Midday

Today our theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, joins Tom (a day earlier than usual) to share her take on the new political musical, Dave, now playing at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. Directed by Tina Landau (SpongeBob SquarePants) and adapted from the 1993 Oscar-nominated film of the same name, Dave tells the story of Dave Kovic -- played by Drew Gehling (Waitress) -- a high school teacher with a...

Today on Midday, a conversation about what has come to be known as the Black Tax. It is imposed on people of color, in different ways, and in different places, every day. Reports of hate crimes are on the rise, and in 2017, once again, African Americans were targeted more than any other group. And in the last few months, social media has been rife with example after example of people of color bein...

Tom speaks with Erricka Bridgeford, one of the co-founders of Baltimore Ceasefire 365. Baltimore Ceasefire movement celebrated their one year anniversary over this past weekend, with a series of events, workshops and rally’s across the city. The group’s mission: the cessation of murder for one weekend every quarter. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today a conversation about juvenile crime in Baltimore City. Recent headlines about juvenile crime being ----out of control---- seem to capture—and fuel—the perception that juvenile crime is indeed on the rise in Baltimore. As is so often the case, though, the reality is a bit more complicated. Researchers at the Abell Foundation set about collecting and analyzing the available data on juvenile cr...

On today's show, Tom speaks with Mildred Muhammad, the ex-wife of John Allen Muhammed, the DC sniper who along with an accomplice shot 13 people, killing 10 of them at multiple locations throughout the Washington metropolitan area in October 2002. Mildred Muhammad has made it her life’s work to remind us that the other very important dimension to these killing is that of domestic violence. John Mu...

The guitarist Michael Joseph Harris, bassist, Shawn Simon and vocalist Alexis Tantau, are members of Hot Club of Baltimore, a local Jazz ensemble specializing in gypsy jazz and swing in the tradition of the legendary French guitarist, Django Reinhardt. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's another edition of Midday at the Movies, and our favorite movie mavens -- Jed Dietz, founding director of the Maryland Film Festival and Ann Hornaday, film critic for the Washington Post -- join Tom to spotlight film industry trends and some hot new releases. One of the flicks they'll talk about today is the new documentary, Three Identical Strangers, by director Tim Wardle. It tells the stor...

Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom in the studio every week with a review of the one of the region's many thespian productions, and today she stops by to discuss Cockpit in Court's new rendition of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Set in a five-and-dime store in the small west-Texas town of McCarthy, the play explores the reunion of the ----Disciples of James De...

Today, a special edition of Midday live from historic Sumner Hall, in Chestertown, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Sumner Hall was built in 1908. It served as the meeting place for the Charles Sumner Post #25, a Grand Army of the Republic post founded by African American Union Veterans of the Civil War. For decades, Sumner Hall was the social and cultural hub of Chestertown’s African American communi...

It’s Midday on Politics. The general election is November 6th, which is 14 weeks from tomorrow. Today, we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates. Tom's guest is Richmond Davis, the Republican nominee for U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland’s 7th District. He is running against the incumbent, Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat, who has served in Congress since 1996. Richmond...

Our Conversations with the Candidates series continues now with Liz Matory, the Republican candidate for Congress in the 2nd District. She’s facing the incumbent Democrat, Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger, who's held the seat since 2003. Matory is a Silver Spring-based entrepreneur and business consultant. She’s a former field worker for the Maryland Democratic Party. She quit the Dems in 2014, and...

Kimberly Reed’s new film is called Dark Money, and it chronicles the insidious effect of political donors, both corporate and individual, who go to great lengths to keep their identities hidden, while the impact of their political advocacy is on full display in state houses across the country, in the halls of Congress, in the courts, and in the executive branch of government. Email us at midday@wy...

On today’s News Wrap: Tronc, Inc., the controversial Chicago based media company that owns several newspapers around the country including the Baltimore Sun and The Daily News, is once again making headlines. This week Tronc made dramatic cuts to the news room at The NY Daily News, laying off over 90 employees. Politico media reporter, Jason Schwartz is on the line from Arlington, Va. to discuss t...

