Storybeat with Steve Cuden

Writer-director Richard Bakewell is a veteran cinematographer and television camera operator who has worked with major media figures like Gordon Ramsay and Oprah Winfrey, and on noted TV docuseries such as Cops, Last Chance U, and Cheer.  Richard has written and directed the feature film, Roswell Delirium, as a response to both his own journey back from PTSD and the global response to the 2020 pan...

Damyanti Biswas is a Singapore-based fiction writer. Her short fiction has been published at Smokelong, Ambit, Litro, and Puerto del Sol, among others. And she's the coeditor of The Forge literary magazine. Her popular blog damyantiwrites.com , where she speaks about the writing life and interviews publishing professionals, turned 15 this year. She's the author of You Beneath Your Skin,...

Fritz Coleman is a 5-time Emmy Award Winning Stand-Up Comedian and former NBC Weathercaster. He’s opened all over the United States for entertainment icons like Ray Charles, Debbie Reynolds, Jay Leno, George Benson, the band America and too many more to mention. He made 8 appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Jay Leno. He spent 40 years as the main weathercaster for NBC Los Angele...

Skye Fitzgerald founded Spin Film to bear witness to unfolding crises with the intent to deepen empathy and understanding. He recently completed a trilogy of films on the global refugee crisis. The first, 50 Feet from Syria, focused on doctors working on the Syrian border and was voted onto the Oscar® shortlist. The second, Lifeboat, documents search and rescue operations off the coast of Libya an...

Shelley Herman is an Emmy-nominated writer, actress, and host whose career began as an NBC Page in Burbank, CA. Shelley’s written over 1000 hours of television, contributed to numerous books for Dove/Phoenix Books, starred in the TV series Off the Wall and Night Rap, and co-hosted ESPN's Battle of The Monster Trucks and Mud Bog Spectacular.  In addition, Shelley has guest-starred on numerous...

Leslie S. Klinger is the multi-award-winning New York Times best-selling editor of more than 75 books, focusing primarily on the history of crime and supernatural fiction.  In addition to heavily-annotated editions of classics like the stories of Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Frankenstein, the work of H. P. Lovecraft, and most recently, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. H...

Making a return for his second appearance on StoryBeat is the great jazz and world flutist, Michael Mason. Michael’s been playing professionally for more than 40 years.  He’s led off for Trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, had master classes with James Newton, been influenced by Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, performed with New Orleans Saxophonist Edward “Kidd” Jordan and Chicago’s legendary Fred Anderson. He...

Author-publisher Stephen Games came to publishing after a lifetime of reflecting on the creative arts. Stephen is a former architecture correspondent for The Guardian, documentary maker for the BBC, and opinion writer for the Los Angeles Times.  He has a PhD from Cambridge University for research into the work of the celebrated German architectural historian, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, about whom he’s...

The actor and writer, Joe Coyle has appeared in such movies as Jack Reacher with Tom Cruise, Promised Land with Matt Damon, Frances McDormand, Emily Blunt, and John Krasinski, and Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, starring Cate Blanchett. Joe hails from Sewickley, Pennsylvania.  He’s been a paperboy, journalism student, university newspaper writer/photographer, magazine junior executive, TV/Film actor/...

Al Olson is one of a select handful of eccentric, quirky, and entertaining people who helped grow American Renaissance Festivals into being a very popular ticket. He shares his story in his comprehensive book, A History of the American Renaissance Festival. While attending the University of Minnesota, working nights in a parking ramp and pumping iron at Dove’s Bicep Gym, Al also performed his orig...

Screenwriters/Producers, Brian Gunn and Mark Gunn, are cousins who grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and attended the same high school and college, where they launched a sketch comedy troupe and began writing together. They moved to Los Angeles and landed their first job by writing the MTV movie 2gether, a spoof about a fictional boy band. It spawned a concert tour, two top-40 albums, and a TV series...

Greg Weisman has been a storyteller all his life.  His first professional work was as an Editor for DC Comics, where he also wrote Captain Atom. Greg was Director of Series Development at Walt Disney Television Animation, where he created and produced Gargoyles.  Later, he wrote the Gargoyles and Gargoyles: Bad Guys comic books for SLG, and the Gargoyles and Gargoyles: Dark Ages comics for Dynamit...

