Storybeat with Steve Cuden

Alan K. Rode is a noted biographer and film scholar.  He is the executive producer and host of the long-running Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival. Alan is also the co-programmer and co-host of the Noir City Hollywood and Chicago film festivals. He’s a charter director and treasurer of the Film Noir Foundation, which is dedicated to resurrecting lost films from the classic noir era.  He’s also a freq...

This is a StoryBeat Encore episode! You’re likely already a fan of the actor and bestselling author, Cary Elwes, who you surely know from his many starring roles in memorable, popular films, including: The Princess Bride, Lady Jane, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Saw, Kiss The Girls, The Cradle Will Rock, Justice League, and the Billionaire Boys Club among dozens of others.  Car...

Karen Leigh Hopkins became a writer, director, and producer because she repeatedly got cut out of films like The Breakfast Club and Three Amigos, and didn’t want to go back to Sandusky, Ohio, and work on a factory line like her mother.  With twenty-one bucks to her name, out of desperation, she wrote a screenplay in 12 days and sold it “overnight” which launched her writing career.  Karen’s writin...

Author and educator, Stephen Galloway, joined Chapman University in 2020 as the Twyla Reed Martin Dean of Film and Media Arts at Dodge College.  He’s best known for his role as executive editor and producer at The Hollywood Reporter, where he served for almost 30 years. Stephen created and produced series such as “The Hollywood Masters “ and “Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter.”  Over the past d...

Actor-singer-dancer-educator, Billy Hartung, has over 1000 performances on the Broadway stage to his credit. Billy’s been featured in three Broadway shows, Side Show, Footloose, and Minnelli on Minnelli. He can also be seen singing and dancing in the Academy Award winning movie musical “Chicago.” You can hear Billy singing on the original soundtrack recordings of all four of the aforementioned sho...

Adryan Russ writes music and lyrics for theater, film, television and recordings. Her off-Broadway musical Inside Out, co-written with playwright Doug Haverty, played The Cherry Lane Theater in New York, and has been produced in many theaters across the U.S., in Europe, and for three years in Belgrade, Serbia. Also co-written with Doug Haverty, the musicals Love Again, and iGhost, which is a moder...

Brian Drusky has been a concert and events promoter for more than two decades here in his native Pittsburgh. Brian founded Drusky Entertainment more than ten years ago after many years working with well-known concert promoter DiCesare-Engler Productions, which was one of the region’s top-grossing concert producers, a space in the local entertainment spectrum that Brian now occupies.             Dr...

Andy Marx is an award-winning photographer, writer, and musician, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, Premiere, Movieline, and Cigar Aficionado, among others. His photography has been exhibited throughout the world, including in the U.S., Europe, and Israel. In 2020,...

The prolific playwright and screenwriter, Myla Lichtman Fields, received training at The Juilliard School of Drama and a Ph. D. in Communications-Drama with a minor in film from the University of Southern California.  As a staff writer at Universal Studios, she penned episodic TV shows, Movies of the Week, and an NBC special.   Myla’s play, Felix & Fanny, will be presented in November, 2022, a...

Ed Driscoll is an Emmy Award-winning comedian, writer and producer who’s worked with some of the biggest stars in the entertainment industry including Billy Crystal, Morgan Freeman, Joan Rivers, Michael Bublé, Justin Timberlake and Dennis Miller – just to name a few! From variety shows to sitcoms to movies to live theater, Ed has been a performer, writer, and producer at the highest levels of his...

Lighting Designer, Paula Dinkel, fell in love with stage lighting in junior high school.  Her dance and music training were a perfect lead-in to a life in entertainment lighting design.  Growing up in a military family prepared her for frequent travel and overseas relocations. She earned her BA, MA and MFA from Cal State University Fullerton in both lighting and scene design. While a student, she...

Marcus Stevens is a New York based writer, actor and director. He wrote the book and lyrics for the award winning musical, Mythic, along with composer Oran Eldor.  Mythic was a winner of the NAMT Festival and subsequently had successful productions in both London and Montreal. The London production of Mythic also gave birth to an Original Cast Album, produced by Broadway Records.  Marcus’s profess...

The writer, Jon Krampner, is a native of Brooklyn. He spent the Carter administration getting fired from small newspapers, then moved in 1980 to Los Angeles, where he taught English as a Second Language for 27 years in the adult division of the Los Angeles Unified School District. This provided him with the economic basis to produce his critically acclaimed but non-bestselling books, The Man in th...

