Wgtd's The Morning Show With Greg Berg

In Part One, we talk about this weekend's concert by the Choral Arts Society that will be devoted to music of the Beatles.  Our guests include artistic director Jim Schatzman and guest musician Mark Paffrath.   In Part Two, we share a 2004 interview from the Morning Show archives with Tony Barrow, long-time manager of the Beatles.  The occasion for our conversation was the publication of the book "Paul McCartney: Then and Now," which Barrow co-wrote. 

Working with the poor in Cameroon. 

David A. Salomon's book is titled 'The Seven Deadly Sins: How Sin Influenced the West from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era."  

I am often asked what interview is my favorite among the thousands that I have done over the past twenty years as host of "The Morning Show."  This is it.  Alexandra Zapruder's book "Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust" is a collection of diaries written by young people during the Holocaust.  These would be diaries somewhat similar to the famous diary of Anne Frank.  Ms. Zapruder's book was initially published in 2002.  It was re-released in a second edition several years ago- and there is also a multi-media edition available. I am sharing this interview because of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was this past Thursday.  We Must Never Forget. 

Robert Trachtenberg's book "When I Knew" collects the stories of about 100 different gay people who answer the question "When did I know that I was gay?"   Some of the stories shared are hilarious- while others are quite poignant.  

We introduce you to Noah Mercadillo, a sophomore at Tremper High School in Kenosha, who has won first place in both the Kenosha Symphony and Racine Symphony youth auditions.   He performs the opening movement of the Haydn Cello Concerto in C major with the RSO this Saturday evening.  (At one point during the interview, Noah plays his cello.) In part two, we hear from RSO artistic director Pasqual Laurino,  who will conduct Saturday evening's concert. 

Anne Morse Hambrock is a well-known local harpist, harp teacher, and composer - but today we talk about her work as a writer and artist as expressed in her new book "Conversations with the Infinite."  We also talk about the Holocaust Remembrance Day event at the Kenosha Public Museum (for which Anne will be playing harp)  which will feature a talk by Holocaust survivor Nathan Taffel.  We finish out the program by replaying a Morning Show conversation with him recorded back in 2008. 

In part one,  Brian Gill (from the theater faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside) discusses "Love's Labours Lost," an early comedy by William Shakespeare that UW-Parkside will present over the next two weekends.  In part two, we meet Susan Dreyfus, president of the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, who is the keynote speaker at this Friday's Non-Profit Breakfast at UW-Parkside "Celebrating 50 Years of Powerful Partnerships." 

My guest is Penny Farmer, author of "Dead in the Water: My 40-year search for my Brother's Killer."  

Carthage College's First Lady, Cameron Swallow, talks about her involvement in an organization called Better Angels, which seeks to help people from both sides of the political aisle - 'reds' and 'blues' - to be able to speak more respectfully with one another and be able to develop appreciation for and understanding of each other.  Better Angels has a skills workshop coming up this Saturday morning, May 5th.  In our conversation, Cameron Swallow shares what it is like to be part of a politically divided family. 

Robin Gerber's 2010 book is "Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World's Most Famous Doll and the Woman who Created Her."   The book chronicles the story of the Barbie Doll. 

This is a 2002 interview with Peter Howe, author of "Shooting Under Fire:  the World of the War Photographer."  

Dr. Jerald Mast, Associate Professor of Political Science at Carthage College,  talks about Climate Change - sketching the history of how long various scientists have been voicing concern about climate change,  outlining when it began to be discussed by politicians, and how the issue is being approached today in this highly polarized political landscape in which we currently find ourselves.   He also talks about the large field of Democratic candidates for president and how central the issue of climate change is likely to be in the 2020 presidential race. 

This is a conversation about the intriguing Kander & Ebb musical "Flora the Red Menace,"  which served as Liza Minelli's Broadway debut (for which she won a Tony Award) when it opened back in 1965 ... but which has not been nearly as well-known nor as often performed as Kander & Ebb's two biggest hits,  "Cabaret" and "Chicago."   I speak with Neil Scharnick, Molly Kampfer and Cassidy Skorija about Carthage College's production of the show, which opens this weekend.   Neil is the director- Molly and Cassidy, two senior music theater majors at Carthage, are in the cast. 

This is the monthly visit of Bryan Albrecht, the president of Gateway Technical College.  We are talking about the concept of "Smart Cities" and how that has played out in a competition sponsored by FoxConn.   The program actually begins with Racine mayor Cory Mason.  We also talk with two individuals who were second round winners in the competition- one a Gateway horticulture instructor and the other a Gateway student in the construction management program.  

In an interview from 2003,  we hear Simon Winchester talk about his book "The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.)   The OED, which took more than 70 years to assemble (with the help of hundreds of volunteers) was intended to be the world's first completely comprehensive dictionary, encompassing every single word of the English language (both past and present.)  

We begin with Timothy Jay Smith and his novel "The Fourth Courier," which is set in Poland in the early 1990's, when that nation was moving from communism to capitalism but experiencing much tumult in the process.  We finish with a 2011 interview with Erin Morgenstern, whose debut novel "The Night Circus" was a blockbuster bestseller.  

Elissa Brent Weissman is the editor of "Our Story Begins:  Your Favorite Authors and Illustrators share Fun, Inspiring and Occasionally Ridiculous Things They Wrote and Drew as Kids."   

Entertainment writer James Neibaur has written fascinating books about a wide array of film-related topics.  In this interview, we discuss his book "The W.C. Fields Films."   

Martin Puchner's book is "The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization."  Puchner examines the critical role that language- and particularly written language- has played in human development and in human history.