Midday

Tom's guest for today is Maria Hiaasen. Maria’s husband, Rob Hiaasen, was an experienced reporter, columnist and editor at the Capital Gazette who was recently recognized with an award for the mentoring he did with scores of young journalists. Maria has overseen the posthumous publication of a novel by Rob Hiaasen called ----Float Plan----, as well as a collection of his columns called ----Love Pu...

The first segment of today's edition of Midday on the Arts begins with a unique 2012 performance of the popular spiritual ----Wade in the Water,---- featuring vocalist Mashica Winslow. It's not the kind of arrangement, or the kind of symphony orchestra, that you’re likely to hear in most churches or concert halls. Winslow was performing with the Soulful Symphony, an eclectic, 75-piece orchestra fo...

In the second segment of today's edition of Midday on the Arts, Tom welcomes to Studio A the legendary blues musician and storyteller, Guy Davis. Davis is also an author, a playwright, a teacher, and an actor in films,TV and on Broadway, and the son of actors/civil rights activists Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. Guy has returned to this year's Common Ground on the Hill workshop and concert series which...

In the closing segment of today's edition of Midday on the Arts, theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom in the studio for another of her weekly reviews of Maryland's regional stage. Today, she talks about the new production of Steel Magnolias at Baltimore's Spotlighters Theatre. Robert Harling's play, which premiered in 1987 at the WPA Theater, New York City's Off-Off Broadway mainstay, is a com...

Tom's guest today is writer and advocate Irshad Manji. In her new book, Don't Label Me: An Incredible Conversation for Divided Times, Manji examines the rhetoric we use when discussing “the other,” and how changing that rhetoric can lead to more understanding. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

On a Midday show last August 15, we spoke with three teachers from the Baltimore City Public Schools about their career choices, their experiences in the classroom, and their plans, hopes and aspirations for the coming school year. Enrollment in city schools continues to trend down, but graduation rates are up, and hopes are high as the recommendations of the Kirwan Commission on Education Reform...

Another installment of Midday in the Neighborhood, our series in which we focus on each of the 278 unique and storied enclaves that make up our great City. Lauren Kelly-Washington of Greenmount West, Ben Marks of Ridgely’s Delight and Michael Woollen of Canton join host Tom Hall. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's Thursday and time again for Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins us each week with her reviews of Maryland's regional stage. Today her spotlight is on Disaster!, the 2012 musical comedy created by Seth Rudetsky and Drew Geraci, and co-written by Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick. The musical made it to Broadway for a brief run in 2016, and it's now getting a new staging at Cockpit in Cou...

It's the Midday Newswrap for Friday, June 21, 2019. The big news today is the increasing tension between the United States and Iran. Overnight, President Trump reportedly ordered an attack on military targets in Iran, and according to Trump's Friday morning Tweets, after the mission was underway, he changed his mind, and the attack on Iran was called off. To help put these events into context, Tom...

When Frank Langfitt returned to China for his second reporting tour in 2011, he came up with a novel way to hear what Chinese people had to say. He offered them free cab rides. He’s chronicled those stories in a fascinating new book, ----The Shanghai Free Taxi: Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China.---- Frank Langfitt joins Tom Hall to discuss the book and more. Email us at midday...

Today, a special Juneteenth edition of Midday: Live from The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, in downtown Baltimore. Our topic today: Reparations: Can America Atone for the Sin of Slavery? As this program aired, a House Judiciary subcommittee was holding a hearing about HR 40, a bill that would create ----a Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Propos...

As another school year comes to a close, it's a good time to check in again with Baltimore City Public Schools CEO, Dr. Sonja Santelises. Dr. Santelises has made it a priority to increase the academic performance of city students. There is good news on that front: the high-school graduation rate is up for city kids, and the drop-out rate is down. But the achievement gap between white students and...

On today's Midday on Transit, a check on how well the region is dealing with its transportation challenges, in Baltimore City and beyond. From Governor Hogan's controversial ----Traffic Relief Plan---- in the Washington suburbs, to a shake-up and critical oversight at the Baltimore Department of Transportation, what's working, what isn't, and how can we fix it? Transportation reporter Katherine Sh...

Today, percussionist Rajna Swaminathan and, vocalist, Ganavya Doraiswamy join Tom in Studio A for a live performance. They are members of Rajas, an experimental music ensemble that explores resonances among Indian music, jazz and other improvisational traditions. Rajna and the Rajas are performing at Baltimore’s Creative Alliance this Sunday at 7:30pm. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @Midda...

On today's News Wrap, Heather Caygle of POLITICO joins us for a look behind some of this week’s national headlines. Delegate Robbyn Lewis tells us about her experience in the Transit Challenge. And Justin Fenton talks about his new series in the Baltimore Sun. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

The Summer Solstice is next Friday, and joining Tom today to help us put our summer reading list together is Heidi Daniel, the President and CEO of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library. She also updates us on the many goings-on at our city’s wonderful library. Those include the Pratt's new ----Wash and Learn Initiative---- that's bringing internet access to laundromats around the city; the annual...

It's Thursday, and time for theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck's weekly review of a regional stage production. This week, she joins Tom to talk about the latest offering from Baltimore Rock Opera Society, a kid-friendly musical production called Welcome to Shakesville. Conceived by Sarah Gorman and directed for the BROS by Lucia A. Treasure, Welcome to Shakesville tells a story of a gifted young Afric...

Tom's guest today is Adam Gopnik, who has been a staff writer for the New Yorker Magazine for the past 33 years. His new book is called A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism. It is an homage to liberalism, in which he explores its roots in Montaigne and the Enlightenment, and traces its history through the present day. Gopnik observes that liberalism was preceded by humanism...

Today on Midday, it’s Midday Culture Connections with Dr. Sheri Parks, the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Is there a certain mythology about summer camp, and our notions of what an American summer is all about? What were your experiences as a child, and what experiences do you seek out for your children? For many poor kids, the opportunities and p...

Today on Midday, an update on what’s going on in Israeli politics, and the status of the stalled Middle East peace process..For analysis and context, Tom is joined today by four guests with decades of experience with the protracted pursuit of an Israeli-Palestinian accord, and a deep appreciation for the complexity of this seemingly intractable conflict. We begin with Natan Sachs, the Director and...

A new wave of state laws has heated-up the debate over a woman’s right to choose. Five states have passed laws restricting access to abortion. Could these laws reverse Roe v Wade? Toms guests are Diana Philip of NARAL, Pro-Choice MD; University of Baltimore Law Professor Kim Wehle; and Steven Aden of Americans United for Life. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-6...

Today, the world marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day -- the massive Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France that began on this day in 1944. Early this morning, eastern time, Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron of France, and President Donald Trump spoke at a ceremony marking the anniversary, which included more than 60 World War Two veterans, and a large crowd in Normandy, France, near the graves of mo...

It's Thursday, and Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck join us for another of her weekly reviews of the Maryland regional stage. Today, she tells us about the new touring production of The Play That Goes Wrong, on stage now at Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre. The Tony Award-winning British farce -- likened in its program to an illegitimate offspring of Sherlock Holmes and Monty Python -- was writ...

Two days after the April 2015 uprising following the funeral of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox played at Camden Yards in the only Major League Baseball game ever played without fans. What did the game mean to a city reeling from the worst violence since the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr? And what was it like for the players and the press to be the ones on the inside...

As of last Wednesday, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was one of 17 American symphonies who hire their players for a full 52 weeks each year. As of last Thursday, that is no longer the case. After 8 months of negotiations with the players, BSO management has abruptly shortened its season, cutting all of the events they’d announced for this summer. Does it matter if the BSO plays for 40 weeks each...