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.
-
California musician Skylar Tang, 16, is the winner of a Jazz at Lincoln Center contest. She'll accept the award in New York this weekend. -
Maude, Scandal, Jane the Virgin. The number of TV shows that have included abortion in the narrative has increased over the decades. But scripted TV's treatment of abortion rarely resembles reality.
-
Jon Stewart is honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center. The former host of The Daily Show was praised for revitalizing political satire and for his activism.
-
"To engage children's interest in anything you have to be keenly interested in that thing yourself," Margery Williams Bianco wrote in 1925. Her story endures because it connects to so many people.
-
George O'Connor spent 12 years turning the Greek gods into best-selling graphic novels for kids. They're faithful to the ancient myths - which often include gender fluidity.
-
The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted to approve the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, paving the way for it to become the 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It was roaring along...until it wasn't.
-
A major ballet competition set to happen in Kyiv was canceled when Russia attacked. Young Ukrainian dancers are being helped out of the country and placed in schools worldwide for safe haven.
-
Young Ukrainian dancers are finding safe haven at ballet schools in Europe and the U.S. Many of them planned to compete in the Youth America Grand Prix competition in Kyiv which was canceled.
-
Reading Rainbow Live streams Sunday on the digital platform Looped. But Burton, who hosted the original series for more than two decades, won't be there. A cast of 20-somethings will host.
-
When American Airlines hired David Harris in 1964, he became the first African American pilot to fly for a commercial airline. Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cottman's Segregated Skies tells his story.
