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Corona Radio Theater: 42nd St. Moon & 'As Thousands Cheer' - SF Mime Troupe - Lone Some Outdoor Art

This week on Open Air, KALW’s radio magazine for the Bay Area Performing Arts in Times of Corona, host David Latulippe welcomes members of San Francisco musical theater group 42nd Street Moonto the virtual stage of our Corona Radio Theater. They will be performing scenes and songs from the 1933 musical As Thousands Cheer, by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart. 

As Thousands Cheer is considered a masterpiece of the specialized genre known as the topical revue, inspired by newspaper headlines of the day, from affairs to society photos and advice to the lovelorn, and even comic strips and the weather report. 

The original cast, which included Clifton Webb, Ethel Waters and Marilyn Miller, impersonated the likes of Joan Crawford, the Hoovers, John D. Rockefeller, Mahatma Gandhi and Josephine Baker in scenes that were preceded by an appropriate newspaper headline, about topics as far and wide as: the Hoovers leaving the White House, with the President giving his cabinet a Bronx cheer; John D. Rockefeller refusing to accept Radio City as a birthday gift; commercials interrupting the singing during a Metropolitan Opera broadcast; a hotel staff falling under the influence of Noël Coward; and a Supreme Court decision that says musicals cannot end with reprises. 

The 42nd Street Moon cast includes: John Brown, Tony Conaty, Ashley Garlick, Cate Hayman, Hayley Lovgren, Dyan McBride, Katrina Lauren McGraw, DC Scarpelli, and Jaron Vesely. 

From the San Francisco Mime Troupe, we talk with SFMT Collective member, co-writer and actor Michael Sullivan. For the past 60 years the Tony and OBIE Award-winning Mime Troupe has created and produced a working-class theatrical analysis of events that shape our society, using comedy and music to expose social and economic injustice, and demanding revolutionary change.

For the first time in its existence, the Troupe had to cancel their traditional summer tour along Bay Area public parks and replace it with a nine-part series of original political comedy Radio plays, titled Tales of the Resistance, each presented in a different style - Noir! Sci Fi! Horror! Adventure! 

Open Air will broadcast each episode as part of our Corona Radio Theater, starting on July 9 with the noir detective series Jade, For Hire, episode one: The Mystery of the Missing Worker - Looking for work in a nation in the midst of a race and class war with itself can’t be easy…

Plus, we talk with executive director Angela McConnell and program director Kelly Sicat from the Montalvo Arts Centerabout their ongoing, year-long program, SOCIAL: Rethinking Loneliness Together, which is currently presenting a Bay Area-wide outdoor art campaign, entitled lone some

As part of this 2019-2020 programming initiative, Montalvo has transformed traditional advertising and commerce medium spaces into catalysts for conversation and connection. Seeking to inspire and provoke questions about what it means to experience loneliness, local and national artists and poets were commissioned to create works for presentation on billboards and bus shelters in the East Bay, San Francisco, and the South Bay. 

Artwork is being featured on billboards in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and East San Jose, and on bus shelters throughout the Peninsula from San Bruno to Millbrae, Burlingame, San Mateo, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City, Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, and Santa Clara.

The exhibit lone some will remain posted through July 31, viewable from the safety of a car, while commuting by bus, or on a walk.

Open Air with host David Latulippe will be broadcast live on Thursday, July 2, at 1pm, to be archived at this very location afterwards…