Arts Audio/Video - NPR

In New York this week, two unlikely groups came together: war veterans and modern dancers. Dancers kicked, twisted and jumped on and around retired airplanes from the 1930s and 1940s in a hangar at Floyd Bennett Field.

When her sister drowns, 13-year-old Nico must navigate grief and growing up at the same time. Francine Prose's Goldengrove captures the confusion of adolescence tenderly and without condescension.

A new film and comedy tour features Muslim-American comedians. They are trying to bridge cultural gaps through humor.

It's not easy trying to modernize a massive institution known more for historic artifacts than for cutting-edge technology. Wayne Clough, head of the Smithsonian Institution, talks about his first 100 days in charge. Clough hopes in 500 years, visitors to the museums will say those people in 2008 had their act together.

A new film, Allah Made Me Funny, follows three Muslim men as they perform at comedy clubs around the U.S., chronicling how they make comedy out of sometimes painful experiences in a post-Sept. 11 America. Comedians Azhar Usman, Mo Amer and Preacher Moss discuss what informs their humor.

Fifteen years after she released her groundbreaking album Exile in Guyville, the femme rocker is on tour, performing the album live in front of audiences. She discusses Exile's influence on herself as well as the music industry.

Horace Engdahl, a Nobel Prize official, commented on Wednesday that the United States is "too isolated" and "too insular" to generate literary Nobel laureates. He said Europe remains the "center of the literary world."

A new musical by choreographer Bill T. Jones explores the controversial life and legacy of Nigerian musical revolutionary Fela Kuti. Fela pioneered Afrobeat, blending African harmonies and rhythms, jazz, funk (and even a little James Brown) with satirical lyrics criticizing the Nigerian government.

The first Carvel ice cream store that opened in the U.S. is closing its doors today, after 72 years in business. Abdol Faghihi, the owner of the Hartsdale, N.Y., location, speaks with host Liane Hansen.

Classical music historian Robert Greenberg speaks with host Liane Hansen about historic campaign songs. Music and politics have been intertwined in the United States since the 1800s when President Thomas Jefferson and President John Quincy Adams were in office.

Crime writer Lynda La Plante created the award-winning British TV series Prime Suspect, as well as the popular series Trial & Retribution and The Commander. She shares her insights into the psychology of wrongdoers and the law enforcers who pursue them.

Tickets for the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's play All My Sons have been selling out, and John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest have received accolades for their performances. But the chance to see Katie Holmes' Broadway debut really has theatergoers excited.

New York's Negro Ensemble Company helped launch the careers of many a notable name — and it was a first-of-its-kind venue for black playwrights writing about the African-American experience. Margot Adler reports on its lasting influence.

A geek and a smart girl cruise a nighttime New York as romantically supercharged as in any Woody Allen movie — falling for each other, while audiences fall madly for them.

In 1967, Robert Kearns received patents for inventing intermittent car windshield wipers. He offered his idea to automakers but was turned away. When Ford and Chrysler started manufacturing cars with wipers without crediting Kearns, he took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. A new film called Flash of Genius tells his story.

Slate.com's film expert takes us through the reviews of the latest releases. This week: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, the story of young love in Manhattan, the comedy Beverly Hills Chihuahua starring the voice of Drew Barrymore and How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, the story of a disillusioned intellectual obsessed with celebrity and fame.

It's not often you hear the word "masterpiece" coming from a film critic. But David Edelstein says it applies to Jonathan Demme's newest film, a marvelously textured thing at once focused and bursting at the seams.

The latest version of Anton Chekhov's famous play hit Broadway on Thursday. Christopher Hampton, who adapted the play, says he drew on Chekhov's muscular, blunt words for the critically acclaimed production.

Legendary tenor Placido Domingo takes to the podium, to conduct Puccini's Madame Butterfly, in a Washington National Opera production starring soprano Xiu Wei Sun as Cio-Cio-San.

Based on Toby Young's scathing magazine memoir, this big-screen satire pokes fun at modern media's celebrity obsession — though ultimately it succumbs to the pleasures it pretends to scorn.