Ron Destro is an award-winning writer, actor, director, and teacher. Trained in the US and UK, his mentors have included Royal Shakespeare Company founder John Barton, Oscar-winner F Murray Abraham, TV legend Lucille Ball, painter Pierre Matisse, and teachers at the Iowa Writers Workshop. He received the Kennedy Center New American Play Award for his work, Hiroshima, for which Yoko Ono wrote the o...

The award-winning French Algerian American playwright, librettist and activist, Catherine Filloux, has been, for the past 3 decades, traveling to conflict areas writing plays that address human rights and social justice.              Catherine’s new play, “How to Eat an Orange,” will open at La MaMa Theatre in New York City, and her new musical “Welcome to the Big Dipper” (written with composer Ji...

My guest today, Dr. David Sharp is a writer, performer, and spiritual teacher. Through his business, Power for Life Now, David produces and presents workshops, retreats, videos, music and performances for personal and spiritual growth.              David is an ordained Presbyterian minister and has worked as a pastor, university lecturer, and seminary professor.              As a performer, David...

The noted Connecticut artist, Amy Genser, has been creating mixed-media artwork for more than 20 years. She opened her studio after receiving her MFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design, where one class in paper making changed the arc of her career.              Amy uses paper, paint and other materials to explore her fascination and obsession with texture, pattern, and color....

Peter Brosius has served as the Artistic Director of Minneapolis’s Children’s Theatre Company since 1997, where he’s directed the world premieres of Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches The Musical; The Last Firefly; Seedfolks; Animal Dance; and many others, all of which were commissioned and workshopped by Children’s Theatre Company. Previously, Peter was the Artistic Director of the Honolulu Theatre for Yo...

Actor-Writer-Director-Producer, Skip Lackey started his career as a Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus Clown after graduating from clown college. Skip’s acting credits include: Big River on Broadway, National Tours of The Secret Garden, Barnum, Big River, lots of Regional Theater, and numerous Off and Off-Off Broadway developmental musicals.              He also had the distinct honor o...

Lisa Barnes has spent two tours of duty as an actress in New York. First, after graduating from the University of Southern California’s theatre department, she spent a number of years in the Big Apple. She acted in plays Off-Broadway and in regional theaters while studying with the legendary Stella Adler. As well, along with a favorite StoryBeat guest, Casey Childs, Lisa co-founded the renowned of...

Stuart Ross wrote and directed the long running musical Forever Plaid, and its various offsprings: Plaid Tidings, The Sound of Plaid, and Forever Plaid: The Movie.              Other New York Credits include: Radiant Baby, Enter Laughing, The Musical, Standing on Ceremony, The Gondoliers, and Fun with Dick and Jane.             Stuart co-wrote with Jack Viertel The Secret Life of the American Musi...

Amy Powers is a Harvard-trained lawyer, Columbia University MBA, best-selling author, Emmy nominated songwriter, theater and film producer, online business owner, coach, and connector.             After discovering that being a lawyer fed her bank account but starved her soul, she ditched that life to begin writing lyrics, finding multi-platinum success with artists from Barbie to Barbara Streisan...

Steve Maher is a musician, and singer-songwriter out of Denver, Colorado. He combines vocals, lyrics, and piano into one cohesive pop-soul sound-style that doesn’t take itself too seriously while also touching upon life experience.              Steve’s first solo album, Pathways, was recorded in Chicago in 2020 during the pandemic and released in July of 2021.              His current project Nigh...

Wayne Byrne is an acclaimed author and film historian from Ireland. He started his career working for local County Kildare newspapers before being invited to write for the iconic Irish pop culture bible Hot Press Magazine as a music, book, and restaurant critic.              His debut book, The Cinema of Tom DiCillo: Include Me Out, was released in 2018.  Wayne followed it with well-received works...

Jeff Harnar is an award-winning cabaret, concert and recording artist. His Carnegie Hall appearances include both the Cole Porter and Noël Coward Centennial Galas.  Jeff’s televised PBS concerts include: The 1959 Broadway Songbook with music director Alex Rybeck, as well as American Songbook: Stephen Sondheim co-starring KT Sullivan, and Michael Feinstein’s Live at the New Jersey Performing Arts C...

Producer-Director Casey Childs founded Primary Stages, a leading New York City Off-Broadway theater, in 1984. Primary Stages has produced over 175 new plays, giving playwrights the opportunities to see their new works staged, including: Christopher Durang, Tina Howe, John Patrick Shanley, Lee Blessing, David Ives, Donald Margulies, Theresa Rebeck, and A.R. Gurney among many others. Casey directed...