Stay Connected***No longer adding new episodes*** On The Record was co-hosted by Sheilah Kast and Ashley Sterner. Sheilah and shared conversations with audacious artists, intrepid scientists, community leaders and more. And of course, tales from the beloved Stoop Storytelling Series.
On The Record was produced by Melissa Gerr. Jon Ehrens created the theme music. Louis Umerlik designed the logo.
Copyright: © 2024 WYPR Baltimore
Business travel is dead. Consumer Privacy? no more. But we’ve learned to be more adaptive … and more willing to plan for uncertainty in the future.
These are a few of the takeaways Amy Webb, founder of the Future Today Institute, sees resulting from fifteen months of living with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Webb also describes some tech trends she anticipates for 2021 and beyond … and they may surprise you!
“The focus will be much less on a tiny screen that we hold in our hands, and instead to a constellation of devices that we will wear, and at some point we will start embedding, or ingesting, even.”
Links: Future Today Institute newsletter, Amy Webb books, 2021 Tech Trends report,
Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472
When the pandemic suspended theater as he knew it, Odyssey Works Artistic director Abraham Burickson decided to harness technology to create a new kind of togetherness -- not just a ‘sorry second’ to ‘real life.’‘
The Book of Separation,’ is a customized participatory virtual experience built for an audience of two. It’s about togetherness, but Burickson says it also asks:
“How do we want to be together? What does it mean to be together? What’s this new world that we’re going to make? Is it a new world or are we going to just recreate what we had before with all of its positives and negatives. That’s really the question at the core of this piece.”
Links: Odyssey Works, The Book of Separation Tickets.
Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472
Here’s a Stoop Story from Mike Lowry about gratitude for all those parents who love you, know matter how crazy life gets.
You can hear his story and others at Stoopstorytelling.com.
Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472
CityLit Project supports writers as well as their ardent fans. Each year it also recognizes someone who works above and beyond to nurture the culture of literature. This year CityLit is bestowing its Chic Daumbach award on author and educator D. Watkins for his ongoing commitment to young people in Baltimore:
“I know how I would have felt if a person took an interest in coming to my school and to talk to me about college, about books, about the neighborhood, about dreaming past the reality that I was in.”
Plus, Reginald F. Lewis museum executive director Terri Lee Freeman and Safe Haven COO Jabari Lyles offer a preview of Juneteenth and Pride celebrations at the museum and have a discussion of how Black history and Black Trans history intersect.
Links: CityLit Project Daumbach Award event, Reginald F. Lewis Museum Juneteenth and Pride events, Baltimore Pride, Safe Haven resources.
Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472
“School-to-prison pipeline” labels policies that put Black and brown kids who cause trouble at school at greater risk for criminal charges … and a path to incarceration.
Everyman Theatre’s current production, Pipeline, traces the pressures on one family. We talk to veteran actor and former policeman Jefferson A. Russell, who plays the father of a son at risk and to Everyman’s community engagement director Brianna McCoy.
Then Renaissance Academy principal Tammatha Woodhouse tells about a moment in a dark courtroom that struck her with second thoughts about criminal charges for a pupil who had punched her and her altered M.O. for school discipline.
“Each kid has their own story, each kid has their own needs and I have to deal with them all individually and not one size fit all.”
Links: Pipeline at Everyman Theatre, Sat. June 19 An Essential Conversation with Promise Heights,
Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472
It’s not hard to imagine Edgar Allan Poe as obsessive. Consider his passionate poetry, his tales of horror barely tapping reality --not to mention his personal life: his ardent marriage to his cousin and his baffling death on the streets of Baltimore. But manic about SCIENCE?
In his new biography, The Reason for the Darkness of the Night: Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science, historian John Tresch shows us a Poe who led his class at West Point in engineering and math, wrote about scientific discoveries and plunged into debates about evolution and the origin of the universe -- in an age when the line between science and quackery was a blur.
Links to virtual events: Harvard Bookstore June 18, Fountain Bookstore June 23, Ivy Bookshop June 29.
Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472
It seems so simple but can so easily elude us: noticing the quiet, the surprising, the graceful--the moments of delight--that abound each day. Can we become more aware of delight, with practice?
Poet Ross Gay gave himself a year-long task: each day to fine-tune his ‘radar for delight,’ … to observe the small caretaking gestures that connect us, and to handwrite a short essay. He reads from the result, “The Book of Delights” and implores readers to slow down and savor the little things:
“I would be glad if to some extent people felt maybe even more inclined to sort of recognize the sweetness of our daily lives. And crucially, how interdependent we are.”
Links: Ross Gay, Maryland Humanities 2021 One Maryland, One Book.
Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472
Seventy-three years ago tomorrow, a new law permitted women to serve in the U.S. military--not only during war, but also in times of peace--and in all the branches. We speak with two women veterans about their experience. Laverne Harmon served two decades in the U.S. Army. Now, as program manager for vocational rehabilitation services at the VA Maryland Health Care System, she connects veterans to new careers. And DeVaki Leonard describes the support she and her sons received from the VA and local nonprofit, Project PLASE, when facing homelessness.
Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472
Here is a Stoop Story from Rebecca Ward about the ups and downs of starting over. Check out more information about the Stoop Storytelling Series - including upcoming live events and the Stoop podcast.
Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472
Fourteen years after Marin Alsop took the podium of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra--the first woman to lead any major U.S. orchestra--she’ll conduct her last concert as music director a week from Saturday. Juneteenth honors the day in 1865 enslaved Blacks in Texas learned they were free--and the concert will start with music commissioned from Morgan State professor James Lee III and hip-hop artist Wordsmith:
“This is a bold statement that they’re making allowing James and I to premiere a piece that’s done by a Black songwriter like myself and a black composer [?] and James, and again with this being the Marin festival, this should be about her, it just shows you what she’s about, she’s always about championing others and progress.”
Then BSO vice-president Allison Burr-Livingstone tells about the Marin Festival, and some milestones.
Links: Pratt Library: In Conversation with the BSO; Marin Alsop retrospective events timeline, BSO Gala on MPT, BSO Offstage, Final BSO Sessions, Wordsmith, James Lee III,
Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472
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