It’s another edition of Midday on Ethics. Today we explore some ethical questions pulled straight from the headlines. We’ll begin with the story of Jahi McMath, a 13-year -old girl in California who was declared dead in late 2013, after a routine surgery went wrong. Then, last month, 4\u189\u years later, she was declared dead, again, in New Jersey. It’s a tragic story that raises issues about end...

Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins us each week with her review of one of the region's many theatrical productions, today spotlights Judy and the General, the new musical comedy on stage at Spotlighters Theatre in Baltimore. Judy and the General is playwright Rosemary Frisino Toohey's funny, feminist take on the biblical character Judith, and her confrontation with the powerful Assyr...

Today, Midday goes Back to the Garden, with two of our favorite green thumbs joining Tom in Studio A again to talk about what to grow and how to grow it, and to answer your questions about gardening. Carrie Engel is the Greenhouse Manager and a plant specialist for most of the past 50 years at Valley View Farms in Cockeysville, Maryland, where today she’s responsible for the well-being of the fami...

(A Midday re-broadcast: originally aired June 19, 2018)Tom’s guest is General Michael Hayden. In more than 40 years in the Air Force and the Intelligence Community, the retired four-star general served as Director of the National Security Agency from 1999-2005, during the George W. Bush Administration. He also served for about a year as the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and i...

It’s July, it’s hot, and even with all the recent rain, we’re thirsty. But for an increasing number of Baltimore households, water -- we’re talking plain old water from the faucet -- is becoming unaffordable. On July 1st, water rates in Baltimore City rose almost 10%, the third big jump in as many years. In fact, since 2010, the typical Baltimore household’s water and sewer bill has more than doub...

Kamau High, managing editor of The Afro, joins us for another of our bi-monthly Check-Ins to talk about some of the stories being reported by The Afro's newsroom this week:A report on a grieving community's preparations for the funeral of Taylor Hayes, the child who was shot July 5 in the rear seat of her mother’s car, and who died July 19. The police search for suspects is proving difficult. A pr...

Today, another edition of the Midday News Wrap. We begin today with U.S. Senator Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He joins Tom by phone to comment on the roiling controversy over President Trump’s performance at his meeting Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Mr. Trump's contentious discussions the week before with Americ...

Artscape is underway in the Mt. Royal, Bolton Hill, Charles Street and Station North neighborhoods of Baltimore. It’s billed as the largest free arts festival in the United States. It’s produced by the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, lovingly known as BOPA. BOPA has a new boss. Joining us in the studio today is Donna Drew Sawyer, who took the reins of BOPA a couple of weeks ago, after...

So, read a good book lately? If that’s the case, today’s the day on Midday that we’d like to hear about it. Tom's guest is Heidi Daniel, CEO of the Enoch Pratt Library here in Baltimore, a position she has held for about a year. She took the reins last summer from Carla Hayden, who was selected by then President Barack Obama to head the Library of Congress. We’re at about the halfway point in the...

Today, theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom with her review of Ain't Too Proud--The Life and Times of the Temptations, now playing at the Kennedy Center. The Broadway-bound musical showcases one of the most influential R----B groups in the history of contemporary music. We see how five young men are discovered by Motown Records producer Berry Gordy (played by Jhai Kearse) on the streets of Det...

Today, we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates. The general election is November 6th, which is 16 weeks from yesterday. My guest is Anjali Reed Phukan, the Republican nominee for Maryland Comptroller. She is running against the incumbent, Democrat Peter Franchot, who was first elected as the state’s fiscal chief in 2006.Ms. Phukan is an auditor for the State of MD. She is a Cer...

Five years ago, Alicia Garza helped create Black Lives Matter. Now, her focus is the Black Futures Lab, taking the pulse of African American communities, building political power for people of color and challenging policymakers. One of the group’s initiatives is the Black Census -- which aims to provide a better understanding of the diversity of opinion in the Black community, and to use that info...