Arts, Theater & Film

With the show on summer break, we're sharing some memorable gems from our archives. Back in 2005, filmmaker Greg Whiteley joined us to talk about his debut documentary, a profile of Arthur "Killer" Kane, the bass player for the rock band New York Dolls who converted to Mormonism. This episode picked by Doug.

Did you really think we'd go on hiatus without giving you a summer book show?

In 1909, a young woman with schizophrenia wrote a letter to her husband repeating the plea, Sweetheart, Come. Utah playwright Melissa Leilani Larson has written a play to imagine the woman's journey.

We’re marking the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad by showing Cecil B. DeMille’s epic Western Union Pacific. Film historian James D’Arc joins us to talk about the film and how the railroads united a divided country.

Thursday, we're talking about Napoleon Dynamite. It became an instant cult classic when it premiered at Sundance fifteen years ago. The creative team behind “the little indie film that could” joins us talk about whatever we wanna talk about. Gosh!

Edward Abbey’s love letter to redrock country, Desert Solitaire, is 50 years old now. But a lot has changed in that time. The writer Amy Irvine joins us to offer a different take on Abbey’s season in the wilderness.

Tuesday, our guests are Utah poets Paisley Rekdal and Jacqueline Osherow. They both have new collections and will join us to talk about and read from their work.

When Pablo Picasso moved to Paris in 1904 he was still struggling to find his artistic identity. Three years later, he broke through with one of the most famous and controversial paintings ever: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

Bekah Brunstetter's play is about a conservative baker who has to decide if she can bake a cake for her friend’s lesbian daughter.  Really, it's about whether we can find a way to talk to each other.

Tuesday, we continue our Through the Lens series with director Robert Greene's compelling and original documentary Bisbee 17. It's about the former mining town of Bisbee, Arizona, and the century-old event that haunts it to this day.