett's dark comedy about an internet troll who becomes a real one.

In his film Hale County This Morning, This Evening, director RaMell Ross abandons the traditional documentary form, opting for a kind of lyrical and and vivid portrait of life in the modern South.

Friday, we’re talking about George Frideric Handel's beloved Messiah oratorio. It’s a story with scandal, godliness, and of course, beautiful music.

Tuesday, scholar Stephen Greenblatt joins us to talk about Shakespeare's tyrants. In many of his tragedies, he grappled with this question: why would anyone be drawn to a leader unsuited to govern? (Rebroadcast)

Behind Vladimir Nabokov's brilliant and disturbing novel Lolita is a true story of a girl who was kidnapped and abused by a middle-aged man. Journalist Sarah Weinman new book is about The Real Lolita.

Friday, we’re talking about a podcast that challenges listeners to refine their sense of hearing. For host Dallas Taylor, sound can change how we experience and enjoy life and the world around us.

Historian Scott Poole says our modern fascination with horror came from the atrocities of World War I. Wednesday, we're talking about how the Great War is still felt in art and popular culture today.