Elizabeth Blair
Elizabeth Blair is a Peabody Award-winning senior producer/reporter on the Arts Desk of NPR News.
Blair produces, edits, and reports arts and cultural segments for NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. In this position, she has reported on a range of topics from arts funding to the MeToo movement. She has profiled renowned artists such as Yayoi Kusama and Mikhail Baryshnikov, explored how old women are represented in fairy tales, and reported the origins of the children's classic Curious George. Among her all-time favorite interviews are actors Octavia Spencer and Andy Serkis, comedians Bill Burr and Hari Kondabolu, the rapper K'Naan, and Cookie Monster (in character).
Blair has overseen several, large-scale series including The NPR 100, which explored landmark musical works of the 20th Century, and In Character, which probed the origins of iconic American fictional characters. Along with her colleagues on the Arts Desk and at NPR Music, Blair curated American Anthem, a major series exploring the origins of songs that uplift, rouse, and unite people around a common theme.
Blair's work has received several honors, including two Peabody Awards and a Gracie. She previously lived in Paris, France, where she co-produced Le Jazz Club From Paris with Dee Dee Bridgewater, and the monthly magazine Postcard From Paris.
-
George Michael Todd, a combat medic in Afghanistan, helped grapple with his own PTSD and that of other vets by making a rap album called Combat Medicine. "Doc Todd" died earlier this month.
-
Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret centers around adolescent girls' angst about puberty. Blume's 50-year-old tragicomedy of that awkward, in between stage seems to be timeless.
-
Singer, actor and human rights activist Harry Belafonte died Tuesday. He was 96. He broke racial barriers and balanced his activism with his artistry in ways that made people around the world listen.
-
Artist and activist Harry Belafonte has died. Throughout his life, Belafonte used his stature to speak out for human rights.
-
My Powerful Hair is Indigenous author Carole Lindstrom's new children's book. It is inspired by her grandmother, who was forced to cut off her hair to try to remove her from Native culture.
-
Al Jaffee, the award-winning cartoonist, has died. He was 102. Jaffee developed some of Mad Magazine's most influential features, including the Fold-In and "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions."
-
Author Carole Lindstrom follows Caldecott-winning We Are Water Protectors with another children's book featuring Native culture. She says she hopes it helps kids "see themselves in a positive way." -
Ben Stiller, Jennifer Aniston and Chris Rock were also among those in Washington, D.C. this weekend to celebrate Sandler, who worked on Saturday Night Live in the 1990s and moved on to films.
-
High school theater teachers fear their stages will be the next battleground in the culture war. Plays have been canceled or removed when local officials claim the content is inappropriate.
-
More than a dozen states have proposed bills that would restrict minors' access to drag performances. So where does that leave high school theatre productions like Rent or nontraditional casting?