The brilliant, multi-talented Frank Ferrante, has enjoyed a 35-year career in the theater as an actor, director and producer. At age 23, he debuted Off-Broadway in the title role in Groucho: A Life in Revue written by Arthur Marx, son of the legendary comedian Groucho Marx. For that role, Frank won New York’s Theatre World Award and a New York Outer Critics Circle nomination. He revived the role i...

The extraordinary movie and TV producer, Chris Moore, has returned to StoryBeat for the third time. You know Chris’s work from such memorable and popular movies like Good Will Hunting, the American Pie movies, Promised Land, The Adjustment Bureau, Manchester by the Sea, and such TV series as Project Greenlight and The Chair. On today’s StoryBeat, which was recorded in February of 2022, we’ll conti...

Douglas Levine is a composer, pianist, music director and educator based right here in Pittsburgh. He’s the composer/co-lyricist of the new musical Claws Out! , which was  filmed and premiered online in 2020 by City Theatre. He’s also the composer/lyricist of Jazz Time! , a new musical filmed and streamed online in 2021 by The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s Arts Education Dept.  Douglas’s original sc...

The noted screenwriter and teacher, Scott Myers, has written over thirty movie and TV projects at almost every major Hollywood studio and broadcast network.  Scott’s screenwriting credits include K-9, Alaska, and Trojan War.  Since 2008, Scott has hosted GoIntoTheStory.com, the official screenwriting blog of the Black List, which was named the Best of the Best Scriptwriting Website by Writer’s Dig...

Charles Rosenay has been in the entertainment business for over four decades as an actor, promoter, music aficionado, entertainer, MC, DJ, humorist, and author. Most recently, he released the highly acclaimed book, Monsters, Celebrities, Actors, Athletes, and Rock Stars: The Book of Top 10 Horror Lists, which contains 100 top ten lists from pop-culture notables. Charles even include Steve Cuden’s...

The brilliant, Emmy Award-winning composers that comprise Dynamic Music Partners, Michael McCuistion, Lolita Ritmanis and Kristopher Carter, constantly push the envelope of innovative collaboration in TV series, films, video games and live performance events.  Emmys, Annies and an Academy Award have graced productions containing their music since the beginning of their careers. From New York’s Lin...

The extraordinarily multi-talented Corky Hale is widely considered to be the most accomplished jazz harpist in the world—as well she’s an exceptional pianist and singer.  Corky has performed at the White House with Tony Bennett, soloed with Barbra Streisand at the Hollywood Bowl and Central Park, with Bjork on her MTV special, and with George Michael at Royal Albert Hall.  And she’s played and/or...

Robert Miller is a musician who followed his youthful dream later in life and became a Rock Star when he was in his 60s, an age when most people are planning their retirement. He’s living proof that you’re never too old, and it’s never too late, to follow your dream. In just 5+ years Robert and his band, Project Grand Slam, have released 10 celebrated albums, including a Billboard #1, have had ove...

The brilliant actor, singer, and director, Robert Cuccioli, is renowned for his critically acclaimed, Tony-nominated dual performance as the good Dr. Henry Jekyll and his sinister alter ego, Mr. Edward Hyde, in Jekyll & Hyde, The Musical. Prior to his sensational run in Jekyll & Hyde on Broadway, Robert dazzled audiences across America in the show’s pre-Broadway, first national tour. Both...

You’re likely already a fan of the actor and bestselling author, Cary Elwes, who you surely know from his many starring roles in memorable, popular films, including: The Princess Bride, Lady Jane, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Saw, Kiss The Girls, The Cradle Will Rock, Justice League, and the Billionaire Boys Club among dozens of others.  Currently, Cary is a co-lead alongside...

Melody Thomas Scott is best known for her Emmy-nominated work in the iconic role of Nikki Reed, aka Nikki Newman, a character she’s played for forty years and counting on America’s number-one daytime television drama The Young and the Restless . She’s also appeared in feature films with the likes of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, and worked with esteemed directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Don Siegel...

The extraordinary actor-producer-writer and director, Bryan Cranston, is an Academy Award nominee, and the winner of the Emmy®, Golden Globe, SAG, Tony® and Olivier Awards. Bryan is best known for his portrayal of Walter White on AMC’s Breaking Bad and as Hal in Fox’s Malcolm in the Middle. In 2021, he was seen starring in the Showtime limited series, Your Honor, which he also executive produces....