Caustic comedian and best-selling author Jim Norton pulls no punches in this comedy special, going after jaw-dropping laughs not intended for the faint of heart. Among his targets: the national hypersensitivity epidemic - leading celebrities, talking heads and regular Joes alike to get offended by just about anything. Norton's got a message for those people, and it's in the title.

A deceptively simple tale: Dmitry Gurov, a comfortable, middle-aged husband, father and womanizer, has a casual affair with Anna Sergeyevna, an unhappy young wife, while vacationing in Yalta; to his amazement, the jaded Gurov falls in love for the first time in his life, just as Anna does with him.. Kama Ginkas has made a career of creating powerful theater based on the prose of classic Russian authors, including Fyoor Dostoevsky, Alexander Pushkin...

First staged in 1904 by Konstantin Stanislavsky in the very theater and on the very stage of this production, director Adolf Shapiro's interpretation asks the question, where would the characters of this play live today years after their cherry orchard has been cut down? The answer, which lies in the material world created by set designer David Borovsky, is, of course, on the stage. Russian star, Renata Litvinova, in her debut theatrical performance,...

Episode two features Miriam Colon and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater Company (PRTT) of New York, Tejana musical artist Selena, and the Santero art tradition of New Mexico. This episode unveils the stories of New Mexico artisans known as Santeros who engage in an art form heavily steeped in history and tradition. Santeros present an interesting juxtaposition of imposed religion and Native American culture. Santero artists Charlie Carrillo and Nick...

A literary and dramatic analysis of the key elements in Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy. ABOUT THE PROGRAM: This program is an enormously valuable historical, literary and dramatic analysis of the essence of Macbeth showing how the significant parts of the drama tie together with scenes from the play. Our expert hosts Rebecca Flynn and Gary Taylor introduce Macbeth The Tragic Pair using the stunning backdrop of the Scottish Highlands to lift the...

A family of stand-up comedians tours the country while talking to people about their thoughts on the Bible. From the educated elite to the man on the street, they ask the question, "Are we idiots for believing the Bible? Or would we be idiots not to?"

The “Dance Theatre of Harlem’s” birthplace was in a disused garage in Harlem, a black district of New York. Arthur Mitchell, the founder who still acts as its artistic director, set up the ballet school with the aim of giving black dancers the opportunity of sound training, as their skin color meant that they often encountered difficulties finding employment with existing companies which consisted mainly of white dancers. Since its humble beginnings...

Caravaggio, born Michelangelo Merisi, has entered history due to his paintings of dramatic intensity. Caravaggio used to venture the threshold beyond the pale throughout his life. He was seen for admiration of his work and harsh opposition towards his extraordinary realism in painting human beings. Due to his passionate personality, he encountered more than several confl icts with people around him, sponsors, and the law. One of his foremost artistic...

Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni's incomparable partnership as Rodolfo and Mimi, the tragic lovers in Puccini's much-loved bittersweet opera, is captured for posterity in this live recording from the San Francisco opera. Francesca Zambello's production boasts a superlative cast with Gino Quilico as Marcello, Nicolai Ghiaurov as Colline, Stephen Dickson as Schaunard and Sandra Pacetti as Musetta. The Italian conductor Tiziano Severini drew critical...

Richard Strauss completed his second-to-last opera “Die Liebe der Danae” in 1940. Written under war clouds, the “merry mythology” based on an idea by Hugo von Hofmannsthal was given a provisional, by-invitation-only dress rehearsal premiere at the 1944 Salzburg Festival the day before all theaters in the “Reich” were closed by order of the Ministry of Propaganda. The official world premiere took place at the 1952 Salzburg Festival –...