Midday

Before the omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus made businesses reconsider plans to return to their workplaces, people who have had the luxury of being able to work at home were beginning to consider the upside and downside of returning to in-person employment. There’s no question that the world has changed a lot in the nearly two years since since the pandemic began. If and when folks do r...

Today, it's Midday on Sports, and Tom's guest is the best-selling author and multi-media sports commentator, John Feinstein. When Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their gloved hands at the 1968 Olympics, they did so knowing that they would pay an enormous price. 50 years later, when basketball superstars LeBron James and Kevin Durant talked about politics, a conservative media personality admon...

Today, Tom is joined live on Zoom by Helicon , the renowned traditional music trio that includes Ken Kolodner, Robin Bullock and Chris Norman, along with members of the old-timey, roots music group Charm City Junction and The Ken & Brad Kolodner Quartet , for our annual Holiday Concert. Helicon  has been delighting their fans here in Baltimore with a Winter Solstice Concert for 36 years....

It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck , who joins Tom this week with her review of The Skin of Our Teeth, Thornton Wilder 's Pulitzer-Prize winning play that's getting a lively new production at Baltimore's Everyman Theatre. First produced on Broadway in 1942 as the world was being engulfed by war, Wilder's innovative play imagines how humanity survives a global ap...

Tom's guest today is the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Joseph Ellis , whose latest book - his 13th - examines the American revolution and its two abiding legacies: independence and slavery. Many participants in the fight for independence worried that the central challenge was not winning the war, but surviving its aftermath. Ellis observes that at the time, there was no such thing as an Americ...

More than 800,000 Americans have died from complications related to COVID 19. More than 200,000 of those deaths occurred after vaccines were available. Despite that availability, more people died in 2021 than had died in 2020. The vast majority of those who have perished recently had not been vaccinated. The Maryland Department of Health website was the victim of a cyber attack earlier this month....

Tom's next guests are two African American women who are helping to address homelessness in Baltimore, and helping women learn the skills they need to build houses, and build wealth. LaQuida Chancey is the founder and CEO of Smalltimore Homes , an enterprise that works to provide people living in poverty with a variety of affordable paths to home ownership. Shelley Halstead is the founder and CEO...

Today on Midday, conversations about building community through solar energy and affordable housing. A little later, Tom speaks with two African American women who are helping to address homelessness in Baltimore, and helping women learn the skills they need to build houses, and build wealth. LaQuida Chancey of Smalltimore Homes and Shelley Halstead of Black Women Build will join Tom in the second...

Today on Midday, it’s Midday on Cars! Tom's guest is John Davis , the creator, producer and host of MotorWeek , now in its 41st season. It’s produced at Maryland Public Television (MPT) here in Maryland and syndicated on PBS stations across the land. For the past many months, it’s been a challenging time to be in the market for a new set of wheels. Computer chips are still scarce...

And lastly on today's edition of Midday on the Arts , our theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom for another of her weekly reviews of the region's thespian offerings. This week, she has reviews of two plays now running concurrently at Baltimore Center Stage . The first is ArtsCentric 's ambitious production of Dreamgirls , the 1980s hit Broadway musical about a trio of young female singers aspir...

Next on today's Midday on the Arts : Baltimore's Everyman Theater is presenting The Skin of Our Teeth , a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Thornton Wilder that premiered on Broadway on November 18, 1942, at a time when the world was convulsed by global war. The new production at Everyman opens tonight, Dec 10, a few days after the 80th anniversary of Japan's 1941attack on Pearl Harbor. That event le...

It’s Midday on the Arts .  A little later in this hour, Tom checks in with our theater critic, J Wynn Rousuck , for her reviews of two shows at Baltimore Center Stage. Tom will also talk to some folks from Baltimore's Everyman Theater about their new production of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth. But we begin with two classically trained string players who have reimagined the re...

The intractable rate of violent crime is certainly one of our city’s most pressing problems, and the Mayor has said repeatedly it is his highest priority. Yesterday, the Mayor announced his “Action Plan” for the next three years. He made no mention of the fact that he has yet to reach his goal of a 15% annual reduction in homicides. Today on Midday, a discussion of what many view...

As we approach the first anniversary of the insurrection at the US Capitol, more than 700 people have been indicted and more indictments are expected. 129 rioters have entered guilty pleas. Several have been sentenced to prison terms. Did the mob that stormed the Capitol simply coalesce around the fantasy that the election was stolen from Donald Trump? Or can the roots of the violence be traced ba...

Tom's guest today is Ann Patchett , one of the most gifted writers in contemporary American literature. She is the winner of many awards, including the Pen Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction , and her work has been translated into more than 30 languages. She is the author of eight novels. Her most recent, The Dutch House , was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. (Tom spoke with the aut...

The trends in the coronavirus pandemic are heading up again, and this is before any possible uptick that may or may not happen with the new omicron variant . The positivity rate here in Maryland has been above 5% for about a week, and the number of daily new cases in our state has hovered around 17 or 18 hundred each day, many more than in the past several months. Children over the age of five are...

In our final segment today, Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom live with her review of the new touring production of Tootsie , the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical that's based on the multiple Oscar-winning 1982 film . The gender-bending romantic comedy, a farcical romp through the issues of sexual identity, sexism, sexual harassment and gender stereotypes, is live on stage at Balt...

André De Shields has been called “the King of Broadway.” His many Broadway roles range from the title character in “The Wiz” to his current Tony Award-winning role, Hermes, the Greek messenger god, in “ Hadestown .” Now André De Shields is back in his hometown of Baltimore to perform three concerts with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra , beginning...

We begin today with another edition of Midday at the Movies , our monthly look at films and filmmaking. We're joined again by two of our favorite movie aficionados: Ann Hornaday , film critic for The Washington Post and author of the great movie-goers guide, Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies , and Jed Dietz, the founder and former director of the Maryland Film Festival and Parkway Theater. Our...

Tom's next guest is an emerging star in the world of country music, and a native daughter of Baltimore. Midday first checked in with Brittany Spencer in an interview last summer, right before she made her second appearance at the famed Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Since then, much has happened in her career. After years of singing back-up for other artists, she is now headlining her own tour. She&...

Today on Midday , another edition of Midday with the Mayor , our monthly conversation with Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott . Among the topics addressed in today's discussion (which was pre-recorded on Tuesday, November 30) are the mayor's plans for allocating $35 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds toward closing the city's digital divide and providing better Internet access, espe...

This morning (December 1), the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a landmark case that could change access to legal abortions in the United States. A law in Mississippi called the Gestational Age Act , passed in 2018,   prohibits a woman from having an abortion if she has been pregnant for more than 15 weeks. The law was challenged by the only remaining place in Mississippi that provi...

Tom's next guest is the actor and filmmaker Sonja Sohn . She is best known for her portrayal of Baltimore Police Detective Kima Greggs in The Wire, the critically acclaimed HBO series. Her latest documentary film is about a real-life Baltimore detective, Sean Suiter , who died while on duty in November 2017. It’s called The Slow Hustle , and it explores the lingering questions that surround...

A grim reminder that the COVID crisis is not yet a thing of the past came last week when health officials in South Africa were the first to announce the appearance of a new variant, named omicron , which has since been identified in more than 15 countries. CBS News is reporting today that the new variant appeared in Europe at least a week before it was detected in southern Africa. It is only a mat...

Today on Midday , a variety of perspectives on Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities , the 1992 play about Black-Jewish relations in America that's getting a new production at Baltimore's Center Stage . Opening night is Thursday. Tom's first guest today is the playwright who created Fires in the Mirror : the writer, actor and educator, Anna Deavere Smith . In addition t...