An epidemic of sudden blindness pushes society to the brink in a new thriller from the director of City of God and The Constant Gardener; Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo star.

Would you see a movie about patenting the intermittent windshield wiper? It's a modestly stylish movie, but critic Mark Jenkins says the answer may depend on your interest in, well ... patenting the intermittent windshield wiper.

Delilah is the big thing on the radio at night with an audience of 25 million people. The smooth nighttime radio DJ takes requests and plays dedications. She's become the Oprah Winfrey of radio and has a mini-empire.

Julianne Moore plays a seeing woman in a sightless world in Blindness, the film adaptation of Jose Saramago's apocalyptic novel. She describes working with director Fernando Meirelles on the eerie film about an epidemic of "White Sickness."

Austerely beautiful and emotionally candid, Lance Hammer's debut melds plain-spoken American realism with oblique European minimalism. A study in stalemated lives, it's as dread-filled as a Robert Johnson song — though never that direct.

The new broadcast TV season is not having a stellar start. Every season premiere last Thursday night drew a lower rating than last fall. Even returning favorites like ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," CBS' "Survivor" and NBC's "The Office" lost audience compared to last year. Some are blaming the lower numbers on last year's writers strike. Others are looking to larger forces in the entertainment industry.

Once a cheap way to make colorful clothes, high-end designers have brought back tie-dye and even given it a new name.

Marshall Brain, an engineer-turned-TV-host, takes viewers behind the scenes to see what goes into producing common consumer products — from tennis balls, to escalators, to frozen pizza. His show "Factory Floor" airs on The National Geographic Channel.

Shakespeare's plays were all-male affairs during his day. And that means Juliet — one of his greatest female leads — was originally performed by a boy. Washington, D.C.'s Shakespeare Theater Company is staging a new production of Romeo and Juliet with men playing every role.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the guitarist and singer's new album, The Blues Rolls On. Released in early September, the disc includes collaborations with B.B. King, George Thorogood, James Cotton and more.

Fans of NBC's Friday Night Lights might want to look into DirecTV; the show, about a small Texas town and its high-school football team, begins its third season exclusively on DirecTV's "The 101," and won't hit broadcast TV until 2009. David Bianculli has a review.

Actress and comedian Neicy Nash currently stars on two TV shows — Reno 911!, an improvised, fake reality cop series — and the home make-over show, Clean House. But her success didn't come easily. Nash talks with NPR's Tony Cox.

There's an old French expression: "An actress is more than a woman, and an actor is less than a man." No one ever thought that of Paul Newman. In a way, men and women alike saw him more as a hero than an actor. Certainly, it's hard to think of anyone else in show business who had as many sports connections as Newman did.

Ex-journalist and Belief.net co-founder Steven Waldman talks about Bill Maher's new film Religulous, and about how faith is figuring in this political season — notably in the candidacy of vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin.

Tests for cancer are intimidating enough — and now genetic tests can reveal a patient's predisposition for certain cancers before there are any symptoms. Filmmaker Joanna Rudnick, upon learning she had such a genetic mutation, made a TV documentary about the agonizing choices such tests involve.

The new documentary Religulous offers a satirical — and critical — look at the world's religions. Directed by Larry Charles, the film features Bill Maher posing undercover as a man seeking spiritual guidance from various religious groups.

Oscar Award-winning actor Paul Newman died on Sept. 26 of complications from lung cancer. In this 2003 interview, the star of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Cool Hand Luke discusses his early work — both as an actor and as a salesman.

Buddhism is finding a large following among fans of punk rock. What could the two possibly have in common? Rebellion and a sense of individual responsibility, according to ordained Zen master and bona fide punk rocker Brad Warner.

Actor, businessman and philanthropist Paul Newman died Friday at the age of 83. He played men who had courage, or just as often, men who struggled to find it. Some of the characters he played included, a pool hustler, a convict, a spy behind the Iron Curtain and a cop in one of the worst neighborhoods in New York City.