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Playlist: O'Dark 30 episode 117 (3-13)

Compiled By: KUT

Caption: PRX default Playlist image

KUT's O’Dark 30 wraps up February with more of the very best from the world of independent radio production this week. Every Sunday at midnight on Austin's KUT 90.5 and also at 4pm on digital KUT2 we present 3 hours of a little bit of everything from the world of independent radio production.

Episode 117 (3-13) includes KUT's Views and Brews Remix: Thelonious Monk and the Art of Hesitation...William's Leap for Freedom...Abraham Lincoln's Portrait (Part One)

William's Leap For Freedom

From Sue Zizza | 52:57

SueMedia Productions, in conjunction with the National Audio Theatre Festivals, (NATF) is offering "William’s Leap for Freedom" for Stations to broadcast during Black History Month 2011.

Hosted by Dion Graham, this one hour audio drama is available through the PRX to stations for free. This original play is based on the life of freed slave William Wells Brown. The performance was recorded live at the June 2010 NATF workshop in West Plains, Missouri and stars Mirron E. Willis as Wells Brown, and features Barbara Rosenblat along with a multi-voice cast.

"William’s Leap for Freedom" is a two part drama; a play within a play. Beginning with a fictionalized conversation between William Wells Brown and Mr. Polite, this audio dramatization then introduces part two of the play which features selected portions of "The Escape or Leap for Freedom," as it relates to the tale of three slaves, Cato, Glen and Melinda. Brown often stated that this play specifically was autobiographical. The couple, Glen and Melinda, did exist, while Cato is Brown himself.

This production, directed by Renee Pringle, with assistance from mentor Sue Zizza was post produced by SueMedia Production’s David Shinn.

Willim_wells_brown_small SueMedia Productions, in conjunction with the National Audio Theatre Festivals (NATF) is offering William's Leap for Freedom for stations to broadcast during Black History Month (February) 2011.

Hosted by Dion Graham, this one hour audio drama is available through the PRX for free. This original play is based on the life of freed slave William Wells Brown. The performance was recorded live at the June 2010 NATF workshop in West Plains, Missouri and stars Mirron E. Willis as Wells Brown and features Barbara Rosenblat along with a multi-voice cast.

William's Leap for Freedom is a two part drama; a play within a play. This performance, was adapted for audio from the stage play, William Wells Brown's Leap for Freedom written for the stage by Dr. Cheryl Black of the University of Missouri Department of Theatre.

Dr. Black's play was written and produced in 2008 for the Missouri State Historical society's Missouri History in Performance Theater. In 2009 it was adapted for the National Audio Theartre Festivals by Renee Pringle of NPR, with assistance from mentor Sue Zizza.

Beginning with a fictionalized conversation between William Wells Brown and Mr. Polite, this audio dramatization then introduces part two of the play which features selected portions of The Escape or Leap for Freedom, as it relates to the tale of three slaves, Cato, Glen and Melinda.  Brown often stated that this play specifically was autobiographical.  The couple, Glen and Melinda, did exist, while Cato is Brown himself.

ABOUT WILLIAM WELLS BROWN

Wells Brown was born a slave in Lexington, Kentucky in 1814.  It is said that his mother was the daughter of Daniel Boone and a black slave, while his father was known to be a member of the Wickliffe family of Kentucky and Louisiana.

Throughout his lifetime, Brown was a fugitive slave, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, an abolitionist, an anti-slavery lecturer, an historian, a medical doctor, and a poet.

Brown is the author of the first novel, the first drama, and the first travelogue published by an African American in the U.S.  His particular life experiences gave him a thorough education and with that came an understanding of human nature, and of American culture and society, from 1814 through 1884.

In 1856, Brown decided to stop giving lectures at paid abolitionist engagements and instead began performing his dramas.  Through drama he emphasized that all Americans, northern and southern, participated in deceptions necessary to support the system of slavery.

A popular form of drama at the time was the blackface minstrel.  Using minstrel comedy in reverse, Brown was able to dispel familiar stereotypes and ridicule the perpetrators of those misrepresentations.  In this way, Escape or Leap for Freedom is also a commentary on the minstrel style.

Brown consistently emphasized that blacks should use wit and trickery to fight against and survive their oppression, not heroic confrontation.  His dramas emphasize the oppressive circumstances of black and white women; sexual violence against black women; the emasculation of black men; the hypocrisy of the religious community, and the paradox of a system of slavery in America, the so-called land of liberty.

Brown was known as a trickster among scholars.  With guile, wit, and charm, he moved his white audiences to face issues without insulting them.

This production, directed by Pringle, with assistance from producer Sue Zizza was post produced by SueMedia Production's David Shinn.


Abraham Lincoln's Portrait (Part 1)

From GW Global Media Institute | Part of the GW Presents Beyond Category series | 57:28

Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer joins host Dick Golden to paint a portrait of America's 16th president through words and the music of Tony Bennett.

Prx_small President Clinton and the United States Congress appointed Harold Holzer, a noted Lincoln expert and author, to be a co-chair of the 2009 Lincoln Bicenntenial Committee.  Mr. Holzer had asked his friend Tony Bennett to paint a portrait of Lincoln for Holzer’s book Why Lincoln Matters.  The painting hangs in Mr. Holzer’s office at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Dick Golden interviewed Mr. Holzer in his office and asked him to select seven of his favorite Tony Bennett recordings and for two hours the conversation was about Abraham Lincoln and Tony Bennett.